In ESO2 English class we spent two weeks doing a PBL (Problem Based Learning) project based on children’s rights to education and healthcare. Each class of ESO2 was divided in different committees. Each committee specialized in an area of research:
Committee of Conflict Analysis 1 (Education)
Committee of Conflict Analysis 2 (Healthcare)
Committee of Local Demographic Analysis
Committee of Journalists
Committee of Wordsearch and Terminology
Committee of Debate Moderators
Each committee’s work was essential for the common goal, which was to fully understand the struggle of some children in the world, who are not granted the right to education or to healthcare.
Our students from the Conflict Analysis committees read articles in English from sources such as UNICEF, Human Rights Watch, or the CIA and prepared a presentation to share with the other committees. The Local Demographic Analysis committee developed a survey to ask their fellow classmates to compare our standard of living regarding education and healthcare to the situation in underdeveloped countries.
The Wordsearch and Terminology committee did a thorough search for those words and terms specific to this topic and which would help the other committees to better understand the topic and express themselves.
The Committee of Debate Moderators organized and prepared the set of rules and leadership activities that would be needed for the final debate at the end of the week. The Committee of Journalists reported on what each committee was working on, carried out some interviews to some committee members and created a blog where they posted all the PBL’s activities.
All in all it was a very intense and rewarding activity that required everybody’s participation and the students showed great interest and were engaged in their committee’s specific task to finally share their knowledge with the rest of the class.