Chocolate+Rich+Task+Case+Study

**Student Advisory Group Rich Task** The Learning School was given the opportunity to carry out a full day rich task with the Shetland Student Advisory Group, which consisted of 8 pupils from a range of primary and secondary schools across Shetland.

**Developing the Rich Task** As the student advisory group had no set curriculum like most classes, we were given complete freedom around developing our rich task. We decided that it would be interesting to try and create a whole day rich task around the theme of sustainability in order to try out the theme and also to tie in with the Global Ambition team in Shetland who are carrying out a sustainability project. After a lot of consideration, the group settled on the idea of a “Design Your own Chocolate Bar” rich task. To start the day we designed a PowerPoint presentation based around the theme of sustainability, particularly in relation to the food industry. This was linked to chocolate production and the pros and cons of fair trade versus non fair trade. The PowerPoint presentation provoked a lot of discussion and was successful in getting the students to think about the wider issues surrounding chocolate production. The class then split in half into two groups and the task was introduced. The groups were given a number of different tasks for the day including: choosing the ingredients of their chocolate bar, creating a profile for their chocolate bar, creating an advertising campaign and presenting their product to a Dragons Den style judging panel. The groups were given complete freedom to carry out the tasks in any way that was practical.

**Links to Personalised Learning?** The rich task was linked to components of Personalised Learning in a number of ways:
 * **Curriculum entitlement and choice -** The rich task was interdisciplinary incorporating a number of different subjects. For example in choosing the ingredients for the chocolate bar pupils were given a budget and a price list for both fair trade and non fair trade ingredients. They had to use math skills to decide which ingredients to choose along with analytical skills to weigh up the pros and cons of fair trade versus non fair trade. The task also involved a number of other subjects including Art, Business, Drama and English and pupils could draw on these subject areas depending on their individual strengths.
 * **Teaching and Learning Strategies -** A number of different teaching and learning strategies were used throughout the day. To begin with a PowerPoint presentation was used along with a class discussion to make the presentation more interactive. After this students were largely working independently within their groups and were free to work in any way that suited them.
 * **Assessment for Learning -** As opposed to a traditional exam format, students were asked to present their work to a team of judges in the format of the popular TV programme “Dragons Den”. The groups were judged on a number of factors including whether their ingredients were within budget and their justifications for choosing their ingredients, how creative their work was, how informative their work was and how well they worked together as a group
 * **Strong Partnerships beyond the classroom -** The task for the day was linked to a number of real word issues including sustainability, fair trade and the ethics of chocolate production. The students were therefore able to relate the task to their everyday lives.
 * **The Learning Environment –** The rich task was carried out in a specialised room of the Anderson High School called “the WOW room”. This room was characterised by comfy sofa furniture and a high level of technology along with video conferencing equipment. The Learnin[[image:learningschool13/IMG_0285.jpg width="286" height="240" align="right"]]g environment was therefore different to other Learning environments in the school.

**What did the students think?** We asked the students to rate how much they liked the rich task lesson on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 10 (it was great). All the students gave a rating of 8 or above.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">**What Worked?** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Students were asked what they liked about the lesson, with the following answers being given:
 * //<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">“It was fun and challenging” //
 * //<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">“I liked being able to make our own adverts and coming up with designs for the wrappers” //
 * //<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">“There wasn’t loads of explaining, we were just left to do it” //
 * //<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">“We needed to be really creative in a short space of time” //

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">**What didn’t work?** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Some of the students felt that more time for the task was needed. Furthermore students who wanted to create an advert using a video camera were only given limited time to the use the video camera and some students would have appreciated more time.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">To watch the advertising campaign for the M'crunchie chocolate bar, please click below. media type="custom" key="20508668"

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">[]

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">PowerPoint: <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">

Lesson Handout