senior handlers’ guide · 2014-07-07 · please read everything very carefully, ... may be...

Senior Handlers’ Guide

(Immersive, story-based experiences for introducing the Chinese language)

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The Dragon ColleCTive Trilogy / Senior HandlerS’ Guide

Welcome Senior Handlers!

In this guide you will find introductory information about The Dragon Collective Trilogy and answers to some fundamental questions. Please read everything very carefully, all the way to the end before you begin working with your students or ‘trainee agents’.

Before opening this document, you should have read the Dragon Collective story as well as the Call to Action letter. These documents outline for you the story of what The Dragon Collective is battling against and why we need your help. If you haven’t read it yet, you must do so now. You will find it on the introduction page of The Dragon Collective website.

Now, to cover some of the things you may be wondering about:

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What is the overall goal of The Dragon Collective Trilogy?

1. What is the overall goal of the Dragon ColleCtive trilogy?

For Trainee agents

Empowering second language learnersThe Dragon Collective aims to dispel any fear or reservation trainee agents may have about learning Chinese. In achieving this it is important that trainee agents acknowledge that as second language learners they may not understand everything they read or hear, but they do have the skills to enter into this second language world. Often Chinese is seen as ‘really hard’ or even impossible for some trainee agents. We aim to show that this needn’t be the case by providing them with the skills to understand the systems of Chinese. This will enable trainee agents to gain confidence in approaching their learning of the language and help alleviate any fear when facing authentic Chinese language resources.

Self-paced learningThe Dragon Collective also aims to have trainee agents managing their own learning and progressing at their own speed. Trainee agents have choices throughout the trilogy as to whether or not they will do extra tasks, and this should be left up to them to decide. The Dragon Collective Trilogy is available online so trainee agents can continue with their adventures at their own pace and, as senior handlers, you should encourage them to do so. This may include continuing their journeys at home. You need to consider how you will manage trainee agents within the one class who are at different stages of the same project.

For Senior handlers

Teach about learning ChineseThe main goal for senior handlers is to think about teaching Chinese from a different starting point – teaching about Chinese and about how to learn it in conjunction with actually teaching any communicative Chinese. Also, think about the experience of teaching something difficult first and working back from that. This is what trainee agents will experience in The Blackline Mystery where it’s the hardest character that is seen first, not the easiest one of just a single line stroke, which as you know, is where character learning often begins.

Cater to the multi-level classroom as mentorAnother goal is for senior handlers to manage having trainee agents at different stages of the experience at different times. What will this mean for how you construct your lessons for the week or term? How does this change what you are actually doing in your classes if different trainee agents are at different points?

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Why take this story-based approach? Why not just make it a normal unit of work?

One thing we hope is that this will lead to is you as senior handlers being aware and reflective of the fact that you are taking on a mentor role in order to support trainee agents, rather than being the person who comes into class and instructs the trainee agents in what to do for each step of the lesson. As you become more confident and relaxed you will begin to see more clearly that the flow of the class really can be left up to the trainee agents in order to maintain the authenticity of the narrative.

Try everything you can to avoid making these experiences whole class-structured lessons where everyone moves forward at the same pace. Perhaps talk to your colleagues about how this could work for you. Do not rush trainee agents through parts so they can catch up to others as they might miss key information and practice. This could be highly detrimental to their understanding.

2. Why take this story-baseD approaCh? Why not just make it a normal unit of Work?

Essentially, this approach was chosen in order to give more meaning to what trainee agents are learning by providing an immediate need and reason to master certain skills and knowledge. This narrative-based approach provides an environment that facilitates all the learning goals within the authentic context of a fictional story-world. It is important to realise you still have a most important teacher role to play in this work, even though some of the instructional role that you usually play has been provided by The Dragon Collective. But this frees you to study your trainee agents individually and see how they are progressing so that you develop greater understanding of how they each learn.

3. hoW Can i stiCk to the story?

Your trainee agents will not know that you have anything to do with this alternate world they are entering. They will ask you if it is real. Absolutely it is. Never tell them otherwise. Also, it is better for you to say that you simply don’t know what is going on than to give them any idea that you know what is coming next. If they seem a bit lost as to how to continue or whether to continue, suggest to them that perhaps they should do some more investigating. Ask have they read everything they need to read? Have they tried everything they’ve been asked to try?

Never admit to the trainee agents that it’s all made up, or that you know what’s going on. It especially means not telling them what they will figure out next or how it all ends! You have to be able to hold all that information back and let them figure out all sorts of things for themselves. Also, don’t tell them things like ‘Next term we will be doing The Blackline Mystery’. This is an experience that should find them, and catch them off-guard. They should not expect it to be coming.

Human beings all love a bit of a puzzle, a touch of mystery and like us, trainee agents are very good at ‘suspending disbelief ’ and immersing themselves in stories. Trainee agents will figure out that you are not

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What year levels is The Dragon Collective Trilogy for?

Agent 42 pretty quickly, so they will be intrigued as to who it is and if you know Agent 42 in person or not... That is just part of the fun – don’t spoil it by getting too literal!

A few points for sticking with the narrative:

• at the start pretend you have no idea what is going on• make sure it seems like you are taking the journey with the trainee agents. Explore the websites with

them individually if they ask you for help. Get them to show you what they have discovered and pretend you are playing Ping-Pong and just bat their questions back to them. Ask them/say things like:

– What do you think you might do next? – Where might you go to find an answer to that? – I’m not sure! Have you got someone you can contact?

4. What year levels is the Dragon ColleCtive trilogy for?

The Dragon Collective Trilogy is designed ideally for trainee agents from years 5–8 (ranging in age from 10–14) but it can be used with trainee agents in other year levels if you think it would appeal to them.

5. What Do trainee agents Do?

The Dragon Collective Trilogy is a mostly online experience. Trainee agents use The Dragon Collective website to watch videos, read instructions for completing tasks and communicate with their senior handlers (you, their teacher). In addition, they are required to complete some pen-and-paper worksheets, a plasticine activity (in The Blackline Mystery), some iPad activities and some audio-recording activities using whatever audio-recording technology is available to them.

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How long will The Dragon Collective take to run in my class?

6. hoW long Will the Dragon ColleCtive take to run in my Class?

Each separate experience in The Dragon Collective Trilogy is designed to run for approximately 1 hour per week for 1 term, making the whole trilogy go for approximately 3 terms. This will depend on how much class time you have with your trainee agents, how much they do at home on their own (encourage this time on task out of school hours!), and whether or not you run the trilogy alongside another unit or as the sole learning experience of the term.

The Dragon Collective Trilogy is designed to let trainee agents progress at their own pace. Parts of it can also be used as whole-class activities or group work if you decide to have all trainee agents doing the same thing at the same time, and this may sometimes be practical and welcomed by the trainee agents. This may be necessary if they are having difficulties accessing the videos on their own devices (laptops, iPads, phones etc) or aren’t watching them at home. But, essentially the idea is that they can move through at their own speed.

You could run The Dragon Collective Trilogy in a few ways. For example, as the only unit you do for the term, as something that sits alongside something else, or largely as a home task, with some lessons set aside to discuss what the trainee agents are doing etc.

7. hoW Do i reCorD anD ColleCt stuDent Work?

All student work will be submitted to you via the internal messaging system of The Dragon Collective website. You will then be able to save trainee agents’ work in a way that suits you. Exactly what parts will be submitted to you is outlined in each of the separate experience guides.

8. hoW Does stuDent Work get assesseD?

Assessment details are outlined in each of the separate experience guides. You can also choose to change the way things are marked or even mark some tasks that were not previously designed to be assessed. You should read the entire guide for each of the experiences before you begin it so you are clear on what you are and aren’t going to assess and how that fits into your curriculum planning.

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What is The Dragon Collective website and how does it work?

9. What is the Dragon ColleCtive Website anD hoW Does it Work?

The Dragon Collective website is where the trainee agents will go to work through the three adventures. All the resources they need to access are housed there, along with an internal messaging system that allows you to communicate with them. Through this system trainee agents will only be able to communicate with you directly, not with each other.

10. hoW Do i start?

Glad you asked! Follow these steps to get yourself and your trainee agents ready for The Dragon Collective Trilogy.

The first things you need to do are:

1. Set up trainee agent access to The Dragon Collective website.2. Activate trainee agent access to The Introduction and The Sounds of The Immortals.3. Send trainee agents the letter that will direct them to the website.4. Have trainee agents access The Dragon Collective website to watch the welcome message video

from Agent 42 and begin their journey.

Here’s how to get organised:

1. Setting up trainee access to The Dragon Collective website:

First, make sure you have an email address for each of the trainee agents that will become trainees in these experiences. Trainee agents should have a school email address that you can use. But don’t ask them for their email addresses at this stage. That will raise suspicions! There will be a list of their email addresses available somewhere in the school. You may need to ask the administration person at your school for it.

Next go to the administration section of The Dragon Collective website and enter each of the trainee agents’ addresses. When they get to the front page of the website, trainee agents need to enter their email address and this way it will match the one you have already entered for them. This entering of email addresses into the system must be done before the trainees begin their journeys. If not, they won’t be able to access the resources they need.

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How do I start?

2. Activate trainee agent access to The Introduction and The Sounds of The Immortals.

To do this you will need to go to the administration section of the website and choose ‘Manage Students.’ Tick a box to indicate which of the three experiences you want them to have access to. For more detailed information on how to use this function please go to The Dragon Collective Website Handbook.

It’s important that trainee agents don’t have access to all of the experiences at once, as there is a preferred order they follow. To start you need to activate access to The Introduction and The Sounds of The Immortals. You begin with The Sounds of The Immortals, progress to The Blackline Mystery, and then finish with The Hunt for the Ancient Compass. If they are done out of this order then parts of the narrative may not make as much sense. Once trainee agents have completed the three experiences you will need to activate The Ending. On their Introduction page it is The Dragon Collective logo at the bottom that will link them to The Ending.

Also, your trainee agents must have finished all three experiences before you activate The Ending for them. See The Dragon Collective Website Handbook for more detailed information about this.

3. Sending trainee agents the letter

The Dragon Collective Trilogy begins with your trainees receiving an actual printed page of the symbols that represent The Three Items of Understanding. The page also has the address for The Dragon Collective website and a password on it. The trainees are expected to initiate going to the website themselves. The letter is included at the end of this guide and on the Teacher Resources page of The Dragon Collective website.

To get the letter to your trainee agents you could:

• Send it to each one at home the week before you plan to start it at school. They will probably then begin looking at the site and videos themselves. Who knows how far they will take it on their own?

• Have someone come in to class dressed up as a secret agent and hand you a pile of the pages or even give it out to each of the trainee agents. You would of course pretend to know absolutely nothing about what is happening!

• Give it to the trainee agents yourself – each in an envelope with their names on it, saying they were delivered to the school addressed to that class.

If you are handing it out in class, make sure you wait to see what they say and do. Leave it up to them to suggest going to the website and finding out more.

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How do I start?

4. Trainee agents accessing The Dragon Collective website

By going to the website address that is printed on their letter, the trainee agents will arrive at the first page of The Dragon Collective website. They will see a screen that simply asks them to enter their email address. It has to match the one you have already entered for them.

Once the trainee agents have entered their correct email address they will be taken to a page that has the images of symbols for The Three Items of Understanding (matching their letters) and an introduction video from Agent 42. After watching the video the trainee agents will be able to select the only symbol you have activated for them – The Sounds of The Immortals. They are then able to begin that experience.

At the end of each experience there will be a link that will send students back to this introduction page with the three symbols. You will activate a different symbol each time, so when they get back they will have no choice but to select the next experience. This functionality is outlined in The Dragon Collective Website handbook.

They’re on their way!

After completing these steps, your trainee agents should now be on their way to getting deeper into The Dragon Collective Trilogy. Remember to maintain the story-world for them. The trainee agents do not actually know that there is a trilogy. Nor do they need to know the title of each of the experiences. If they do find out, it’s not a problem, but don’t tell them. They don’t even need to know The Dragon Collective story, as only senior handlers need read it, so do not give it to them to read. That story is for you as a senior handler to understand more about the history of The Dragon Collective so this whole story-world makes more sense to you. The trainee agents do not need this information. It will likely be enough for them to know that there is an enemy they have to fight. They will be able to piece together parts of the story as they go, and this is part of the experience of being in a story-world – you don’t always know what you are in for and part of the joy of it is figuring it out as you go. Let them do that.

You should now review parts of this guide as needed and read the entire guides for The Dragon Collective website and The Sounds of The Immortals before you allow your trainee agents to begin. It is really important that you know what is coming and what preparations you will need to make for your classroom. (All technical requirements are listed in each of the separate guides).

Thank you again for taking on our cause of training more strong minds to fight ‘The Doom of Not Knowing’.

We are forever in your debt.

The Faceless Dragon Leader of The Dragon Collective

senior handlers’ guide · 2014-07-07 · please read everything very carefully, ... may be...

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