Implementation of ‘’Labour Market and Women Through Centuries” (SoI-HR-461)

Introduction

Throughout the year in my English language classes, the students and I celebrate holidays and days dedicated to certain people. As the International Women’s Day was approaching, I decided to use the LS by Anita Lasić called “Labour Market and Women Through Centuries” (LS-HR-352).  I added my own ideas and activities using Europeana and the students helped by adding their photos few days before the class. I implemented the LS with the third graders (17 years) in two classes of 22 students. The aim of my SOI was to make students aware and think critically about the position of women in the past and today.

What is Europeana?

Before opening the presentation which I created in Genially https://bit.ly/dorcakpresentation  I asked my students if they are familiar with Europeana. After denying I opened the platform and briefly explained what they could find there and I challenged them to name anything connected to Croatian cultural heritage. They were pleasantly surprised finding their “item” on Europeana. The students were intrigued and we could start our lesson dedicated to International Women’s Day. The first task which I implemented from the LS was to go through the Europeana Collection – Women at work.  https://www.europeana.eu/en/galleries/9087-women-at-work Students needed to look at the photos and answer some questions – when the photos were taken, what jobs women had in the past, what were the working conditions like, were they happy.

The original LS took students to a Pixabay collection but I decided to ask my students to take photos of their mothers at work and post to Padlet so that we could compare photos of women in the past and today.https://bit.ly/dorcakpadlet

Women now and then

Students analyzed the photos and we had a short class discussion about the similarities and differences in women’s lives. To make my students aware of the differences now and then I added a blog post from Europeana, https://www.europeana.eu/en/blog/women-and-crafts which students read and working in groups needed to imagine a typical working day in a life of a woman from the past and compare it to their mothers’ typical day. It was interesting to hear that students imagined women in the past working almost 24/7.

Writing a Mini Saga

I showed my students a photo book of the LS author’s grandmother which follows her life from 1918 till 1966.  https://issuu.com/anitalasic/docs/family After looking at the photos students needed to write a mini saga which is a piece of writing of exactly 50 words. They had to submit their mini sagas to Padlet. It was quite a challenge to use no more or less than 50 words.

Outcomes and assessment

With implementation of the LS my students improved their linguistic, digital and cultural competences. They worked in groups and needed to communicate and collaborate but also to think critically and be creative. They wrote a short text using a photo book. As studying the photos of women from the past they recognized how hard their lives were and came to conclusion that there were many prejudices at that time which didn’t all disappear. The SOI took 90 minutes. At the end formative assessment was carried out, the same as in the original LS – students needed to answer three things they learned, two things they found interesting and one thing they needed to work on more. https://bit.ly/3TtAB3A

Link to the learning scenario implemented:  Labour Market and Women Through Centuries (LS-HR-352) – Teaching With Europeana (eun.org)

Do you want to discover more stories of implementation? Click here.

PDM 1.0: the featured image used to illustrate this article has been found on Europeana and has been provided by the Leiden University Libraries.