Your project is over...now what? Where will that next step lead? What direction to take?

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. ~Lao Tzu~

You’ve just invested a boat load of energy into a meaningful project and you’ve evaluated the learning (see last week’s blog). Yes, the project is over. Now what? Where will that next step lead?

In the case of the North Island College ECCE “Community through the Eyes of Children” project the coordinators (Alanna Miller and Theresa Gereluk) immediately wanted to explore the potential in the next steps.

Here are some of the things we noticed from observing their process.

When exploring next steps consider...

1) The learning (in this case, learn from previous projects and participant/coordinator feedback)
2) The research (in this case inspired by Reggio Emilia and Emergent Curriculum)
3) The themes that emerged (how to nurture children’s CREATIVITY popped)
4) The potential next directions (they decided on - “Creativity through the Eyes of Children”)
5) The ways to re-ignite the vision and celebrate the previous project success! Give updates too!

This was done by gathering the participant centres’ to explore how the new direction might strengthen and align with their work and build off of the previous project. They listened to people’s thoughts and reactions and further developed the direction as they went. Picture a dialogue rich evening focused on “What does CREATIVITY mean to you?” complete with hands on interaction (goop and overhead projector painting – we are talking about creativity here). Total experiential learning.

It seems from our Raising the Village observation lens, that the next steps continued to reveal themselves in the act of doing. They came both in having a plan with directions and goals AND in the openness to see what would emerge.

Village Raising Questions:
What do you consider when taking next steps?
What does creativity mean to you? What does this add to your work and life?

(p.s. The “Creativity through the Eyes of Children” project continues. Interested in more details? Contact Alanna or Theresa via North Island College http://www.nic.bc.ca/ ).