Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes

Tune In: Why collective action?

20 minutes

Find Out: Collective action achieving good

25 minutes

Take Action: Action in our local community

5 minutes

Reflection

Learning intentions and success criteria

Students will:

explore examples of collective action and people working together to achieve a goal.

Students can:

share examples of collective action achieving good
share a few sentences about local community group and their impact on the community.

Tune In: Why collective action?

Preparation

If you haven’t already watched ‘Trailblazers’ in an earlier lesson, make sure to set aside some time to watch this documentary before the lessons.

Today, we’re going to look at a group of people who are working to break down barriers.

Watch Trailblazers

Trailblazers (https://clickv.ie/w/INpy)

Step 1

Lead a class discussion: “Following on from the previous lesson and the ‘Trailblazers’ film, what are the benefits of acting as a group as opposed to acting as a collection of individuals”? The concepts your students suggest might include:

Enhanced problem-solving: groups can pool their diverse skills and perspectives, leading to more innovative solutions than individuals might come up with alone.

Shared resources: group members can share resources, such as knowledge, skills, and materials.
Increased motivation: being part of a group can increase motivation through a sense of belonging and commitment to shared goals.
Better decision-making: groups can discuss and deliberate on decisions, leading to more well-rounded and considered outcomes than individual decision-making.
Learning opportunities: working in a group provides opportunities to learn from others, acquire new skills, and gain insights from different viewpoints.
Risk sharing: in a group, risks are shared among members, which can reduce the burden and pressure on individuals.
Moral support: groups offer emotional and moral support to members, which can be particularly beneficial in challenging or stressful situations.
Accountability: group members hold each other accountable, which can lead to higher standards of performance and reliability than when working alone.
Conflict resolution: groups provide a platform for resolving conflicts through discussion and compromise, which can lead to more sustainable and accepted solutions.
Greater influence: as a collective, groups often have more influence and power to effect change or make an impact than individuals acting alone.

Step 2

Let’s look at collective action… in action. Introduce your students to the ‘prisoner’s dilemma’. If you want to run through the exercise with your students, send two students out of the classroom separately, and give them a written copy of the game and a pen to write their response. While they are out of the room, explain the game to the rest of the class.

Imagine you and your best friend are in a bit of trouble. You both got caught for a prank that went too far and now you're being questioned separately by the school principal. Here's the tricky part: neither of you can talk to the other, and you have to make a decision without knowing what your friend will choose.

The principal gives you each two choices:

Stay silent - you don't tell on your friend OR
Dob on your friend - you say your friend did the prank and you were just watching.

If both of you stay silent, the principal only has a little evidence and you both get a one-day detention.

If one of you dobs on the other, the one who did the dobbing gets no punishment, but your friend who didn’t dob gets a week of detention.

But if both of you dob on each other, the principal thinks you're both untrustworthy and you both end up with three days of detention.

So what do you do? Discuss the possible outcomes with your class. Bring the two students back and see what they choose.

Watch this video with your students to explain the possible outcomes:

The Prisoner's Dilemma Explained in 2 Minutes - YouTube - youtube.com/watch?v=TJCGTNIwmv8

Find Out: Social action achieving good

Step 1

Using the visual explainer, explore examples of collective action that came about from the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

Mary Earps – goalkeeper jersey for sale
Change of stadium for Matildas’ Perth games
World Cup rights
FIFA player awards

Students can use the worksheet to record key concepts as you discuss the slide deck.

Think about:

What was the issue?
What was the collective action?
What was the result?

Step 2

Next, we will expand this idea of collective action to wider examples of collective action achieving good. Continue through the visual explainer to explore links for the following examples:

Habitat for Humanity
Tham Luang Cave Rescue
Franklin River Dam

Take Action: Action in our local community

Preparation

You may like to find some local examples from the ideas listed below before the lesson.

Step 1

Who, in your local community, is working together in collective action? As a class, create a list. Your list could include:

community garden groups
volunteer groups
community centres
‘love our streets’ groups
land care groups
local sporting clubs
men’s sheds
buy nothing/pay it forward groups

Step 2

Ask students to choose a group to research. Use the ‘Community Groups’ worksheet to record the information you discover.

Not all of this information will be available for all community groups. If students would like to extend this experience, they can reach out to the group directly.

Information they are looking for includes:

What is the group’s name?
How big is the group?
How do people join the group?
What is the goal of the group?
How did they originally form?
What impact have they had on the community?
Are there any flow-on impacts?
What is something interesting you have learnt about this group?

Step 3

If there is time, the groups could share with the class a couple of sentences about their local community group and their impact.

Literacy extension: Write a letter/email to the community group, thanking them for their work. Include why you think it is important and what impacts you can see they are having.

Reflection

As an exit ticket, ask students to write a strength of collective action over individual action. These could be stuck on a whiteboard or poster paper.

Who Can Make A Difference?

Summary

Lesson Guides and Printables

Who Can Make A Difference?

Summary

Lesson Guides and Printables