The story of Lot and Meaningful Learning.

Herman van Veen, a famous Dutch artist, has been a UNICEF ambassador for a long time; he says: "If we would just respect the 54 Children's Rights, anchored in the UNICEF Child's Right Charter signed by over 200 countries, what a better place this world would be. He created a 13-year old girl named Lotte Roos, we call her Lot (meaning Fate/destiny)). Lot stands for all the children in the world, travels all over the world, reports back to the children and answers their question in return. Lot's foundation has found in the methodology of the Learning Circles a beautiful way for Children to learn with each other and with the world they live in, far beyond learning about that world.

On February 10th, 2014 82 classes from 10 countries started a learning journey with Lot; for 15 weeks they will explore, do research and learn about the right for food, health care, education and the right to be safe and loved. In total these 4000+ students learned in 9 wiki based Learning Circles, five for primary education in Dutch, two for secondary education in Dutch and two fully international circles in English.

Learning Circles and peer assessment.

After 15 weeks of this international Global Learning, with the support of Professor Joordens from the Toronto University and Pearson Publishers (Toronto) this Global Teenager Project used peer learning and assessment system peerScholar/Cogneeto. In the last phase of the Learning Circles all students joined in one global classroom and collaborated in giving and receiving feedback to each other's work. Each student wrote an essay about the one Children's Right they are missing… is it their right to play? Or the right to be accepted as you are? The journey with Lot inspired students from Netherlands, Suriname, Curaçao, Canada, Ukraine, Lebanon, Romania and Hungary and helped them to grow into real global citizens that not only learn to read and write, yet also learn to care and live together. Michael Fullan was on board to support and explore with us how real and authentic learning based upon Collaboration and Communities contributes to quality education in the 21st century.

Lot's Foundation – The Netherlands:

- Project leaders: Mrs. Saskia Klomps assisted by Mr. Menno van Hasselt

- Project Coordinator Education: Bob Hofman

- Learning Circle Facilitators: Mrs. Manon van Herwijnen and Mrs. Natasha Cherednicenko

Funding

- The Netherlands: Co-funding from Rotary 'Land van Horne' - Weert – Netherlands for the 7 Dutch language Learning Circles

- Canada: Co-funding by Pearson Publishers for the peer assignments in the English Learning Circles and support of Canadian schools.

Learning Circles

- Methodology - iEARN International – Margaret Riel – learning with the world, not about it.

- Global Teenager Project – "Todays learners are Tomorrow's leaders" - Bob Hofman and Eliane Metni

peerScholar / Cogneeto – a peer learning and peer assessment tool

- Steve Joordens, Professor of Psychology and Dwayne Paré, University of Toronto Scarborough

- Dwayne Paré, assistant Professor , University of Toronto Scarborough

- Michael Fullan is Professor Emeritus of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto

- Pearson Publishers – Toronto – Cogneeto system and support of Canada Schools and coordination by Mrs. Anita Townsend (GTP Country Coordinator)

If you have any questions about Lot learning circles, Please contact: Bob Hofman | tel: 06-2279 64 50 | Email: b.hofman @ ICT edu.nl