Activity 2: The designment, not assignment

Level

Middle and Upper Primary

Lesson overview

Students entertain the concept of learning about religious beliefs through a project. They design a project themselves, which requires them to establish their own learning goals and parameters. Connections between The Really Big Beliefs Project and students’ own learning goals are established.

Main learning outcomes

English
Society and Environment

Materials required

Whiteboard
The Really Big Beliefs Project book

Procedure

Ask students to suggest what the difference might be between an assignment and a ‘designment’. (Basically, it’s an assignment that they design!)
Explain that religious beliefs are an important area of study and the students themselves are going to plan an assignment to help them learn about different beliefs.
Organise students into teams and distribute Designment guidelines (see below).
Inform students that they need to be ready to report back to the class, giving an outline of their project, before the end of the lesson.
As students report back, discuss ideas with the class, focusing on the metacognitive reflections about the best ways to learn about a topic, especially a value-laden one like religion. Encourage students to be specific about their own learning styles and about the challenges of working with a partner.
Explain that you are going to show them an example of one such project, completed by two students called Emma and Tom. Show students The Really Big Beliefs Project.
Read the first section of the book together.
Teacher and students can then continue to read through the book together, noting when and how Emma and Tom find out things the class suggested in the report-back, as well as how they are affected by their discoveries. Make links wherever possible to the students’ own interests and learning goals.
Alternatively, the book can be used as one of the resources students can turn to in actually completing their own team-designed project. Students should form pairs and have the opportunity to redesign their project to incorporate ideas suggested by other teams in the report-back, then submit it to the teacher for approval and confirmation that the tasks and workload are appropriate and manageable. The design of the project itself forms part of the assessment.

The Really Big Beliefs Project : Designment guidelines

A designment activity requires you to pretend you are teachers and design an assignment or project for students to complete. There are two rules about the project you are going to design: it is to be completed by students working in pairs and they will have one term in which to complete the project.

1. Group discussion

Start your work as a team with a group discussion. Make sure someone takes notes. Ask these key questions:

Why is it important for students to learn about religious beliefs?
What are some of the religious beliefs students could investigate?
How could they find out about these beliefs?
What kinds of activities do students find educational and enjoyable?
In what way could students present the information they gather? A book? A poster? A play?
What would be a fair way to divide the work up between the two students?
How could each student keep a record of his or her work?
What kind of feedback would the students like from the teacher during the project?
How could students evaluate whether the project had been a success?

2. Design phase

Design your projects, keeping a careful note of what is required.

3. Report back

Teams report back to the class, clearly explaining the tasks in your projects, why you have chosen them and how they would help students learn about religious beliefs.