This Didactic Unit’s principal objective is to be student-centered, since the project will be mainly developed by the students, making them more autonomous. To reach this goals, the present Didactic Unit will be following these methodological principles:

 

• Starting from students’ previous ideas, so they can connect new knowledge to the previously settled and learning networks. 

• Guaranteeing the construction of meaningful learning because of its practical application to real life as well as its adequacy to the students’ needs and interests. 

• Promoting the student as the main character in his/her learning by developing skills which enable him/her to build up his/her own knowledge and help him/her to learn how to learn in an autonomous way. 

• Adopting a role of teacher as mediator and guide for learning through supervision and continuous evaluation. 

• Developing the students’ critical awareness so they can question and filter stereotyped information coming from outside.  

• Foster the students’ creativity with activities encouraging reflection, research, decision making, etc.

• Facilitating and boosting students’ participation in class so they become active learning agents. 

• Creating a climate of affection and confidence so students feel safe and motivated to unfold all their potential. 

• Basing the educational action on a communication and interaction process between teachers and students, and among students. 

• Offering a teaching adapted to students’ diversity.

 

For this Didactic Unit’s development, the methodological strategies that will be applied are called Project-Based Learning (PBL), Service-learning and Cooperative learning, in which the teacher brings the students the opportunity to create a project in which they will design their own awareness campaign on pollution and the importance of recycling and responsible consumption through different activities and team work. 

 

Besides, the PBL methodology  that will be followed will be Level 2, in which the project is defined by the teacher and the students will get to devise their own means of developing the project, giving them autonomy.  This PBL develops a Based-Specific Learning work, that consists of getting a certain degree of knowledge in the recycling process and its influence on the environment, as well as  pollution’s presence on their nearest environment and how they can help to improve this problematic situation.

 

We consider Service-learning as other core methodology to be developed through this Didactic Unit, since  by the application of the already stated methodology students will be integrating the knowledge and subjects of the curriculum in the learning process along the realization of useful and solidarity work in the community, in collaboration with a public institution, in this case, the city hall. The Service-learning will be developed in all of the sessions since the students will be always reminded of their social work towards their own community, and importance of their role.

 

The other basic methodology to be applied in this project would be Cooperative learning, in which the classmates with heterogeneous knowledge and or abilities, inside of some proximity fringes, will be forming small teams to help each other as well as giving and receiving support. Cooperative learning will be present along the whole Didactic Unit, and we want to focus on positive interdependence, face-to-face promotive interaction, personal and group responsibility and fortify interpersonal and small-group skills during all the interactions the students will be having not only with the teacher but among themselves along the project.

 

In conjunction with these methodological strategies, this Didactic Unit will take into account different group techniques in the different sessions, which are Assembly, Brainstorming, Big group, Small group.

 

This methodology has been selected according to the methodological orientations reflected in the Order of March 17th, 2015. In relation with the methodological orientations from the Order of March 17th, 2015, the following areas will be treated in order to reach the contents aforementioned:

 

In the Social Sciences area, the search for information will make it possible to propose opinion initiatives and ideas that forge personal conclusions, the aim will be for students to plan and organize their school work, taking responsibility, organizing their materials in the classroom and to demonstrate a responsible attitude towards the environment during the realization of the short trip on their town and their whole project. Tasks and work will be undertaken in which personal skills are developed and team tasks will be initiated with creative proposals or personal initiatives in the group, through the planning of responsible actions with a social and community performance. The aim is to foster the development of responsible attitudes and to promote strategies that foster creativity, critical judgement and through the information collected and processed, the ability to present creative and innovative ideas and proposals that promote an entrepreneurial spirit within peer groups. Therefore, the tasks to be performed will be from the basics of revising their previous knowledge in relation to pollution and the recycling process, organizing a trip to appreciate the effect of pollution on the landscape and recollecting information of meaningful importance for their final project, leading this to enhancing the need of awareness for this topic. The use of ICTs resources on the finding of information and the realization of the different proposed activities will help the students to deepen the contents and improve or acquire new investigation and work techniques applied to the Social Sciences Area. The establishment of debates and dialogues, as well as oral and written presentations, will enhance participation, respect for others and democratic values. 

 

In order to complete the previous goals with the proper methodology, in the Spanish Language and Literature area, we will be aiming to the correct expression both oral and written through all the sessions to reach the final purpose, which is the exposition of the research done by the students.In this sense, the linguistic skills related to oral communication must gain the relevance they have, since they favor the interaction as well as the negotiation of meaning, fundamental for the development of cognitive-linguistic skills that affect the construction of knowledge in all areas. The use of information and communication technologies enhances the use of language for communication purposes, favoring the acquisition of oral and written skills: vocabulary, correct spelling, writing texts, appropriate presentations, interpersonal relationships, etc. With the previous methodology and these already mentioned considerations, the activities and sessions performed will be related to this area in the sense of practicing the language skills in the realization of the project. Written skills will be emphasized in those sessions students must collect information and later transfer it to the correspondent resource or medium. Oral skills will be practiced along the whole project in the interrelationships given among students, between students and the teacher and between students and the audience in the presentation of their respective productions.

 

In the Art Education area, the contents will be worked from a creative perspective, in which the students will follow this didactic unit by means of the “know-how”, which means that those sessions in which this area is worked, the students will carry out the tasks by their own means, thus acquiring experience in what is proposed to them. Taking into account the theme of this project, the development of skills related to creativity and art will lead to the development of critical thinking. In the sessions of this project related to Art Education, through the proposed means, the students will design logos with the goal of raising awareness, which leads them to develop manipulative skills in relation to ICT, while being aware of the importance of the messages that we transmit to others by using our creative abilities.

 

It will address teamwork and cooperative work that favors the exchange of information, the experience of different points of view and the acceptance of the opinions and ways of thinking of their peers. Teachers must intervene and foster a working environment in which personal and group conflicts are analyzed and resolved, attitudes of acceptance, mutual aid, cooperation and tolerance are worked out. Students must assume their own personal and team responsibilities.

 

This Didactic Unit and its methodology can be adapted to every student's needs, rhythms and styles, since as we have mentioned in the methodological principles, we will be offering a teaching adapted to students' diversity.