LOVEDOVEINDUSTRIES cultural NGO

The goal of me and my team is to spread light.

Light is the cosmic knowledge that becomes available to our brain.

Light is the all-pervading love that lives in our hearts.

Light is the warmth and the feeling of kinship that arises in our soul from the moment of realizing that perfect wholeness and cosmic greatness are true.

We have realized that we are an insignificant moment in cosmic history. But the period consists of an instant. During that moment, the formation of knowledge and feeling, as a result of experiments and consistently, we categorize and pass on to the generation that comes after us.

In the case of our organization, jewelry became a means of "transmission" when we realized that we had found a universal tool for studying and understanding the universe. Thanks to the experimental method created by us, it became possible to teach it to heterogeneous children starting from 8 years old. Goldsmithing, being a very old craft, expresses man's desire for aesthetics and technology, and a collective symbiosis of various crafts, which makes real all the creative thoughts and dreams that arise in us and the younger generation.

Since 2019, an author's school has been established, where students receive extensive information on aesthetics and technologies, acquire skills in dealing with various crafts, handwork, 3D programs and 3D printers. They learn to create and create their individual creative works, which we offer to the public.

We work in the Mkhitar Sebastasi educational complex as a team teaching the elective subject "Goldsmithing", which serves 100 and more diverse students from 8 years of age. Experience has shown that it is extremely effective to engage in the processes of identifying and developing students' skills and interests from that age. It enables children to more easily navigate the changing future through objective self-awareness and find their soulful place in society.

The team leader, having diverse experience in various fields, being a researcher by nature, is a generator of thoughts and ideas and has an objective authority among team members. But more importantly, he is able to infect all team members with the same inspiration. Demanding of himself and team members. Engages in self-development, constantly works to attract new partners. Directs the generated funds to the modernization of the organization and taking care of the team. Regularly engages in team building, while showing an individual approach to all team members. Along with all that, he never neglects his own initiative, is caring and attentive to everyone's problems or demands. As a result of such an approach, in addition to the fact that the organization is experiencing rapid developments with little funding, the reputation of the organization has increased, the trust in our team and the number of partners and supporters who want to join us have increased.

We took the advice given in this application and filled it out at the end. Thus, the importance of the LEAP project for our organization becomes clear. After answering all the questions, we even realized the importance of the LEAP Challenge in the context of our solution variant/option. The following describes our approach to LEAP from different perspectives and its relationship to our current priority. What we are currently doing and attach great importance to this issue is precisely research work. This is necessary for our team leader to receive a PhD. This is also due to the support of two assistants in research work. LEAP Challenge is directly related to our research work and will form one of its components. Let me tell you something else that we are going to discuss in this work. Consequently, our main educational activities are carried out in a pre-formed way and with an appropriate schedule. We use the remaining time for research work. This means that, having exceeded the amount of weekly expenses provided by LEAP by several times, we will implement the project in order to get the best result in the shortest possible time.

Methodology of teaching goldsmith art in public school

We have created a pilot project that has been running successfully for 4 years and demonstrates the viability of the educational variation method we have created. It will help to solve our problem. Make "Goldsmithing" a subject of general education in all schools of the Republic of Armenia. A good example of this is the subject "Chess", which has been a general education subject in the Republic of Armenia since the 20th century. Extensive research works have been carried out on the method of teaching the subject "Chess", the positive results of which can be found on the Internet. A similar and more profound positive effect is the subject of "Goldsmithing", because apart from the intellectual creative work that takes place in the limited range of chess playing on the playing field, goldsmithing has no domain limitations in intellectual, creative work, in addition, it allows to communicate with many different types of work: with materials and technologies. It directly and indirectly contributes to the motivation of students when studying mathematics, drawing, chemistry, physics, informatics, general education subjects, becoming an interdisciplinary discipline. The next important effect is that from 8 to 12 years. students develop fine motor skills and local coordination.

Thus, experience has shown that a multifaceted positive result is formed in the younger student studying the subject "Goldsmithing". Based on this, as a non-governmental organization, we consider it reasonable to spread such experience in the wider society, causing positive changes among the younger generation of learners.

The groups of students attending our school consist of 5-25 people from 8 to 17 years old. boys and girls, as well as learners with special needs and abilities. The learning process is varied in everything, because from the very first steps we get to know the characteristics, peculiarities, and preferences of students in order to form an individual approach to each student, as well as to form the most correct formula that will allow individual students to be successful as part of a team, and to feel friendly spirit and efficiency of teamwork. Goldsmithing is a unique craft-art that encompasses expertise from a variety of fields, a mix of at least 10 traditional handicrafts and modern technological and 3D digital specialties. 

1.Jewelry design: construction:handmade, electronic. 

2.Modeling: making a model from various modeling waxes and metal. 

3.Candle making: work with foundry wax, injectors. 

4.Mold making: making and cutting molding molds from different types of rubber obtained from the model. 

5.Casting: the process of casting jewelry with inexpensive or expensive alloys. special calculations for obtaining alloys, work with mold mixture using vacuum systems.

 6.Jewelry 3D design  Rhinocereoz, Matrix, Z-Brush programs teaching. Technology and maintenance of different types of 3D printers 

7.Experimental marketing of jewelry products (target, mass media...), organization of exhibitions, sales.

 8.Mining: study, processing, polishing of semi-precious minerals, natural and synthetic faceting of transparent monocrystals. provision of gemological preliminary knowledge, training in working with grinding devices; 

9.Teaching the profession of setting stones: study of different styles and ways of setting different types of " fastening " stones on metal objects: engraving, Swiss, "invisible"... 

10.Chemistry of precious metals: teaching, studying methods of chemical treatment and extraction of metals used in jewelry, using ventilation systems. The gradual display of all these paths creates a gentle, even visual impact on learners. As a result, everyone has an equal opportunity to choose the path closest to their heart. In addition, if desired, after studying one path, you can switch to another path, this gives you the opportunity not to be limited in the field of knowledge study. Of course, the individual organization of all of them requires a lot of effort and attention from the teacher. In our opinion, the connection with reality plays an important role in the variability of learning. Our students, receiving knowledge in different ways, try to monetize the values created through this knowledge. Thus, we ensure the future socialization of the learner, or at least a flexible mechanism is formed in the learner's consciousness, how to choose and acquire knowledge in accordance with the time, which can bring about a positive change in social conditions in our unstable world. The experimental material needed to solve our problem is already ready. Now our leader Davit Petrosyan, as the creator of the method, is now engaged in the scientific justification of the method, after defending the scientific thesis at the "Methodology of Goldsmithing Art Public School" he will receive a PHD scientific degree. It will make our problem easier to solve.

The labs formed during four years have served about 700 students of the specified age. Pedagogical approaches and methods for serving that ensemble emerged intuitively through trial and error. Now we use the authoring method we developed. Based on this, we learn different ways of analyzing the degree of effectiveness of the educational process. We used randomized controlled trials to evaluate effectiveness, since most classrooms are videotaped and made available for public viewing, much information still needs to be analyzed. Researches do not have proper academic structure. However, we have a great opportunity to compare and analyze because we regularly interview many learners and keep them for future evidence base creation.

We also conduct comparative research comparing student-created outcomes (items, skills). The fact that the continuity of attendance of our students increases year by year to 30% allows to create a large base for research. Composed of video recordings, individual interviews, collections of personal, creative objects formed over time (from age 8 to age 12 or 16), the student's developmental dynamics, in addition to individual blogs of students, are a library of developmental dynamics and changing interest levels. The magnitude of the research volume and our still inexperience as academic researchers prompted our leader to enter the ASPU graduate school to continue his studies just to scientifically justify and defend our author's school on the following topic "Goldsmithing Art Methodology in Public School". The fact that we received an offer from the MIT to participate in such a competition and that it could support our research created new excitement. Because we don't want to limit ourselves only to the borders of our country and we will be happy to spread the good experience gained in other countries of the world.

We noted that our research was mostly done in a randomized manner. In addition, not having the knowledge and experience to organize consistent research activities, we acted as follows:

1. We compared and analyzed the video interviews conducted in different periods.

2. We have also compared the works prepared by our students in different periods trying to find growth dynamics.

3. Investigations carried out on the spot, a follow-up was made and a flexible solution was immediately offered.

The information obtained as a result of these non-structured studies allowed for variation in the approach method, in the direction of finding new ways to increase the degree of student motivation. Now digital technology teaching has been added to the new methods. We are talking about Rhinoceros, Matrix, Z-Brush programs. In addition, the presence of 3D printers in the laboratory allows you to quickly see the result of the work. This in turn enables us to develop our learner more flexibly. It can be noted that our laboratories have been in the process of constant change and growth for 4 years now. Therefore, taking into account the mentioned researches related to students and the need for teaching methods, modern tools, we used digital technologies. As a result, we have maintained the efficiency of attendance and hope to increase it. That is the indicator that allows us to assume that everything is going well.

We understand that in order to succeed in the field and make our solution effective, we need to have a scientifically sound method. Therefore, before receiving the offer to participate in LEAP, our leader had already started a scientific study, being accepted as an applicant at ASPU. However, we are sure that the advice given by the scientists of the world's most prestigious technological institute and modern analytical methods will contribute to the effectiveness of our scientific work. That's why it's important to take the LEAP challenge right now.

We are a young experimental organization. We have started to operate in an area that has not been explored until now. That's why we develop with a trial-and-error analytical method. In this case, we may not be able to present our thoughts and our information about the work we do very well, but we hope that even if we make mistakes, we will gain experience by participating in such a competition. According to the opinions of all partners of our organization, we are doing important work to make our society better tomorrow. That is why we participate in this competition, confident that we will interact with more experienced and forward-looking professionals and new colleagues. We are in the right place at the right time.

Having a four-year base of video and photo materials, having students who continue their studies in a professional school, having more than 250 creative works prepared by students, how to justify the viability of the method we created, how to competently evaluate the effectiveness, what scientific methods are available, which will help justify our solution.

We find it necessary to use all the types of research that are mentioned in order to create the evidence base necessary for the solution we present.

  Taking into account the history of our activity and the resulting version of our solution, it has become clear how we will use the video library formed over the years and how we will classify those scientific experiments that were chaotic, inconsistent or did not perform such a scientific experiment at all, and now we will be able to perform , because we are informed that it is the best chance to prove our solution to be true.

All of this aligns very well with the 12-week timeframe of the LEAP challenge, which starts on 18th September 2023 and ends on 8th December, as our work with learners in the age range we serve begins as the new school year on 15th September. and the academic semester ends on December 26. It is very gratifying. Before the start of the challenge, we have time to clearly articulate the necessary research methods and approaches that align with the three research tools provided by the challenge.

The degree of objectivity of the research conducted in this way will be very high, because the total volume of students will include students who came from previous years and are continuing their studies, as well as new students who have just made the choice and are still unfamiliar with the subject. It will very well test the effectiveness of our method or our solution. At that time, we will have the opportunity to immediately organize the educational process and the road map of research works in accordance with the chosen research method. This, in turn, will give us the necessary evidentiary grounds in the field of recording the workability of the method. The assembly of all that will become an objective experimental material that we will be able to use during the defense of our scientific thesis.

The obtained results will be the basis for the defense of the scientific work prepared by us, as they will contain research results substantiated by various methods.

By participating in the LEAP challenge, we will be able to obtain solid evidence of the effectiveness of our method for the aforementioned 8- to 12-year-old heterogeneous learners. It is for this purpose that we participate in the challenge, because we are confident that the LEAP challenge experts will be useful to us and will contribute to our research with state-of-the-art scientific and experimental knowledge, which will make our solution more sound and effective. This will contribute to a more flexible and practical scientific justification of our method and, as a result, we will be able to defend a research thesis for the scientific degree of PhD. This will create a basis for implementing this solution in other schools of the Republic of Armenia in the near future, enabling more students to acquire skills in arts and crafts and technology. This will allow you to develop harmoniously from an early age and form preliminary ideas, being flexible when choosing a profession in the future.

The short-term results are that the evidence base needed for a solution will emerge, which will also allow effective research to be done in the future. We will have solid methods to make our solution visible and provable. This, in turn, will allow us to have more convincing arguments during the further expansion of our project. It will play an important role in obtaining new evidence for the research work we are doing and making us more confident that we will be successful in defending the research work. As a result, our minimum goal will be that the 8- to 12-year-old and older beneficiaries served by this solution will receive scientifically sound and effective service. That service or solution will be more flexible, versatile and modern in a rapidly changing environment.

We will consider long-term the results when we can spread the already successful pilot project to other communities or other countries. It is for this purpose that we carry out research work, creating a method that will provide an effective solution and become a suitable tool for supporting the youth growing up in our Republic. This means that if we can do it right and well, the method can become an acceptable format for many other schools and the partners we develop during the pilot project will be able to effectively transfer this experience elsewhere.