Brazilian Creative Learning Network

Brazil

We promote and enable playful, creative and relevant hands-on education opportunities for children and young people throughout Brazil

The Brazilian Creative Learning Network is a grassroots movement that implements playful, creative and relevant hands-on educational practices in schools and non-formal learning spaces throughout Brazil. To achieve that, BCLN organizes programs and events that give voice to thousands of educators, researchers, managers, entrepreneurs, artists, families and students from the whole country.

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Overview

HundrED has selected this innovation to

Creativity

Web presence

2015

Established

200K

Children

1

Countries

Target group

All

Updated

January 2023

By fostering creative and relevant hands-on learning experiences, we empower children and young people to engage with the world in a more meaningful and active way.

About the innovation

Fostering creative learning in Brazil

What we do?

The Brazilian Creative Learning Network promotes and supports creative learning through a broad range of programs including:

Organization of local, regional, and national events like Festivals of Invention and Creativity, Scratch Days and the yearly Brazilian Creative Learning Conference;
Establishing regional hubs and task forces;
Pedagogic support through the design and implementation of resources and professional development workshops for educators;
Organization of year long fellowships to support emerging leaders and their projects
Creation of new tools and support materials;
Dissemination and exchange of experiences through meet-ups and online portal.

BCLNs approach empowers educators and school leaders while allowing for local adaptations, essential for succeeding in a country as large as Brazil. It fosters the buy-in of local partners including libraries, universities, social entrepreneurs and not-for-profit organizations. In this way, BCLN creates a vibrant reinforcing community of committed educators who bring innovation and playfulness back into the classroom and other educational environments.

Our approach has proven successful. In just 5 years with six full time staff members BCLN has reached 21,000 educators across the far corners of Brazil, from vulnerable communities in major urban centers to villages in the Amazon. With BCLN leadership, Brazil became the largest host of Scratch Days, a global initiative that fosters creative computing among youth. Through the systemic adoption program, the BCLN reaches out more than 2 million students in public schools.

Why we do it?

We believe that all Brazilians, since their early childhood, should have the opportunity to develop their creative potential and collaborate to build a more meaningful world.

Learn more from the Brazilian Creative Learning Network MANIFESTO.

Impact & scalability

Impact & Scalability

Brazilian Creative Learning Network inspires families and communities to creative engagements by providing a platform for project making and designing. This initiative can bring about significant changes in people's mindset and instil creativity in a local and global setting.

HundrED Academy Reviews

Very impactful to organize programs and events that give voice to thousands of educators, researchers, managers, entrepreneurs, artists, families and students from the whole country.

The simplicity in approach, and impact of the programs – working with children, teacher education and easy to implement practices. They promote and enable playful, creativity and make it both impactful and scalable.

- Academy member

Academy review results

High Impact
Low Scalability

High Impact
High Scalability

Low Impact
Low Scalability

Low Impact
High Scalability

Media

CREATIVE LEARNING AT HOME

Creative Learning at Home creates opportunities for children, teenagers, parents and other family members to imagine, create and share while playing with materials, tools and spaces that are already a part of their routines outside school and work.Creative Learning at Home (EN)Aprendizagem Criativa em Casa (PTBR)Aprendizaje Creativo en Casa (ES)

Bora Criar!

Bora Criar! (Let's Create!) is an invitation to dive into creative learning through subjects that connect with many knowledge areas. The goal is that teachers and students imagine, create and share simple or complex meaningful projects while exploring different materials and technologies in a playful spirit. Bora Criar! was designed to support public schools of Brazil during the time of pandemic, having its classes streamed online and on local TV. boracriar.org (PTBR)

Back to School with Creative Learning

Back to School with Creative Learning is an initiative by the Brazilian Creative Learning Network in support of educators who want to start experimenting creative learning in their teaching practices while at school. It also inspires activities and initiatives that are hosted remotely in times of hybrid or online learning. Back to School with Creative Learning (EN)Volta às Aulas com Aprendizagem Criativa (PTBR)

Festival of Invention and Creativity

Description: The Festival of Invention and Creativity is a great celebration of the inventive, collaborative and hands-on spirit of Brazilian education. During the event, children, young people, their families and educators have the opportunity to explore high and low tech materials and technologies, participate in hands-on activities, and learn in a fun and engaging way.31 Festivals of Invention and Creativity have already been organized. Another 18 are in the planning phase.

Regional Hubs

The Network is organized into Regional Hubs and Working Groups. They develop initiatives based upon the interests of their members, responding to the needs of their local communitiesCurrently, we have 17 regional centers that disseminate and organize BCLN's initiatives at the local level.The following states have regional hubs: Amazonas, Federal District, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso do Sul, Paraná Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Norte, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Sergipe, and São Paulo.

Professional Development

The BCLN offers the introduction and ongoing professional development to educators about the practice and concepts of Creative Learning through workshops, online courses, events and resources, offering opportunities for participants to define their own trajectory in creative learning.

Creative Universities

The Creative Universities initiative aims to contribute to the adoption of creative learning practices through research, outreach projects in public schools, teacher training, partnerships between universities and other institutions, and theoretical support for the BCLN's projects.

Creative Learning Systemic Adoption

Formalizing partnerships with the public sector to facilitate the sustainable and organic adoption of creative learning in public education institutions and systems. The Network is a partner with two of the main educational systems in the state of Sao Paulo: São Bernardo do Campo-SP: 8,000 educators and 80,000 students São Paulo state: 100,000 educators, 2 million students

Scratch & Creative Computing

The Scratch & Creative Computing program brings Scratch and Scratch resources to Brazilian kids and educators. The program develops solutions relevant to the Brazilian culture, promotes professional development in creative computing and localizes the Scratch Foundation resources to the local reality.

Creative Learning Conference

The Creative Learning Conference is the main event for people from all over the country to gather and share their initiatives in making school and non-formal educational environments that foster creative thinking. Educators, students, families, children, researchers, artists, entrepreneurs and school leaders are part of the public that once a year get together to participate in workshops, talks, interactive demos, research, sharing experiences, and much more!

Creative Learning Challenge

The Creative Learning Challenge is a fellowship program that builds upon the country’s broad base of hands-on and innovative educational practices of creative learning for children and youth. It is an incentive to reframe educators' ongoing work through the collective input of a highly innovative and engaged group of professional colleagues. The selected educators receive mentorship over the course of one year, they learn about cutting edge initiatives in the United States, and they share their learning with the community. In five years the Challenge has selected 50 projects and 84 fellows throughout Brazil.Click here to see a video of the 2019 Challenge - Visit to Boston

Implementation steps

Identify and embrace individuals and organizations

Take a look around!

Rather than emphasizing our own tools and methods, we started from the assumption that there were many people in Brazil who's work already aligned with the principles of creative learning. Who is doing interesting work in your community? What are their challenges and their vision of education? Invite them to a cup of coffee - even a virtual one! - and start sharing.

Our work is built on the premise that there are many creative learning initiatives already in the world. However, those initiatives tend to be very isolated from one another. By connecting people with one another, current initiatives grow stronger and new ones emerge.

Collaborate with them in designing initiatives

Diversity will enrich the projects!
Listen to the diverse voices in your community in order to solve real problems. Make sure the local cultures, the many social and economic groups are being part of the conversation. If some members are not speaking out, ask them for feedback whenever you want to validate a project or an idea.

Create together!
Include a "hands-on" activity in the design of your online and in person gatherings. Allowing people to express their ideas through building something together is a great way to think about learning.

Promote the lessons learned

The lessons learned in one part of the country can be extremely valuable to people in other parts of the country, whether they are just getting started or grappling with troublesome obstacles moving forward.

Keep tinkering, there's no recipe!

Keep the conversation alive about: