PBL & 4Cs ... a way to make classes interesting!

     A couple of years ago, I was a instructor/mentor/coach for an alternative school in Bangalore. I was supposed to teach them Canva tool as a design tool. Yes, it was a simple task. But I thought of make it more interesting. 

     The challenge, I put myself was how can we embed 4Cs (Communication, Creativity, Collaboration & Critical thinking) into their learning of Canva tool. The brain gave me some suggestions to use PBL (project based learning) methodology for giving freedom to implement anything under the sun with the Canva tool.

     Firstly they came up with their own ideas of what they will be implementing on the Canva within 2 or 3 days. Bingo. Freedom empowered them to own their projects. A buzz created across the school that they are now involved in a project. A curious mind which owns their idea can be a deadly combination. Yes couple of students struggled with to come up with an idea. I asked them what are their hobbies, interests, topics they like which can be implemented as a story or infographic or a simple video or a comic strip using Canva.  They succeeded. Me too. Creativity evolved.

   Secondly I gave freedom to them if they want to do this as a solo project or as a team. If they choose team, my second target was met... Collaboration improved.

    Thirdly, they were to research and come up with what to implement in Canva - a poster or video or infographic or comic strip. Critical thinking solved.

    Finally, once their project is over which took 2-3 weeks as it was implemented in my own class and not as an assignment, they were to present to the class....Communication increased. 

     Last but not the least, they were graded based on these 4Cs along with the topic of choice. If they had taken some good real world problems like environment hazard, climate change, water scarcity...they earned the brownies there.

     This was just a start as I make this a best practice to implement every tool I taught for all classes into PBL with 4Cs.

    I was just shocked on how few students had used storytelling - cat story(comic strip), types of pizzas (video),  Big belly burger marketing (Posters) etc.  What was more interesting was their thought process in implementing it along with creative fun....their choice of colors, graphics, elements used in Canva was breathtaking. Isn't this what we want at the end? 

    One more thing, I used PTM (parent teacher meeting) just to emphasize the kid's  strength in front of their parents and showed they their creative outputs. This makes the kid believe in what she/he is good at.

    Give me interesting and creative ways to make classes more fun and engaging...