The Environmental Learning Research Centre at Rhodes University hosted a Learning Market Place on health living, with BEd Foundation phase, 2nd year students on 02 August 2016. The learning market place was facilitated by Ms Priya Vallabh. The marketplace offered an opportunity for students to engage critically with each other’s curriculum projects, and also to share ideas around carefully developed teaching and learning activities. It also provided learners with a chance to show-case their work and engage with others around their ideas. The peer assessment activity helped learners to learn in a more co-engaged way. It offered the learners an opportunity not to just look at each other’s work but to also think about each other’s work and the usefulness of each other’s projects from a pedagogic standpoint.

A student demonstrating their work during the Learning Market Place

                                   A student demonstrating their work during the Learning Market Place

The market place culminated a 5-part project focused on the life skills and healthy living curriculum. The project began with the identification of curriculum spaces, and included strengthening core knowledge, developing age-appropriate lessons plans, designing teaching and learning support materials, designing diverse assessment strategies, and reflecting on learning.

A range of innovative projects were presented, all featuring age-appropriate opportunities for environmental learning in the curriculum. They all looked at how to identify spaces for environmental learning in the curriculum and how to develop learning opportunities around identified areas.

Other lectures who participated in the activity noted that learners where a lot more confident in presenting their work because they were presenting one-on-one to their peers, with an opportunity to engage in-person around their ideas.The Facilitator, Ms Priya Vallabh and other lecturers interact with the students at the Learning Market Place

The Facilitator Ms Priya Vallabh and other lecturers interact with the students at the Learning Market Place

The learning market place activity got great feedback from learners who said they had a lot of fun and enthusiasm from the activity and that they really enjoyed the process.

By Patience Shawarira