Editorials
How the FCP promotes intrinsic learning and global collaboration
Eduard Ionescu
The Flat Classroom Project emphasizes skills ranging from research, global collaboration, and understanding different viewpoints of a topic, to creating a video that will be viewed by global judges. The topics in the FCP are brilliantly picked as we use them each and every day without realizing their significance and potential. Many students will find topics, such as Social Media, Virtual Communication, or Google interesting because of their wide usage and huge impact. Have you ever heard of a Virtual Orchestra? You probably haven’t, but one student researched this and made a video about it. She was clearly intrinsically motivated, meaning she developed her research skills for her own sake. Because the FCP is so open-ended and no step by step instructions are provided, one must actually want to research to produce their video rather than being forced to vaguely research a given topic. This is an integral part of succeeding in the project.
After the research phase, students plan their videos and outsource a small segment to someone else. They summarize how they want the segment to look and leave instructions on the Outsourced Requests page. Another student picks which of the requests they wish to complete and message the requester if they have any questions. When these students collaborate on how the outsourced segment should be completed, they are becoming more aware of using the internet as a medium to convey their interpretations of how the outsourced segment should be.
Armed with an outsourced clip and plenty of research, students now proceed to the video creation phase. Here, they learn to use the medium of video effectively as they attempt to convey their message and interpretations of their topic. They have the opportunity to enhance their multimedia skills if they wish to make a more effective video. Students are intrinsically motivated while learning how to add various video effects without being coerced by marks. Finally, the videos are ranked by international judges and an awards ceremony is held.
The Flat Classroom Project may take several months to complete, but many valuable skills are learned in the process. From research to video creation, the FCP promotes intrinsic learning, global collaboration, and develops transferable skills that will stay with the student for years to come.
Why the FCP should be in schools
Daniel Zhou
The Flat Classroom Project is an international project that encourages useful skills such as collaboration, self-direction and problem solving. Many of the important skills learned through the flat classroom project are learned in school. Collaboration taught in schools is learned through things such as group projects. On the Flat Classroom Project students learn collaboration through international interactions with other students. They also have access to the internet to work on the project any time they wish, so the learning that takes place is much more efficient than conventional classrooms. With a larger and different cultural, language and age group, the students are exposed to more perspectives and worldviews, which ultimately allows them to expand their world views as well.
The Flat Classroom Project is a self-directed project and allows students to exercise their self-direction. Self-direction is an important life skill used in many forms of work and university. When students always have a fully teacher-directed assignment,lesson and course, students from high-school are usually not prepared for University and entering the job market because much of the work there is self-direction. With the use of the Flat Classroom Project as a teaching tool in schools, students will effectively learn how to self-direct their own project.
Problem solving skills are used constantly in the Flat Classroom Project. Through every step of the project, there will be many different problems that may factor in to the completion of the project. Since there are so many different possibilities, and unique situations because of the different perspectives of the students, students must learn to adapt and to problem solve efficiently to complete the project successfully.
The Flat Classroom Project should be in schools because they teach important life skills more efficiently with a wider variety of perspectives to collaborate with. The Flat Classroom Project should be in all schools for that reason.
