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The first (mini) commission


The first commission the company received is intended as a 'mini-commission' to cement the belief in the company and tie back into the hook of the first day to develop their learning further around that task.

The commission was from a client who received the display from last week. They were very impressed and want to use it as part of their educational tour so they have requested lesson plans for various age groups. 

When we started unpacking the commission by asking, What have we been asked to do? What do we need to know to do this? What questions do we have? the learners were really focused on the delivery of the lesson as opposed to the content knowledge they might need to deliver this as a lesson. They were asking questions like, "how do we engage the students... how do we know they are enjoying the lesson... how many students will be in a class" and I was unprepared for that line of questioning. We had a brief discussion about it and they started planning. Planning on day 1 for them was hard. They really struggled and I was worried going into lesson 2 keeping this up. However, they must have been thinking about it because they came in with energy and just got into it. Some of their lesson ideas were really inspired - such as the Year 3/4 group who were using Ice Age Continental Drift characters and clips to unpack the concepts. However, to further help the students with both lesson planning fears and with the content, we had a PD Day the next lesson. 

Working in a collaborative teaching group means you have access to specialist knowledge immediately. The science teacher in our group ran a series of tasks based around the content we were looking at, along the way unpacking how he was teaching and the type of activity. 

We are now hoping to have some primary students come in for our learners to run some of their activities with. Originally, we weren't going to do this and were planning on creating a short film that the Museum sent back showing some of the activities in action. However, the response the students have had to creating these lesson plans and their excitement at possibly being able to teach their lessons means we really need to honor that enthusiasm and make it happen for them. 

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