Have you ever had the feeling that someone else was writing their Blog just for you?  I am beginning to feel this way about the posts made by Cranston Holden.

Books Global Citizens Creative Art Text  & V&T Jigsaws and the workbook are based on fostering and encouraging team work.

The message that permeates the resources presented in the text are that

• The capacity of a classroom to fully include and to totally embrace the value of every student in the class will depend on fostering situational leadership.  It can be hard to explain what Situational Leadership means but the little video presented above explains the meaning and hits the nail on the head. Yet again Holden gets to the crux of the matter.
• For situational leadership to emerge within a community, a high degree of trust must permeate the classroom. Trust always emerges from a space of balance.    Marlene Chism of Stop Workplace Drama explains that trust occurs when there is a balance between freedom and responsibility. (Think about giving the keys of the car to a 17yr old.)
  

  Self Direction

• When this balanced environment of mutual trust has emerged from the intentional structures created within the co-operative classroom, there will come a time in the end, when the students are no longer reliant on any one particular leader’s direction
• As the system of co-creation emerges the team members will know how to both lead and follow.  They will know when they have a high degree of skill and when they would be better to listen, watch and follow.  Teachability is a kind of presence which allows members of a learning community to be ready and to have the desire to contribute in the moment.

The full version of the V&T Jigsaws is intended as an exploration of the possibilities of Gamification, Transmedia and Jacobs Process. This workbook has been created to introduce the idea that setting up this kind of environment is not going to be all that hard.   On the other hand, it might at times be slow.  It won’t happen all at once but if managed well it won’t be overwhelming either.

The exercises and activities in this workbook balance freedom and choice with responsibility and awareness so that students can embrace a We First attitude to collaboration.  The approach is deliberately and intentionally entrepreneurial and has a social justice aspect that exemplifies how sustainable charitableness starts at home. (In the classroom)

Deliberately Jigsaws were chosen for the workbook first released.  It has been designed as an example of the ideas that come together to inform the working methodology of Global Citizens Art together with the ideas contained in Jacobs Process.  The jigsaw has been used symbolically.

I have started with Jigsaw creation because it acts as an analogy.  Over and over again students will experience the bringing together of disparate pieces to become a unified whole.  As this technique emerges, over a period of time the idea behind Jacobs Process will “take”.

Whenever you think setting up this process is becoming overwhelming think of a hard jigsaw and remember that eventually the pieces will all fit together to form one larger unified story.

Teaching Support

This Teacher’s Support and Community Portal also takes the reader through to a Face Book Support Site.

Resources:

• Mainwaring,S. (2012) We First
• Chism, M. (2013) Stop Workplace Drama. Kindle.