The Tikkun Project
Lesson
9
Implementing and Reflecting on the Plan
Concept
Naming a framework only after living through it rather than before means students recognize RINA as a description of work they've already done, not a new procedure to learn from scratch.
Focus Question
What can we learn from our work — and does our own evidence suggest our chosen product's harms outweigh its benefits, or not?
Knowledge & Understanding Goals
Language, Strand B (Oral and Non-Verbal Communication), Grade 7: Present research findings and a reasoned recommendation to an authentic audience.
Thinking & Learning Skills
ATL — Communication: Presenting findings and recommendations to a real audience.
ATL — Thinking Skills: Reflecting on evidence-based problem solving across a sustained, self-directed process.
Learner Profile: Communicators, Principled, Reflective.
Context
The unit's final lesson students implement the plan revised in Lesson 8, present it to a real audience, and reflect on the process. This is also where RINA is formally named as a complete framework for the first time, reviewed against the four steps students have already lived: Select an Issue (Lesson 2), Gather Information and Identify Connections (Lesson 5), Conduct Primary Research (Lesson 8), Determine an Effective Course of Action (Lesson 8). This lesson removes a prior version's fully-modeled "plastic water bottles" class example, in favour of reflecting on students' own completed, individually-chosen work throughout.
Lesson Outline
IMPLEMENTING THE PLAN
Students carry out the action plan revised in Lesson 8, in whatever form it takes — an awareness campaign, a petition, a behaviour-change initiative, a prototype, or advocacy directed at someone with the authority to act.
NAMING RINA
As a class, look back across the unit and name the full framework: Research-Informed Negotiated Action. Review the four steps students have already completed, in order, asking students to identify where in their own work each step happened, rather than presenting the steps as new information: Select an Issue — the best RINA projects focus on something students are genuinely passionate about, which is why Lesson 2 put product selection first. Gather Information and Identify Connections — using secondary sources to identify real knowledge gaps (Lessons 2 and 5). Conduct Primary Research — surveys, interviews, or experiments (Lesson 8). Determine an Effective Course of Action — awareness, education, better inventions, personal behaviour change, or advocacy for systemic change (Lesson 8).
FINDING INSPIRATION IN THE WORK OF OTHERS
Show the "Not in Harry's Name" video — the Harry Potter Alliance's real campaign pressuring Warner Bros. to make Harry Potter Chocolate Frogs Fair Trade certified. Discuss: which RINA step does this campaign make most visible? Note explicitly that presenting a plan to someone actually positioned to implement it — a company, an official, an institution — can itself count as the "course of action," not just a report on one.
PREPARING AND DELIVERING PRESENTATIONS
Students create a brief presentation (any format) covering: a summary of the most significant actors, benefits, and harms connected to their product; their research question and how primary research findings shaped the action taken; a description of the action and an honest evaluation of its impact; and recommendations for next steps — maintaining the benefit while reducing harm, stricter regulation, or (where justified by the evidence) a full ban. Invite the guest expert from Lesson 8, or another relevant real audience — a city councillor, business representative, or school board member — to hear presentations and respond.
REFLECTING
Students reflect using a Keep/Stop/Start-style structure, the same protocol used elsewhere in the Tikkun curriculum: what about their approach worked and is worth keeping in future work; what didn't work and should stop; what they'd start doing differently next time. Close by returning to the unit's Central Idea — individual action is necessary but not sufficient — and asking students to state, in their own words, what systemic-level change (if any) their own research suggests is still needed beyond what they personally did.
Notes for Teaching and Evaluation
Naming RINA only now, retrospectively, means the framework functions as a moment of recognition ("that's what I was already doing") rather than a new procedure imposed on unfinished work.
Explicitly noting that presenting to an authority figure can itself be the "course of action" prevents students from treating the presentation as separate from, or lesser than, their actual project.
Reusing the Keep/Stop/Start reflection protocol from elsewhere in the Tikkun curriculum, rather than introducing a new one at the very end of the unit, keeps the cross-grade habit of mind consistent.