In over a decade as a public school teacher, I have never experienced a moment like this.
Sheer access to technology has been shifting what classrooms looked like in Massachusetts since long before the coronavirus. Now, ready or not, all stakeholders have been thrust into the digital learning space with the gentle grace of a flailing belly flop. Welcome to the future.
As you well know, most content is Google-able. Memorizing dates and capital cities bears little relevance for today’s learners. In 2020, job-readiness means having the critical thinking skills and agile mindsets to solve new problems, many of which we cannot predict. Authentic learning spaces are those that integrate boundless digital resources with pressing real-world issues. For higher order thinking to occur, students must feel ownership over their chosen obstacles.
I have navigated hundreds of small failures in executing project-based learning over the years, but never any harmful ones. When young people determine their own issues of study, they are more apt to meet disagreements and shortcomings with creativity as opposed to frustration.
In one instance, very early in my career, my remedial English class became divided as to whether Wilson Rawls’ classic novel "Where the Red Fern Grows" drew more pressing attention to the needs of animals or the elderly. In the end, students organized an unforgettable picnic for both rescue dogs and senior citizens in our community. Along with their deep textual engagement, they coordinated transportation, formulated a budget, wrote a cookbook, secured donors, stayed after school to prepare culinary dishes for our guests of honor and drafted a press release for the local paper. These efforts went well beyond the demands of my project rubric. Furthermore, growth on the MCAS for this particular cohort of students dwarfed that of their peers across the district and the state.
I have continued to structure my class in this way. Students use curriculum materials to identify a problem in the community, research solutions, partner with a local organization, execute a project and celebrate the impact. As a result, I’ve watched some of my most challenging students revive a neglected arboretum, commission a mural, collect and distribute thousands of volumes for children without access to books, choreograph a flash mob, design a soccer field for the Worcester Housing Authority, and that’s only the beginning. It is my job to make sure our lessons lead to mastery of the national standards along the way. In this capacity, I have become a facilitator and a coach rather than a “sage on the stage.”
Many of these projects naturally incorporate elements of urban planning — an occupation I might have pursued, had I known it existed when I was in middle school.
One such endeavour explored the architectural approach to designing Polar Park, the future home of the Worcester Red Sox. Participants imagined the multi-million dollar development as walkable, featuring creative retail, and elevating access to public spaces. The model that students built made use of a variety of recyclable items that you might already have on hand, such as tinfoil, cardboard boxes and paper towel rolls. I should likewise credit The Worcester Red Sox, who celebrated the work of a fifth-grade class at Swanson Road Intermediate School and a seventh-grade class at Burncoat Middle School, both of whom I had the pleasure of completing this project with.
If your child is at all curious about the addition of Polar Park to our city’s landscape, I encourage you to set them loose on this STEM module and share your results with @polarpark2021 on Instagram, twitter or Facebook. You can access materials at www.tinyurl.com/polarparklessons. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me directly with questions or for modifications. We’re all teachers now.
2020-03-26 07:20:19Z
https://www.worcestermag.com/entertainmentlife/20200326/lifestyle-project-based-learning-from-home
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