Cultivating Youth Creativity and Student Agency Through Challenge-Based Learning

Purpose & objective

In this session, you will hear from secondary school (i.e. a combination of middle and high school) educators who aided their students in addressing issues that are important to them and creating innovative design solutions. Educators will share their unique teaching strategies and examples of how they were able to help their students become drivers of their own learning while promoting peer collaboration and engagement across issues that were meaningful to them. Educators will highlight supportive resources used when integrating components of the Challenge Based Learning framework within their existing teaching methods and pedagogies.

Outline

This session will be a 60 minute educator panel discussion between a moderator and three educators who have participated in the Ciena Solutions Challenge.

We will begin the session with a 2 minute icebreaker using Kahoot to spark interest and engage the audience in the topic of student agency and engagement in an issue or a new idea that they wanted to learn more about as a young person. A question may include; “Think back to your educational experience as a young person (grades K-12), were you excited about the topics you learned in school? Yes or No”. A subsequent question from that would lean into how much agency or control did you have in your learning experiences. Examples of these questions may include “were you learning to pass a subject area or were you learning a subject/topic that you felt invested in?” “How much room or agency were you given to be creative in your own right?” Based on the responses from the audience, the data should be able to help the audience reflect on how student agency may or may not have played a role in their lives as young adults, and, if given the space and opportunity to be have been to learn more about a subject area or topic they felt invested in, how youth creativity either did or did not play a role in their lives as young learners.

Next, a 15 minute presentation will be shared on the following:
- 5 minute overview of the Ciena Solutions Challenge and educator resources provided
- 10 minutes of the educators telling their stories (1-2 minutes given to each educator)
Then, we will begin a 25 minute panel discussion where educators will spend 2-3 minutes responding to questions related to these three areas:
- Examples from educators on how they were able to integrate the Challenge Based Learning framework to fit the needs of their students
- Educator experiences that share moments of when student innovation and creativity were found within challenging moments
- Resources, teaching strategies, and techniques used to promote student agency and peer collaboration within student teams.

Once the panel discussion ends, we will have a 10 minute question and answer segment from the audience. Finally, we will have a 5 minute call to action and invite educators to utilize free online resources from our resource library that they can download directly from their smartphones/tablets or computers. Educators will also be encouraged to register for the Ciena Solutions Challenge and by doing so will receive information on professional learning for educators and resources that they can use in their classrooms to help their students tackle an issue that they care about.

Supporting research

- Challenge Based Learning is the framework that we integrate in the Ciena Solutions Challenge; https://www.challengebasedlearning.org/
- Sustainable Development Goals - students use these SDGs to address their own challenges; https://sdgs.un.org/goals
- CienaChallenge.org - global design challenge website; https://www.cienachallenge.org/
- Resource Library- available in English, French and Spanish, offers free and adaptable resources for educators and students to use in their Challenge journeys. https://www.cienachallenge.org/en/custom/resource/directory.
- Additional translated resources - Translated resources for educators and students are available in Portuguese, Russian, Korean, Chinese, and Arabic - https://www.cienachallenge.org/en/page/translated-resources-en
- Educator blogs - Explore how educators around the world are supporting students in the Ciena Solutions Challenge. In each blog post you'll find tips from educators on implementing Challenge Based Learning and insights on creating powerful learning experiences in the Ciena Solutions Challenge. https://www.cienachallenge.org/en/custom/blogs/directory
- Ciena Solutions Challenge Online gallery - explore the innovative ideas and student projects submitted on behalf of educators and students from all around the world - https://www.cienachallenge.org/en/custom/projects/directory