Teaching sequence

Please note: This lesson does not have suggested timeframes as the development and progression of a Passion Project may happen over an extended period of time or even occur in cycles. Work with your students at the pace you feel is best for them.

Tune In:

Our purpose and passions come together

Find Out:

What we’re passionate about

Take Action:

What we can achieve together

Reflection

Tune In: Our purpose and passions come together

Step 1

Introduce the opportunity for the whole class to work together on their passions through an area of shared purpose. This is a learning journey to explore how our talents and ambitions can culminate in a collective outcome.

Explain that this introductory task is to help students discover their passions and collectively identify areas of shared interest that will serve as the basis for a meaningful class project.

Passion mapping:

Begin the class by discussing the concept of passion. Ask students what it means to be passionate about something and who they consider a passionate person in their lives. Encourage a brief discussion.
Share examples of impactful collective projects in various domains like sports teams, filmmaking, design, and technology, highlighting how individuals with different passions contribute to these endeavours.
Distribute 3 sticky notes to each student and instruct them to write down 3 personal interests or passions (one per sticky note). Emphasize that these can be related to hobbies, causes, interests, or talents.
Ask students to place their sticky notes on a designated board or wall. It’s a good idea to keep students standing up and moving about for this step and the next one.

Step 2

Passion clustering:

Divide the class into small groups and assign each group a section of the wall/board with the passion sticky notes.

Instruct the groups to categorize the passions into clusters based on common themes or interests. Encourage them to discuss and collaborate to create meaningful categories.
Give students a couple of minutes for a ‘gallery walk’ to browse across the sticky notes
Work together then to bring those group categories into whole class common categories.

Step 3

Passion expansion:

After this categorization, ask each student to add one more sticky note with an additional passion to an existing category or to a possible gap they observe.
Prompt students with a reminder about examples of collective passion at school, such as music, sport, theatre, design and tech, debating, etc.
This step promotes brainstorming and expands the range of passions represented on the wall.

Return students to their seats and invite students to reflect on the clusters they've created and any new passions added. Encourage students to think about how these passions intersect and what potential projects or initiatives could arise from these intersections. Note these down.

Prompt a discussion on aligning these with ‘what our community or society might need’ and how their passions can contribute to addressing those needs.

Step 4

Based on the clusters and discussions, facilitate a brainstorming session for potential class project ideas that harness the collective passions and address community needs.

For example, students could propose 10 project ideas per category
Students could also add ideas on how their individual passions could be integrated into these projects.

Step 5

Conclude the session by asking students to vote or express their top 3 preferences for the project ideas generated during the brainstorming session. This could be done with coloured sticky dots, physical movement, or an online form.

Identify the project(s) with the most enthusiasm and consensus as the starting point for the collective class project.
Remind students that this project is not necessarily ‘locked in’ yet. They will be delving deeper into their Passion Profiles and grouping next.

Remember to take some photos of the wall of sticky notes for future reference and record keeping.

Find Out: What we’re passionate about

Step 1

Start by introducing your students to the Passion Profile. Explain that it is a simple way to identify areas of interest using different lenses on passions, strengths, and learning. The Profile can be edited anytime and reviewed regularly to see how it evolves. It can also form part of your learner profile and be useful outside school.

Share the Passion Profile (which you could create as an online questionnaire or use the paper form) to complete it - here is the template for the ‘Passion Profile’

The Passion Profile is an individual task. It is not a tool for deciding a whole class project, but it will help students consider how their Profile connects and offers value to this group effort.

For students who might find this challenging, remind them of the ideas and categories from the Tune In activity and what resonated with them. It might also be related to much broader areas of their life and pursuits outside school.

Step 2.

It’s time to return to refining a whole class project. This type of large group initiative can be unwieldy, so it is advisable to consider how the class might split into smaller groups (no more than 6 per group), and some individuals may wish to work alone towards the class objective.

Based on the voting and selection of previous project suggestions and personal reflection on their Passion Profiles, put forward some topics. These might be focused on the school, the community, or our wider world.

Explain that the final product does not have to bring everything together. This isn’t a musical where there’s a final, coherent outcome. The purpose is to learn together and independently through our passions. You might like to use these ‘REAL’ prompts to confirm the class decision -

Who is the audience for this project?
Is it REAL?

Relevant	Why is this project needed?
Engaging	What features might appeal to people?
Application	What will this project do?
Legacy	How long might this project last?

Step 3

Once a topic (even if it is a broad one) has been confirmed, offer students the option to decide on smaller groups or even individuals to address the components of the project.

Check with the groups that they can identify some shared passions within them, not just based on friendships, as this might cause friction later.

Help the class refine the scale of the project and even make it more manageable and feasible by discussing these 4 lenses on the type of project it might be. These categories were developed Charles Fadel at the Center for Curriculum Redesign in Boston:

Investigations	Short activities that engage learners’ curiosity and help them to identify and focus on an area of mutual interest - a quick win for a class! - Approximately 1 hour or less duration
Explorations	Longer activities that help learners build essential skills and knowledge that allow them to advance their shared passion; this type of project may have multiple outcomes - Approximately 1-8 hours duration
Adventures	Collaborative action projects that apply learners’ skills and capabilities to their passion-focused topics, issues, and/or communities; this is relevant to a project that might leverage relationships outside school - Approximately 8-50 hours duration
Quests	Extended group passion projects, often guided by experts, mentors or coaches, that go deep and wide into a group’s passion pursuit; this could involve a school leader or a community group outside school over several iterative phases - Approximately 50+ hours duration.

Step 4

Invite students to start mapping out some milestones for the components of the project. These can always be renegotiated as things progress, but these proposed milestones should also be consolidated into a clearer picture for the whole class of how they align their work and their passions.

Using a template such as this for the group/individual roles:

Area of interest
Project goal
Week 1 work focus
Week 2 goals/outcomes achieved
Contribution to supporting group members in week 1
Week 2 work focus
Week 2 goals/outcomes achieved
Contribution to supporting group members in week 2

Take Action: What we can achieve together

Step 1

Consider how the impact and effectiveness of the project will be measured, especially at a whole class level, given there may be different outcomes for groups and individuals.

Start with the questions such as:

What do we want to learn/improve through this project?
Who is helped by the project?
Who else has a say in the effectiveness of the project?
How will we know we’ve been successful?
What do we hope is the impact of the project? On themselves and others.

Step 2

As the project progresses, encourage students to identify how they are developing their passion in a particular area. This could be written down or shared as part of a whole class or small group discussion circles.

Consider the following prompts:

What have you noticed about your passion as the project progresses?
What research or information has helped you learn something new?
How have you tested your ideas?
Has talking to different people, even potentially engaging with people outside their school context, helped you?
What feedback have you shared with your peers, and did you act on the feedback?

Step 3

As the project nears an endpoint or a key milestone, discuss how students might share or present their passion progress and how this might frame the whole class impact. This differs from their Passion Profile, which they would reflect on with you at the end of the Term.

Refer back to the REAL criteria (from Find Out, Step 2), especially if there were intentions about the audience for this work. Ideally, this audience becomes a key focus for the endpoint or milestone and is given the opportunity for feedback.

Depending on what you have worked on, consider these as steps or choices for an endpoint or milestone:

A class session in which each group or individual presents to the whole class about the value of their contribution
A class presentation to other classes/whole school on their shared passion projects - this would need to be collated or captured prior (such as through a video or short summary)
Set up a display somewhere in the school identifying the shared impact the class has had - consider collective hours, people consulted, new information gathered, or ideas tested.
A parent night/sharing the collective projects and inviting each student to seek out feedback from attendees.

Reflection

Once an endpoint or presentation milestone has happened, it is a good opportunity to devote time to shared reflection. Use the following prompts as a guide:

What have they learnt? Were there unexpected areas of learning?
How was their resilience tested? How did they get past the tough times?
Did they meet their objective - Why/why not?
What has been the impact of their project on themselves and others?
What’s next for their passions?

Students should also now return to their Passion Profile. First, have the students revisit their Passion Profile by completing one from a clean template. Next, show them their previous Profile to compare.
Either in written form or through a discussion approach, ask students to consider what has changed and what has remained the same about their Passion Profile.

Passion-led Learning: Whole Class Passion Learning

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