Hello. I am a senior at an IB school in California. Recently I have started a foundation called ONEkind. Our mission is to inspire youth to follow their passion to make a difference in the world. This year ONEkind has introduced a monthly event held at my school called the IB Think Tank. The purpose of the Think Tank is to create an environment for deeper level thinking that will essentially spark student action. Each Think Tank has a different theme. Our first one focused on leadership and the most recent one focused on the IB theme of Sharing our Humanity. The event starts with an opening presentation on the theme from a community member noted for the selected theme. The speaker's job is to spark ideas for student involvement and action. Afterwards, the students break up into small groups and discuss the issue at hand. The event wraps up with a massive group discussion about how the students can create more action and awareness on campus. My school has had two Think Tanks that have received remarkable responses from the students. It is an event that is solely student based that seeks to provide a place for students to actively speak their opinions. My hope is to expand the Think Tank to other IB schools around the world because I believe in the importance of such an event. I have seen the progress from the event at my school and see the potential to expand. If you are interested in learning more, please contact me with the information provided below.
Alison King
email: alisonking77@gmail.com
Thank you.
This is a lovely idea and I
This is a lovely idea and I am looking forward to hearing more about it (I've sent and email already!)
Good luck with it and I hope many other schools take on the idea. Maybe other schools have approached the idea of generating action from students learning in other ways?
All I have done as a coordinator so far is to introduce an extra section in the MYP topic planner requiring teachers to seek ways of promoting action from what is being learnt through the topic being planned. I also placed a section in a sheet we are giving each students before the topic starts where they can have a go at seeing where what they learn could lead to action. Anyone interested in this could write to rthorn@iics.k12.tr
Thanks!
Excellent idea.
Excellent idea.