This morning we did a presentation to the rest of grade 10 about our service project in Bintan. My part is the “what can we do” slide. It’s quite nice to review the whole process after doing so many things. Talk in front of so many people is scary, but I did okay. We used How to Avoid Death by Powerpoint to guide us to make a good powerpoint, this is helpful.
This is link to the whole presentation
Creating the lesson plan and presentation for The Island Foundation taught me that children 10-12 years old learn best when:
What connections can you draw between Piaget’s theory of cognitive development and/or Vygotsky’s social learning theory and the way you have constructed your lesson?
According to Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, children at 10-12 had just got their logic and are able to put themselves in someone else’s shoes. They just learnt make generalisation of concepts. They cannot process concepts that are purely abstract. They know that to reverse an action, they need to do the opposite. Since they got these mental skills quit recently, they will get excited and can learn a lot when practicing these skill. Our lesson plan uses a fairytale and a set of activities to guide them into a Dugong’s perspective. We then ask them to come up with creative ideas about how to “reverse” pollution, in the hope that they will actually apply this to their real life. By considering the Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, we make sure what we will be teaching is interesting and challenging to them, at the same time within their ability.
Why is this approach to learning important for meeting Indonesia’s development needs? Refer back to the Catalysing Productive Livelihood report from earlier in the unit.
Indonesia is industrialising fast, it is a challenge to them to remain sustainable at the same time. Our lesson plan educates students to conserve ocean environment.
Me and Doris, presenting the nature of Bintan
What did you learn about “living in Bintan” by interviewing different stakeholders using different compass perspectives?
I learnt about how the local people in Bintan live and what are their problems. The detail information is a lot, I wrote about 10 pages in our booklet. I mainly just know about pengudang, and got a little information about other village when listening to other presentations.
To sum up the information: Most people live on fishing, but in future there will be more people work in hotel. And they need school to teach them the ability they need to work in hotels. The fishing become harder because ocean pollution and overfishing, the trash on land has no where to go and they can only burn or burry. They live in peace, they are proud of their cultural variety. Mainly Malay culture. The government helped them a lot, including paying for health. The stakeholders hold similar perspectives.
Why was it important to go though this process?
Using different compass perspectives forced us to consider the situation in a more overall sense. By connecting information from difference aspects, we transform our understanding from “what” to “why”. Only then we can find actual solution.
It’s better to go to the local village in person instead of just video call or other methods:
When presenting your compass perspective, what did you do well? What could you improve?
| Do well | Could improve | |
| Content | Lot’s of information. Trend prediction is to some extend valid. Include many aspects of nature. | The information should be clearer and more concise. |
| Delivery | We talked about all of it. We both talk. The volume is okay, people can hear. | Try to be less nervous. Try to express ideas more clearly. |