‘God and people in creation’ seeks to improve the students’ knowledge of God and His role in creation from the Old Testament to modern era. This unit seeks to ensure that the students gain:
- Awareness of God’s creativity experienced in human activity and the natural environment
- knowledge on how God is active in all creation
- understanding on a range of expressions of God’s presence in the natural environment and human experience
The unit of work has a strong focus on the theoretical methods of Vygotsky’s approach to collaborative learning, Gardner’s multiple intelligence’s, Blooms taxonomy among the rest. All theoretical approaches must be studied accordingly pinpointing the theoretical approaches that design for a creative and innovative class. The creativity of a student must be targeted in particular Religious Education as the study of the Old Testament can be very daunting for an adult let alone a year seven student! Therefore a repetitious class will do no favors for learning as it does not stimulate ideas from the students. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, otherwise known as Chick-sent-me-high stated in his research that “more than 90 most creative people to find impact of creativity on their lives: common factor was that they loved what they did”. His study presents great truth as it is through the passion that one is interested, which leaves to love of knowledge which in turn leads to creative and innovative ideas in fulfilling individuals’ desires!
Vygotsky has a collaborative learning approach to a student’s creativity and learning. This theory is constantly at use and evident throughout the unit program lasting 400 minutes visible throughout this blog. The unit consists of a myriad of collaborative activities due to the success rate of understanding and outcome being met by the majority rather than minority of students in past lessons. For example the collaborative group task in lesson three works greater when the entire group is working together. This not only builds an understanding of the content but rather a characteristic that is required not only in religion but everyday workplace, social skills and group work projects!
Gardner’s multiple intelligence is without a doubt, necessary theoretical approach to be conducted in class. Every student gains knowledge and understanding differently, therefore in order to enhance the overall learning of the students, the majority of these intelligences must be met! The different intelligences are met throughout the unit, examples of where these may be located is the ICT program in lesson 5, Poster work in lesson6-7, worksheets in lesson one with the many visuals, video ‘man who planted the tree’, kinesthetically through the exodus walk of lesson 2 etc. An individual must not look far to locate the use of these intelligence in this unit.
Collectively, all the theoretical approaches have a major impact on the use of higher order learning! Being year seven, you cannot immediately overload the students learning. This is seen in sports athletes, to gain the fullness of your capabilities, you must overload progressively, the learner in class cannot gain the fullness of the outcomes if they have been rushed through the foundations. Lesson 5 and 6 acquires the student to begin to evaluate, create through their understanding from previous lessons. Blooms taxonomy of higher order learning must be met in order to challenge the student and gain optimal results!!
Enjoy this piece of Art, teach hard but teach fair! (Play hard but play fair)
Cheers!
