Get to Know a Foreign Country
                                                                      By:  Jim Warren

Project at a Glance :

The project is for 11th and 12th grades in World Cultures Class. They will choose a specific foreign country and research the elements of its current culture and important events in its history.
       
Driving Question:

How can we learn the different elements of a current culture from a specific foreign country?     

Standards:

• CG3 PATTERNS OF GLOBAL INTERACTIONS - Economic interdependence of the world’s countries, world trade patterns, and the impact on those who labor, including voluntary and forced migration such as human trafficking.
• The exchanges of scientific, technological, and medical innovations. • cultural diffusion and the different ways cultures/societies respond to “new” cultural ideas.
•  The comparative economic advantages and disadvantages of regions, regarding cost of labor, natural resources, location, and tradition.
• Distribution of wealth and resources and efforts to narrow the inequitable distribution of resources.

Team / Culture Building:

• Use the Creative DNA protocol to get to know each student’s gifts and group them based on personality types.

Entry Event:

• Students will The Value of Travel video showing a variety of countries and people, cities, landscapes, and landmarks to spark their interest in the project.​

Stakeholders:

• Future people students will meet from foreign countries.
• Current students who will have knowledge and empathy expanded.

Empathy Building:

• Empathy Map ​

Inquiry / Need to Knows:

• The AEIOU protocol will assist students with figuring out what kind of activities they will need to engage in to find the information needed for the project.
• 5 Whys protocol will help students delve deeper into the reasons for learning about various cultures.
• The QFT protocol will give students a wide variety of question to drive research and give them focus in what they need to learn.

Incubation:

• Students will list common ideas that are usually used to solve this type of question.  Then challenge them to come up with other thoughts that are new and different.

• Use the Idea Quota protocol is tool to push students to explore creative idea possibilities that a superficial review would not generate.​

​Checking in:

• The teacher will do frequent individual check ins with students as they are researching.
  
• The Fireside Chat protocol is a good way to touch base with students one on one.

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Solution Building:

• Saturate and Group protocol works well for students to begin to consolidate their many ideas into distinct areas.
• Dot Voting is a good protocol for students to start selecting their best ideas from all of their research.

Critique and Revision: 

• Students will create a Storyboard with the sequence of their main ideas and then begin selecting what will fit into each frame and what needs to be cut
• Seeking Skeptics protocol will allow other students to give feedback which will help them to improve their product.

Authentic Audience:

• Foreign Exchange Students

Final Presentation:

• Each student will be required to give a presentation.
  
• Each student’s class presentation will be their ‘Pitch’ to the authentic audience, as well as to the rest of the students.​

Click here​ for teacher's full plan.

​Reflection and Feedback:

• Foreign Exchange Students will give verbal feedback as to what they felt was good in the presentation - as well as what could have been better.
• Students are given a Rubric for scoring their presentation and for scoring their full written reports.
• Use Pluses and Deltas protocol for serious evaluation and reflection for the students.
• The class will have a discussion after all of the presentations when students identify the best elements that they saw that make a great presentation.
• Students will write a self-evaluation to critique themselves.

Click here for the teacher's Journey through PBL on Padlet . . .

Meet the Educator:
Jim Warren teaches World History, Current Events, U.S. History, and World Cultures at Spring Lake High School. 

     "Project Based Learning is education at it's finest.  It is interesting, fun, and teaches skills that translate directly into any future workplace environment."