This week I continued to battle information gaps, communication barriers and bureaucracy to obtain the elusive research permit that will allow me permission not only to visit public schools and survey students (as I thought until this week), but is actually required for me to legally talk to anyone in a substantive manner about my Inquiry Project (big oops). Thank you to Fulbright support staff Leah, Vachel and Naomi for stepping in and trying to move things forward. It's been a lonely slog and a little shoring up was needed. Keeping my fingers crossed that I will have the permit early this week.
Rebecca Kubanji of the Population Studies Department arranged for and accompanied me to a meeting at the Botswana Ministry of Finance and Development Planning. We met with three representatives of the Population and Development Coordination Section. This section is responsible for helping to create and disseminate public information about both the demographic dividend and the Sustainable Development Goals. Our conversation included several key topics: high youth unemployment, HIV/AIDS, regional disparities in fertility rates, continuing high maternal mortality rates despite good health care access and human-wildlife conflict. The major news story of the week was a call for discussion of lifting a 2014 ban on elephant hunting. Diamond mining and safari tourism are Botswana's major sources of income and wildlife conservation has traditionally been prioritized. Some rural communities resent the loss of income from trophy hunting and have experienced crop loss, property destruction, and human deaths from elephants. Elephants are travelling further from their traditional habitat areas and closer to urban areas. President Masisi is standing for election in October 2019 and trying to walk a fine line between all the competing interests. Fulbrighters on the UB campus (four of us, as Tess is travelling, the other three are college professors) and U.S. Embassy Fulbright staff were invited to a meeting with UB Vice Chancellor David Morris and his staff. We summarized our projects and experiences thus far at the university. The professors suggested establishing a core curriculum to shore up humanities enrollment in the face of a STEM emphasis, integrating Zoom video conferencing technology into the new online nursing program and streamlining the course registration process for students. The UB campus has capacity for 18,000 students but currently enrolls only 12,000. The Vice Chancellor hopes to increase enrollment, in part by attracting more foreign students and increasing online enrollment opportunities. Thursday and Friday were fun days spent at a workshop of warm, welcoming Social Studies teachers who serve on the Social Studies Standing Committee revising the national syllabus for Senior Secondary Social Studies. Their task is to transform the curriculum framework from content-based to outcome-based. I listened in and contributed what I could to large and small group discussions on Thursday and was then asked to present to the group for about 30 minutes on Friday. At the suggestion of Jobe Kefaletse, the Ministry of Education Social Studies Specialist who invited me and led the workshop, I quickly prepared a presentation on 5 Free Technology Tools for Teachers. I'll have a one-on-one meeting with Mr. Kefaletse this week to learn more about Social Studies curriculum in Botswana. I had noticed that the college students in my Demography of Botswana class were struggling to be in the same place at the same time so they could work on a group presentation profiling the demographics of a local village. I helped a group I am shadowing get set up with Google accounts and Google Slides so they could work collaboratively from a distance. I'll be interested to see their progress tomorrow. They were off to a slow start deciding how to tackle the project and distribute the labor. For the presentation to Social Studies teachers, I included an introduction to Google Tools (Docs, Slides and Sheets) then added Quizlet, Quizizz, Padlet and Flipgrid. We played a game of Population Geography Quizlet Live as a group (they loved it) and attempted Flipgrid, but only Mr. Kefaletse was able to access Flipgrid from his laptop. Teachers had access issues not because of a lack of fast wifi at the hotel meeting site (my laptop worked great), but because the device they were using, be it a phone, tablet or laptop, was too old or slow. I have a feeling this is the same technology issue I will see when I visit public schools. Daisy, one of the Social Studies teachers at the workshop, invited me to go to church with her today. Hill View church meets at Riverwalk Mall, near my apartment, in one of the movie theaters. How do I describe the service? Born-again Christian rock and roll? Definitely a lot of togetherness.
1 Comment
Gretchen Damon
5/5/2019 09:52:16 am
Teaching technology through group games--always a winning situation!
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About MeA 9th grade AP Human Geography and Global Studies teacher at Stillwater Area High School in Stillwater, Minnesota, USA, living and learning in Gaborone, Botswana from January to June 2019 as a Fulbright Teacher. Archives
June 2019
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