When putting together my thoughts for this weeks post, I kept thinking about the project I just completed for the EDIM Project Based Learning class. I find it hard to think of a better strategy.

Much of what Howard Gardner refers to, especially those higher order thinking skills like synthesis, can be accomplished in the Project Based framework. The guiding questions and associated tasks may also be tweaked to address multiple learning styles, incorporating many digital resources.

The below example represents a team project completed for the Project Based Learning course. If I were in the classroom this is the framework I would use to deploy multiple strategies, utilizing digital tools and resources.

Click to view the Immigration Project.

We are committed to a strong and comprehensive educational program and learning environment.

You’d be hard pressed to find a district/school that didn’t include something similar to the above in their mission statement.  Specifically, they all like to mention the “learning environment”.  What is that exactly, the “learning environment”?

In The Courage to be Constructivist, M. G. Brooks and J.G. Brooks (1999) describe a learning environment as,  “… a function of many complex factors, including curriculum, instructional methodology, student motivation, and student developmental readiness.”  Wiggins and McTighe (2008) expand on this in their Put Understanding First article for Educational Leadership, describe that the learning environment, as it relates to the mission of schools, involves, “helping students (1) acquire important information and skills, (2) make meaning of that content, and (3) effectively transfer their learning to new situations both within school and beyond it.”  Unfortunately, as all four authors mention in their respective articles, few schools have acknowledged these truths and continue to be “…constrained by our history” (Brooks & Brooks, 1999).

It seems odd to me that our educational history is mentioned as an obstacle to overcome.  When great leaders like John Dewey suggested in 1938 the framework for a proper “learning environment”, project based learning (Johnson, Laurence F., Smith, Rachel S., Smythe, J. Troy; Varon, and Rachel K. 2009).  Dewey understood that “the search for understanding motivates students to learn” (1999).  Today expert’s like Daniel Pink have echoed this sentiment, diving in and taking a deeper look at what truly motivates us; it’s not necessarily the carrot. The Project Based Learning (PBL) framework is designed to help us stay true to our mission; incorporating the information, skills, value beyond school and relevance components that are instructionally sound.

The research shows that students that are in PBL programs perform better than students in a traditional setting (Edutopia, 2001).  When students are asked about their experience with PBL, an overwhelming majority say they had a positive experience (Johnson, and Laurence F. et al, 2009).  Having 30% of our students dropping out and knowing that student disengagement is one of the top contributing factors, PBL is just the hook we need (Johnson, and Laurence F. et al, 2009).

Hooks can come in many shapes and forms.  Sometimes just their name can entice you in.  Forensics.  Some of you, I’m sure, just had the auditory centers of your brain light up, probably with The Who theme song from  CBS’ C.S.I. Sorry, no cool, I found a dead guy, story, because for me another center of the brain lights up, the one where debate lives.  My sophomore year in college I joined the debate team or as the class was called, Clemson University Forensics and Debate Team.  Our teacher, was in-fact our coach.

She gave very little instruction, simply placed the theme for the semester up on the board, Foreign Policy.  She mapped out the upcoming meets and laid out the timeline for the next three weeks.  Office hours were given, the senior team members introduced and then she asked us to get started.  This was completely different from any class I had ever been in before, but maybe the most useful I’ve ever taken.  I truly learned how to take notes, research, listen, analyze and work as  a team.  Writing had a purpose.  Note taking had a purpose.  The library had a purpose.  These tools all at once made sense, because I knew I was going to have to defend our stance on foreign policy and rip there’s apart.

Through all of this our coach was there to answer basic questions, but more often than not she would direct us to other senior team members, building collaboration and communication.  They had me, hook, line and sinker.

Brooks, M.G., & Brooks, J.G. (1999). The Courage to be constructivist. Educational Leadership, 57(3), Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/nov99/vol57/num03/The_Courage_to_Be_Constructivist.aspx

Edutopia, Initials. (2001, November 1). Pbl research summary: studies validate project-based learning . Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/project-based-learning-research

Johnson, Laurence F.; Smith, Rachel S.; Smythe, J. Troy; Varon, Rachel K. (2009). Challenge-Based Learning: An Approach for Our Time. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J.G. (2008). Put Understanding first. Educational Leadership, 65(8), Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/may08/vol65/num08/Put_Understanding_First.aspx

Where can you find pleasure
Search the world for treasure
Learn science technology
Where can you begin to make your dreams all come true

- The Village People, Go West, “In the Navy”  RCA, 1979.

Growing up listening to “The Village People”, I worked at the YMCA, it’s hard to find a better soundtrack to go with the articles I’m reflecting on today.  So dig out that 45, pop in the 8-track, cue up that cassette, wipe off that CD or simply click play.  These three articles, taking place in three very different schools, on both the east and west coasts, highlight several examples of project based learning at it’s best.  Here, I will discuss what common threads have bond these examples, who did the stitching and what does the end product look like.  To start, just a coincidence here, it takes a village to raise a child.

Newport News to Bowie to Seattle, each project detailed could not have been successful if not for a community approach.  Newsome Park invited in the community to consult on and critic projects.  Mountlake Terrace involved architects, not just as one time guests, but as a true partner; providing critics and expertise to students and gaining fresh insights and design ideas that they incorporated into their designs.  These community connections were not limited to parents and local experts, all three schools utilized technology to go beyond the school walls and tap experts around the globe.  This is the case in the March of the Monarchs: Students Follow the Butterflies’ Migration example (Curtis).  Students continuously connected to scientist tracking the migration paths of the butterflies, recording and sharing their own data with the experts; producing authentic intellectual work.

Authentic work was key to the success of all three stories highlighted here, and is key to any successful project.  Each project provided students with the opportunity to complete tasks that reached beyond the school walls.  Not only connecting students to experts, but also equipping them with skills used by professionals in diverse fields.  Designing a building, presenting a proposal and defending a position are all valuable skills that the teacher incorporated into the project; skills that are not only useful in the current marketplace, but essential.  The project tasks, designed by the teachers, showcased and reflect this authentic approach.

Teachers play a different role in project based learning.  As each article articulates, project based learning is more than likely different from how you were taught.  I myself, on many occasions, am guilty of leaving out the most important group in developing the tasks within a project, the students.  That’s right, the students.  Straight from Diane Curtis’,  More Fun Than a Barrel of … Worms article, “If you find it yourself, it stays in your brain.”  The teachers in these articles worked more as consultants/facilitators rather than the traditional teacher. Many of the teachers here did something we as teachers sometimes forget to do; ask the students what they would like to learn.

When you do ask, as the teachers here did, many times the answer is something being talked about in the community.  Cystic Fibrosis.  Production of the school yearbook.  Maybe even a world wrestling company is on the stock market.  Projects were and can be built around each of these topics and guess what, you’re students are already excited about them.  That’s half the battle.  Bringing your students into the conversation changes their role in the classroom from consumer to creator.   When they complete the project and move to the next grade, their role can change again as it did for the students in Mountlake Terrace; from creator to mentor.  The students that had already completed the Schools for the Year 2050, project returned as mentors; helping freshmen with their projects.  Inviting students to participate in their own learning encourages that basic, intrinsic drive we as humans have to gain knowledge about the world around us.  We then go from simply learning for a test to, “students express gratitude to have a chance to learn these things. (Armstrong)”

What do the tests say?  That’s what the papers, the news and the administration will say, right?  Only one of the articles here point to actual numerical data.  You and I both know that knowledge is more than a number, but lets take a look anyway.   Diane Curtis in More Fun Than a Barrel of … Worms?!, points to data from the Virginia Standards of Learning test.  Huge increases are discussed.  30% gain in math.  27% gain in science.  12% gain in English.  What about today?  If this school had it figured out nearly a decade ago, wouldn’t the numbers look similar today.  See for yourself.   Take a look at the stats below.

If we assume that the administration and teachers have continued with project based learning, the evidence is clear that scores have continued to increase, well after this article was written.