18 Jul 2023

Asia-Pacific Living Heritage Lesson Plan Contest(~9.30.)

Contributed by UNESCO

The UNESCO Multisectoral Regional Office in Bangkok is delighted to announce the launch of the Asia-Pacific Living Heritage Lesson Plan Contest 2023. We invite educators from across the Asia-Pacific region to showcase their creativity and pedagogical expertise by submitting innovative lesson plans that integrate Living Heritage or Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) into the classroom. This exciting competition aims to foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of the rich cultural traditions and practices that shape our diverse communities. By bringing living heritage to life through engaging lesson plans, we hope to inspire a new generation of learners to connect with and preserve our shared heritage.

This contest is supported by International Information and Networking Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (ICHCAP) and Asia-Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding (APCEIU), Republic of Korea.

The contest is open for lesson plan submission from schools in the Asia-Pacific region from today until 30 September 2023. Apply at: https://bit.ly/aplp2023-apply

Award

In recognition of the outstanding efforts and contributions of educators, the contest will award 4 monetary prizes for the most exceptional lesson plans that UNESCO jury members anonymously aspire to see put into action and set as regional good practices. The recipients of these prestigious awards will not only receive well-deserved certificates of recognition; in addition, they will be granted a monetary prize of USD1,000 each to pilot and record their lesson plan usage, and then send the recordings to UNESCO for public dissemination.

4 monetary awards are for the following categories:

• The Living Heritage Advocate Award emphasizes outstanding efforts in raising awareness, advocating for the importance of safeguarding living heritage, and actively engaging with communities to ensure their continuity.

• The Pedagogical Innovator Award recognizes the remarkable ways in which educators have integrated living heritage into their teaching practices, resulting in enhanced creativity and effectiveness. Awardee lesson plans need to exemplify a range of innovative pedagogies, methods, and tools that effectively engage students and encourage active participation in their learning journeys. These approaches may include the utilization of information and communication technologies (ICT), flipped classroom, project-based learning (PBL), creative use of local resources, collaboration with multiple people, multiple intelligence, and so forth.

• The Sustainable Development Contributor Award honors the exceptional dedication and contribution to sustainable development and recognizes outstanding efforts in designing and implementing lesson plans that effectively raise awareness about broader societal, economic, and environmental issues while inspiring and empowering youth to take meaningful action.

• Special Jury Award goes to a lesson plan that performs exceptionally well in multiple criteria categories.

Jury Commendations: In addition to the four main awards, the jury will extend their commendations to up to 20 exemplary lesson plans, honoring each with a Certificate of Recognition for exceptional quality and innovative approaches.

All lesson plans that receive the awards and the jury commendations will be disseminated on UNESCO global clearinghouse for Living Heritage and Education: https://ich.unesco.org/en/clearinghouse-education

We believe that these award programme acknowledgements will not only celebrate the dedication and ingenuity of educators but also inspire and motivate them to continue enriching the educational landscape with their creative integration of living heritage into classroom learning and teaching experiences.

If you are not sure how to effectively design a lesson plan that integrates Living Heritage, we would like to invite you to take this FREE self-paced online course, ‘Bringing Living Heritage to the Classroom in Asia-Pacific’, on GCED Online Campus (registration and log-in required): https://bit.ly/GCEDclassICH

Awards Application Requirements/Guidelines

• Fill in the application form and upload the lesson plan at https://bit.ly/aplp2023-apply by 30 September 2023.

• The standardized submission must be in English; applicants may attach to their application the original version of the lesson plan in its original language as an annex to the English lesson plan in the same file (PDF or MSWord format). In case of any discrepancies between the two versions, the English-language version shall prevail as the official entry.

• The English-language version does not need to be in perfect English translation. In other words, the applicant does not need to spend money on expensive professional translation.

• Applicants may submit 1 lesson plan per 1 application form. One school can submit more than 1 lesson plan, but each plan must be submitted with its own own application form.

• All awards are given to the school, not to individual teachers. Therefore, the teacher(s) submitting the lesson plan should first ask for the school director’s approval / acknowledgement of the project. There is a field to enter the director’s / manager’s name in the application form.

• The preferred lesson plans are for 1 subject for 1 to 3 periods. Any special field visits or classroom visits by traditional culture practitioners can be conducted outside these 1 to 3 periods.

• The applicants will be asked to select the award category to which they are applying.

• The panel will evaluate the lesson plans on all criteria, with particular focus on the applicant’s selected award category.

• You can find more details about the requirements and judging criteria at https://bit.ly/aplp2023-criteria