Klara Hansson delivered this 'micro-teaching' session on 25 Sept 2013 at the Spain meeting of the European Permaculture Teachers Partnership. Klara shares a lesson plan below for providing this session yourself. Just below, find a video of the session shot and edited by by Mihail Kossev.
This workshop led by with Alessandro Ardovini was held on 26 September 2013 at the Barcelona meeting. Below is a 4 min video of the session in English (shot and edited by Mihail Kossev)
Decomposers of simple organic matter, nitrogen fixers (in symbiosis with plants). They also cause diseases in plants, animals and funghi.
Funghi – Decomposers of more complex matter eg wood, they help move nutrients and information around underground to different plants, they are also pathogenic sometimes.
In this session, I use Open Space Technology as an inspiration to design a session about the teaching of the design principles for large groups, where some of the participants may have some prior understanding of them, and can help the others who don’t.
Every participant takes a piece of paper on which the name of his/her secret friend is written. You keep this in secret as your secret friend does. You can use the time of the course to make nice things for this person like prepare a hand-made present, write something nice and hide it under the pillow, and so on.
Aims: To help participants know the area Conduct a treasure hunt around the town/farm/village/center where the course is held. Hide various objects in important locations such as the closest shop, post office, bank, pharmacy, toilets, showers, swimming pool… use a map of the area to plan this.
There are lots of different ways of doing this, here is one example:
Raw vegan candies race:
In this type of treasure hunt the task is to make raw vegan candies.
Aims: Getting to know each other and creating a “gallery of heads” together (for decorating the rooms) Numbers: 10-30 participants in pairs Materials: Sheets of paper, cardboard, pencils, scissors, lamps (or candles) After a short introduction, silhouettes are made in pairs; the outline of the head of each person is copied and then cut out. Possibilities for continuation:
Aims: getting to know each other from the first day and remember the names of everybody Numbers: Any Length: 10-30 minutes depending on group size/s
P108 in the Permaculture Teachers Guide has a full class plan for this exercise.
Time needed: Best as a one-hour session, possibly longer. It can be flexible to fit the time available.
This activity can sit in different sessions. This is usually one of the first sessions on a PDC. Good to use to introduce principles and systems in a non-threatening way.
Preparation – A large sheet of paper folded in half with a list of elements listed on the left hand and right hand side of the sheet. It is good to have cartoon pictures of the elements as well as the text.
Cathrine Dolleris presented how to create a session plan on the 25th of September 2013 in Mas Franch. The session presents learning outcomes and planning of your session as a tool to become a more confident teacher. Notes from the session are coming soon. A video from this session follows: