Build the community through IDEAS

How do we end the school year during the closure?

I worked collaboratively with our MYP teachers and initiated IDEAS Project and Fair last academic school year at KIS International School (Bangkok, Thailand). IDEAS represents Innovation, Design, Entrepreneurship, Activity, Service. The concept is also a continuum extending to the Creative, Activity, Service (CAS) component in the Diploma Programme. 

• Innovation: Start by asking questions and creating something new and better;   
• Design thinking: Focus on people and use an iterative process to identify problems and find creative solutions; 
• Entrepreneurship: Develop skills to start a social enterprise and expand creativity in an interdisciplinary environment; 
• Activity: Participate in leisure activities to develop lifelong habits related to physical, mental, and social well-being and increase creativity; 
• Service: Take action and drive change; be an active citizen by taking a business-like approach to improve people’s lives in our communities. 

This initiative was designed to develop KIS quality learning behaviors of our students.  

• Strive for understanding; 
• Take action ethically; 
• Nurture passion in self and others. 

Students worked in teams and created their companies for fundraising. We raised 52,000 Baht (about 1696 US dollars) last year. The money was deposited into our KIS service bank to support the ones in need in our community. 

Shall the IDEAS project be continued?

Teachers have started to share ideas about how to end the school year on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Lots of interesting and creative ideas have been shared to help students celebrate their learning virtually. I have contemplated and felt unsure if we can or should continue with our IDEAS project. Then I think of our school mission and the quality learning behaviors we want our students to develop. As always, what we do with students should reflect our mission statement and philosophy. If we want to develop the self-regulation and autonomy of students, we need to give them a choice and voice. How can we shift student engagement to student empowerment as John Spencer has challenged us to think in order to develop student agency?  

Many communities in Thailand are impacted either financially and/or psychologically because of COVID-19. Will we miss our opportunity if we don’t guide our students to take action ethically and strive for understanding? How can we support them to advocate a social issue and nurture passion in self and others? I reviewed the IDEAS project and wanted to find out if there is a workaround for us to launch the IDEAS project virtually. After brainstorming and exchanging ideas with my colleagues, we came up with five choices for our students to participate in social learning. One of the key elements is that they need to work with either a partner or a team. In the real world, we always need to work with someone else and this is also an opportunity to build sustainable connections through their project making. 

What are the project options? 

Art Covid
We are all responding to Covid differently. Some of us find that the arts are the best way to express our feelings and thoughts at this time. Students are invited to create a work of art thinking about their experiences or advocating a social issue during this lockdown. They can be anything at all; personal, political, emotional, abstract. Their art can also be in any medium they like: paint, pencil, digital, sculpture, photography, comics, songwriting, poetry, music composition, film, etc. Their artwork will be made into an online exhibition and, if they wish, it can be auctioned for charity.

Covid T-shirt Design 
To celebrate KIS and our fantastic community, it would be great if students can get creative to support an online gallery, and also get the chance for their design to be made into an official KIS T-shirt. Students are invited to produce a piece of art that incorporates KIS Wolf Mascot and COVID 19 related themes (e.g. social justice, inequality, kindness, loneliness, etc.) Students can produce artistic design in absolutely any style and in any medium they want. The T-shirt design must be approved by the Marketing team and a group of judges. There is only one winning design. The money raised from selling the t-shirt will be used to support our refugee community.  

Minecraft Challenge
If students like building Minecraft, this is a great opportunity for them to learn about and respond to issues related to COVID-19! Participants can create Minecraft and address one of the challenges below. They need to submit a 3-minute video of their final product. The Minecraft challenge idea is directly from North America Scholastic Esports Federation. I added the fifth challenge. Students and teachers need to reimagine how the learning environment might be different when we return to campus again. It will be very unnatural (and potentially unlikely) if we just get back to the old routine without acknowledging the lockdown!   

1. Stuck @ Home
2. What is COVID-19?
3. Future Medical Facility 
4. Inform the Public 
5. Reimagine and recreate school after COVID-19

Spread Kindness
Students want to be change-makers and support an organization to make a social impact. However, they don’t have enough money and need to raise the funds in order to make a difference. For example, they might want to support a street food vendor in Bangkok by ordering food to support vulnerable community members who are impacted financially due to COVID-19. In this way, they get to support two groups of people simultaneously. But they need the funds! Students will create a campaign for a crowdfunding, leading a project to raise small amounts of money from a larger number of people. In order to get donations, they need to inform the audience about the organization they are supporting, the purpose of the action, and most importantly, how the funds will be used.  This idea is inspired by StartSomeGood. 

Wonder Day Project 
Sometimes students might not have a clear idea of what they want to do to help people yet. Therefore, they can work with a partner or a team to identify any topic or interest of their choice for research. They also get to decide the format of their final product to share their learning. The requirements are outlined below: 

• They must collaborate with a partner or team. 
• They need to share your final product with the KIS community.   

Our students have participated in the Wonder Day project previously. 

What are the activities?

Students will work collaboratively virtually in the morning on the last few days of school and showcase/auction their work two days before the school year ends. In the afternoon, our student council will lead synchronous activities to build our school spirit and reconnect participating members. Some possible activities we are currently exploring include: 

• Teacher baby photo quiz; 
• Quarantine song playlist competition;
• Kahoot competition; 
• Lip syncing battles by our House captains and vice captains;  
• Scavenger hunt; 
• Virtual field trips (Since so many museums are open for virtual visit, why not take this advantage to visit them!) 
• Instagram photo challenge (#VirtualLearning Portraits)
• TikTok before and after trend challenge (I do have some reservation about the TikTok video regarding internet child safety.) 

What is the most important element in planning the event?

The most important element is to get students involved in planning. I got in touch with our student council. We have been discussing the logistics and refining ideas together. When you view them as a think tank, they act like one. Members of our student council divided responsibilities and worked to meet deadlines. This is where student leadership is fostered and developed.

My final thoughts 

Putting an event like this is challenging in a real school setting. When planning virtually, more difficulties are added, such as how to host the lip-syncing battle, organize the online art auction, and so on. I don’t have all the clear workflows mapped out yet and I also don’t know how many students will have energy left to take on one more project. IDEAS project is optional for students to sign up. However, I believe this is the right thing to do and a way to show we respect students’ intellect and creativity. Celebration is not limited to singing and dancing. Celebration of learning also provides an opportunity for students to apply their knowledge and skills to solve a real-world problem or make a difference. Whether it will be successful or not, I think it’s important to do the right thing. Although it’s ambitious, we should not be intimidated and give up our IDEAS!