by Elizabeth Kim
My name is Elizabeth Kim and I have been working with the Good Work team doing research for the Collaboration project as well as the Family Dinner Project. As a Master’s student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Learning and Teaching program, my interests include investigating how to expand teachers’ pedagogical knowledge and what instructional practices are most effective in prompting genuine and meaningful student learning.
Lynn and Wendy recently posted about what the GoodWork project has been doing in India and the great enthusiasm of the teachers that welcomed them. But the danger of such long-spanning professional development programs is that the lessons learned by teachers will not come to fruition by the students. As a challenge to continue promoting good work in their communities, we asked teachers to voluntarily incorporate what they had learned into their classrooms. An overwhelming number of teachers responded and sent us drafts of their lesson summaries – the variations of implementation were truly astounding. This post is the beginning of a series that will be dedicated to highlighting the efforts of teachers in India and the global impact of GoodWork.
Many of the teachers who responded to our challenge reproduced and expanded the training they had received in their lessons. Ritesh Sharma of the Appejay School, for example, sought to introduce the values of good work through a brainstorming session in which students thoughtfully articulated their ideas about good work. There was also a story composition element to the lesson, in which students relayed a personal anecdote of an ethical dilemma they faced. Finally, Ritesh used the value sort cards to help students realize their beliefs and opinions about work. By using tools such as the value cards and questionnaires, Ritesh was able to inculcate an awareness of some of the core concepts of good work: in addition to the three “E’s”, concepts such as responsibility, and alignment.
One student’s ethical dilemma:
While Ritesh utilized existing GoodWork materials, some teachers ventured to expand the concept. One teacher at TSRS Aravali School, Chavi Behl, recognized how challenging it is to evaluate such a subjective measure as good work. Appropriately titling her lesson “Measuring the ‘Immeasurable’,” she constructed a method of calculating a “GoodWork Index.” By using a Likert scale from 1-10 on students’ levels of excellence, ethics, and engagement, Chavi asked student peers and other teachers to evaluate each individual. With the three scores, she formulated this equation for the Goodwork index:
GWI = Variance
Mean
Chavi offers a starting point for enabling a comparative measure for good work, and her comment well illuminates her belief in the importance of this index: “What cannot be measured cannot be managed.” In addition to providing a useful index, the teacher also adds a fourth “e” to the GoodWork composition – enjoyment. By experiencing engagement, ethics, and excellence, students consequently experience enjoyment, and this positive attitude fuels further engagement, ethics, and excellence, in a bidirectional loop. Chavi’s innovative and thoughtful contributions are deeply appreciated and exemplify the various ways GoodWork is being interpreted and transformed around the world.
Next in our series, we will discuss how we can involve different stakeholders of the school in spurring good work in our communities. If you would like access to the full presentations these teacher’s created to detail their work, please let us know!