BY using toilet rolls, lollipop sticks and playdough, an innovative Merrifield teacher has proved it does not take expensive teaching aids to future-proof children and prepare them for a rapidly evolving workforce.
Maths Academy teacher Di Bossé has designed a course called iCreate, which she teaches to pupils in Grades 1 to 6 in a non-traditional classroom, which engenders collaboration and out-of-the-box thinking.
“Children can’t enter the world if they are not abreast of technology because robotics and computing are taking over a lot of jobs,” said Bossé, who took four years to develop the course, which was launched at the school this year.
“We look at the kind of world pupils are facing and this is about not only being on top of technology, but also creating a niche for themselves, for the way each child is wired.”
Bossé, who has taught at the school for 14 years, said programmes like these were vital because school curricula had remained largely static.
“For me it is about the world changing yet the school curriculum being the same for hundreds of years. Bringing in laptops and computers is not enough.”
Yet the concepts explored in the dynamic iCreate classroom, with its informal foam cube seating, are designed to integrate into traditional subjects like languages and mathematics.
“The big thing in all of this is that it is part of the broader curriculum, and, knowing what the fundis are saying about the skills of imagination, creativity, problem solving, collaboration and ethics, means iCreate feeds into other subjects too.”
Introducing children as young as six to engineering concepts is a cornerstone of the iCreate programme.
“Today we will be working with ice cream sticks and clay to build houses,” Bossé said. — barbarah@dispatch.co.za
ICreate prepares kids for today’s world
Maths Academy teacher Di Bossé has designed a course called iCreate, which she teaches to pupils in Grades 1 to 6 in a non-traditional classroom, which engenders collaboration and out-of-the-box thinking.
“Children can’t enter the world if they are not abreast of technology because robotics and computing are taking over a lot of jobs,” said Bossé, who took four years to develop the course, which was launched at the school this year.
“We look at the kind of world pupils are facing and this is about not only being on top of technology, but also creating a niche for themselves, for the way each child is wired.”
Bossé, who has taught at the school for 14 years, said programmes like these were vital because school curricula had remained largely static.
“For me it is about the world changing yet the school curriculum being the same for hundreds of years. Bringing in laptops and computers is not enough.”
Yet the concepts explored in the dynamic iCreate classroom, with its informal foam cube seating, are designed to integrate into traditional subjects like languages and mathematics.
“The big thing in all of this is that it is part of the broader curriculum, and, knowing what the fundis are saying about the skills of imagination, creativity, problem solving, collaboration and ethics, means iCreate feeds into other subjects too.”
Introducing children as young as six to engineering concepts is a cornerstone of the iCreate programme.
“Today we will be working with ice cream sticks and clay to build houses,” Bossé said. — barbarah@dispatch.co.za
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