4. ADVANCED PROJECT DESIGN Module Summary This module focuses on advanced project-based learning strategies, with an emphasis on developing authentic, rigorous, and engaging projects for pupils. Students will understand the levels of audience and how they relate to student engagement. They will engage in a project-tuning to develop their thinking about project design. What You’ll Learn: 1. Understand the link between authentic audience and student engagement 2. Develop a design for an advanced project 3. Engage in a project-tuning with colleagues
1. Read “Keeping it Real”, by Heather Riley
READING & RESPONSE
Heather introduces six dimensions of grading the authenticity of a project. Response: Which of these principles most resonates with you right now? What might you refine in your design to make your project more real?
Keeping it Real Heather Riley High Tech Middle
Like many adults, I have trouble remembering a time in school when I felt really engaged and empowered. My one cherished memory was of fourth grade when my teacher created a “town” out of our classroom. We all had to apply for the job we wanted, pay rent and utilities, balance our checkbooks, and receive a paycheck. I yearned for the newspaper reporter position. I put my best effort, and penmanship, into my job application because I truly cared if I got the job or not. Now, as a teacher in a project-based school, this seems contrived and almost silly. Although I got that newspaper job, I never got to publish a newspaper. Other than the bankers who signed our paychecks, I am not sure anyone really accomplished their “job.” Yet, this experience seemed more connected to the real world than anything else I had encountered before, or would encounter in my 13 years of general education. It is one of the gems I took with me from elementary school, when I first knew I wanted to be a teacher. That early taste of what I enjoyed so much in that project set me on a course to create authentic learning experiences for my students. The Maya Community Project is a joint venture between my classroom and Virmah, an organization run by Vicente Cumes of San Pedro, Guatemala, to send Mayan students in the highlands of Guatemala to school. My class researched the ancient Maya and learned about the current conditions of indigenous people in Guatemala by analyzing excerpts of Rigaburta Menchu Tum’s memoir. Students then applied for various jobs and worked together to write, translate, publish and sell a children’s book about Mayan culture. Adria Steinberg (1997) discusses the need for schools to provide “real” work, where students have direct access to the world and opportunities to impact lives beyond their own. She asks, “How Real is Real Enough?” and presents several guidelines to help teachers check the authenticity of projects. The Work has Personal and/or Social Value, Beyond the School Setting. Middle school students are intrigued by humanity, from the girl across the classroom to the boy thousands of miles away. Often it is hard to tune them out to the people and social systems around them, so it is important to bring that human perspective into my class. By creating a product that could be marketed and sold to address a real need—sending Mayan children to school—I was able to bridge my classroom and the world outside while still teaching history content. In addition, students felt they were creating something of lasting value. Seeing people from around the world purchase their book was a powerful reinforcement of the importance of their work. The Work is Taken Seriously by Adults Engaged in Similar Issues or Work. The idea of giving students work similar to adults—editing, translating, fundraising, public relations, web design, graphic design—is a strong first step in authenticity. But allowing them to tackle important issues that children and adults care about—poverty,
education, helping those in need—is necessary to really connect to the adult world. Children are capable of so much compassion. They want to take on big issues and they want an adult audience for their work. This year and last, the communications committees were flooded with e-mails from adults offering support, donations, and news media connections. One highlight of the project was when students appeared on the NBC San Diego morning show to talk about the project and to promote their book. It was amazing to see how thoughtfully students responded in their interviews. Being taken seriously by adults who were concerned with the same issues made the students’ work much more meaningful. Students have Access to Appropriate Technology, Tools, and Materials. What seems to strike students right away about the project is that the book is really published. Not bound together at school, but published like the books they see at the store or in the library. Their faces light up when they find out that they will be able to buy the book online. They are even more excited when they learn that anyone can purchase the book at Barnes & Noble or Amazon. Using the same technology as adult designers and publishers to create a professional-looking product was a huge motivator for students. Students See a Reason for What They are Doing Beyond Getting a Grade. After introducing students to the project and the work that would be involved, I asked them to journal about their excitement and their worries. One student wrote, “I am kind of scared of this project because I’m afraid that if I mess up on my part people will get kind of mad. I am also afraid that if I mess up on the facts it will accidentally get published and people will get wrong information on the Mayans.” It is fantastic to have students care about the accuracy of their work, not for the grade, but because the work serves a larger purpose. Last year, students knew that the money they raised would enable Mayan kids to go to school. This year, students knew that it was up to them to continue to sponsor these same kids. My students saw pictures of these boys and girls. They had those faces as reasons for doing well. They understood that real people would be affected by what they produced. The Work is Structured to Emulate High Performance Work Environments. If I learned anything from my fourth grade class it was that students love simulations of the adult world. But they also can see when there is no real connection, when the simulation is more make-believe than real life. By asking students to apply for jobs and to publish and promote a book, students saw their work mirror that of adult professionals. In the persuasive cover letters that accompanied their job applications, students described their qualifications with eloquence, clarity, and detail. They knew that their writing had the power to get them the job they desired. They also knew that each position was fundamental to the publication of the book. The editors did all the editing; the graphic designers created the cover; the public relations committee contacted news agencies. Each student’s expertise, and ability to work with others, was valued and contributed to the success of the work environment. I love to hear that students are excited or worried about the exact same things I am. During this project, we were all scared that we wouldn’t make enough money or that we would print a mistake. We cared about the quality of our work and the effort we put in because the work mattered. It had value outside the school, was taken seriously by adults, and asked students to work in the same ways adults do. Most importantly, the accountability for producing something beautiful did not come from me. It came from
outside the classroom and from within the students themselves. All I had to do was design an authentic project! References Steinberg, Adria (1997). Real Learning, Real Work. New York: Routledge. For more information about the Maya Community Project, visit Heather Riley’s digital portfolio at http://dp.hightechhigh.org/~hriley/
2. Read “Learning as Production, Critique and Assessment”, by Elisabeth Soep
READING & RESPONSE
Elisabeth articulates a passionate position for rethinking learning environments to radically shift the roles of adults and young people engaged in learning together. She calls this “collegial pedagogy.” Response: What feelings or thoughts arise for you as you consider how to implement a collegial pedagogy in your classroom? What conditions are necessary to doing work like this?
Learning as Production, Critique as Assessment Elisabeth “Lissa” Soep Youth Radio
Lissa Soep is Senior Producer and Research Director at Youth Radio, a national youth development organization and independent production company where young people produce media stories for National Public Radio, iTunes, and other local, national, and international outlets. The Youth Radio stories Lissa has co-produced with young people—on topics ranging from school reform to mental illness to young soldiers returning from the Iraq war—have been awarded top media honors including the Edward R. Murrow and George Foster Peabody Awards for excellence in journalism.
INTERVIEWER You write about learning as production. How did you come to think about learning this way? LS Part of what inspired my thinking was a combination of watching what happened when young people generated original work for significant audiences, and realizing that there was powerful learning taking place that traditional acquisition models of learning could not explain. I was seeing a great deal of evidence that learning was something we do, as opposed to something we possess and then pass on. INTERVIEWER How does critique fit into this process? LS I became interested in critique initially because I have a background as a visual artist. There’s a ritual within formal visual arts education, pretty much at every level, called a “crit.” It’s a very formal event, where artists either respond to an assignment or develop a body of work, put it up on the walls, and bring in their peers and other artists. They go from piece to piece and essentially critique the strengths and merits, and then the weaknesses, of the work on display. When I began my graduate work at Stanford, I wanted to look at young people and community-based organizations. So I started studying youth arts collaboratives, where artists were working with groups of young people to produce work that would end in some kind of presentation event to a public. Critique played a large role in these settings. They would often do formal critiques at certain points, where they would pass scripts around, look at the work, and have everyone give feedback. But what really struck me was how critique became an organic part of the way they carried out their work. It was a much more emergent process, as opposed to a formal process at a certain time. It was more like, “We don’t know how to light this shot and it’s not working the way it’s set up and I don’t like it because this is going to happen, so let’s figure this out.” Critique became a resource within the production, as opposed to something tacked on at the end.
And that makes sense, given the research on what makes process-based writing and peer review effective. Sometimes the review process doesn’t go that deep; kids just start to run through check lists and mark up their peers’ papers. So I became really interested in looking at how we could create conditions for young people where critique was a necessary part of getting the work done, as opposed to an assigned process within their own individual writing or other form of expression. INTERVIEWER Were there particular conditions that you found had to be in place for critique to function in that way? LS Yes. In my research and my work with youth, I looked across various events to try and get a handle on the conditions that give rise to critique. First of all, I found that there have to be intense stakes attached to the work. Young people need to care enough, and have enough of an investment in the work, that they are motivated to take a critical eye to their own projects and those of their peers. Second, the standards that are applied to judge the work should be negotiated collaboratively. If there’s just a fixed battery of marks on how to determine the value of the work and it’s all pre-figured in a “right answer” style, it’s not that critique can’t happen. But I’m interested in where critique becomes an organic part of the learning process. This is likely to rise up when part of what youth are asked to do, in addition to delivering on whatever project they’re assigned, is to actually figure out questions of value, questions of when it’s good enough, or what counts as a solid solution or project. This way, youth help drive the assessment process; they set the standards together, instead of just trying to meet someone else’s prefigured standards. Third, and related to that, accountability for the quality of the work needs to be distributed across the group. This is what it makes it necessary for folks to check in with each other and ensure each other’s buy-in as they resolve problems and refine the work. They need to believe that the other people’s positions and perspectives actually matter, as opposed to being a token exercise of “let me have you read my five-paragraph essay even though I know that your opinion doesn’t really count.” Finally, there’s an interdisciplinarity that seemed to be a marker of the different environments where I saw particularly robust forms of critique emerge. I don’t mean this just in terms of combining different disciplines like English and Social Studies. It’s also about environments where young people play various roles, so they often find themselves in situations where they are just at the edge of being in over their heads. As a result, I found that people would look around and turn to others to find ways of moving forward. Those seemed to be moments particularly ripe for critique, where youth realized “I actually don’t have the solution here and there isn’t an obvious authority figure who can tell me the answer, so I better look around because I’m doing something that’s a little outside my particular area of expertise.” INTERVIEWER How do we help youth develop their own shared standards for quality work, rather than just giving them our own? LS When I came to Youth Radio and became one of the adults in the mix, working on stories, and part of editorial meetings—all rich critique environments—I became personally invested in how adults and young people jointly articulate and exercise standards for our work. We spend a great deal of time negotiating standards, and making decisions about which standards are going to be prioritized for which kinds of projects. A concept that emerged from this work is the notion of collegial pedagogy. One way of thinking about this is to consider a process where critique happens between youth and adults who are interdependently producing work and producing standards for the work.
At Youth Radio, this is a constant process. When we’re developing story ideas, we’ll weigh the standard of the outlet or venue and the standard of trying to get a story to the biggest possible audience. We know what kinds of production values different outlets and audiences require. But, at the same time, if a young person who’s working on the piece wants to tell it in a different way, or wants to have a different sensibility to it, or wants to have content that would be unfamiliar to an audience like National Public Radio, that process of negotiating those standards together is part of the learning. These are also some of our most highly charged discussions, because as we make decisions and develop standards, these carry over and inform future projects. You say, “Well, remember last time we did this and these were the consequences, so I really think we should go in this direction.” The standards themselves represent an accumulation of knowledge that the group is continually forming together. INTERVIEWER As you talk, I’m getting this picture of critique as an informal, fluid process, which is different from what often happens in schools. . . LS The challenge in schools is to create a space for collaborative inquiry that doesn’t conclude in a prefigured right answer. Those are the sorts of conditions that give rise to critique, where the standards are outside the control of any one person in the room. For example, when we produced a piece about Oakland violence at Youth Radio, we had to make decisions together about whether to include quotes from police officers—who were dealing with the violence on the streets and at the center of policy debates on how the police should be employed—in an otherwise poetic lyrical story. The quality of that conversation is hard to capture in a grade. For us, it’s about “what is going to be the ultimate effect, both on the aesthetic of the piece, but more importantly on the lives of the people involved” and “how will the outlet ultimately determine whether this piece is going to get out to the audiences that we want to reach.” This kind of work requires an outward-looking orientation. Amazing teachers are always coming up with ways to get their kids’ work to real audiences. They know that it’s powerful when someone besides them sees their students’ work. But, as an educator in an environment like this, I am really aware that it’s not just important for the students. It’s important for the educators. It makes educators accountable, vulnerable, and invested in a different way when they know they’re not the ones who ultimately determine whether a piece or a project was a success. It’s powers beyond them. And part of the work of critique is bringing those outside perspectives and judgments into the room so they become part of what is being discussed, even if no one from that projected audience is physically there. In an imaginary way, they are there, because everybody is bringing their perspectives to bear on the work as it’s being produced. I like to think of critique as a really crowded space. I’ve noticed that in participating in critique, young people aren’t only speaking for themselves but they’re anticipating, imagining or projecting other voices and other perspectives as they assess each other’s work. They situate their own thinking within other people’s ideas and words, other people’s intentions and investments. That has a lot of value as a learning experience for young people. And, in my view, it’s not one they get enough of. INTERVIEWER So, what can schools learn from places like Youth Radio? LS I believe the richest place for shared practice across school and non-school spaces has to do with conditions. It’s not about how to assign critique or make critique happen. It’s about how to create those real inquiry-based experiences that require critique, and to infuse those into classrooms, theater projects, science labs, the yearbook, wherever. It’s about intentionally building those conditions into as many places in young people’s lives as we can find, whether it’s in schools or outside of schools.
The more we can see each other as resources in our work with youth, the better. We work with the same kids. We share many of the same goals. It would benefit all of us if we could establish a more seamless relationship, where students could get credit for the kind of work they do in non-school spaces and teachers could see what students are capable of in those environments. Also, those of us within nonschool spaces could learn about the criteria by which student work is judged in schools, so that we can make sure that the learning we do with youth is valuable in the eyes of educators. INTERVIEWER You’ve written a great deal about critique as a useful form of assessment. Could you talk about that? LS Critique is making judgments about work. In an organic process, critique happens along the way; it becomes a property of learning, as opposed to something that evaluates the end result. It rises up as a resource and becomes an engine in moving the work forward. When you look at the language that happens in critique, it is very forward-looking. It projects a future for the work that is being produced. There is something really important about that, in the sense that what I am doing is going to matter to me and to this community of producers and to our imagined audience. This speaks to the fact that assessment is something that can feed forward, instead of just feeding back. INTERVIEWER This sounds like pretty serious work. Is critique fun? LS Not always. It can be really uncomfortable and argumentative. It can also be very quiet. It reminds me of Stuart Tannock’s idea of “swarming,” where, as young people collaboratively compose something, like kids making a brochure together, their conversations start out pretty sequential. One person will talk, then another, and it’s kind of fragmented. But as it picks up steam, Tannock says it becomes this swarming effect, where all of a sudden everybody is fired up, talking at the same time. If you walk into this not knowing what is happening, it can seem chaotic and disorganized and off-task. But really, those moments of swarming are critical in moving the work forward. That’s how I think of critique. It can invigorate that kind of swarming effect; it gets really animated and passionate with all these different perspectives flying about. To me, that’s a good sign that people are caring about what they’re doing. INTERVIEWER What are you thinking about in your work now? LS I’m really moving from this idea of using critique in work with youth to the broader idea of a collegial pedagogy, where adult professionals in a field and young people emerging into that field come together to carry out shared projects and create original work for outside audiences. This is different from collaborative learning. Collaborative learning implies that there is still an adult who has all the answers, and who is hopefully doing a good job of engaging young people in authentic questions and practices, to a point where they can become full participants in a given field. In collegial pedagogy, young people and adults carry out projects together where they are truly dependent on one another to get the work done. Both parties come in with a certain set of skills, experiences and social networks. This kind of pedagogy values the perspectives and questions that young people bring, and the sensibilities they have that may be unfamiliar to the adults. In Youth Radio, we really try to create projects where youth and adults need each other, where young people lead the inquiry, and where public accountability comes from those outside the production process. Since both
parties are invested and vulnerable regarding the ultimate evaluation of the product, critique becomes a necessary resource for solving problems and evolving the work toward its final release. At Youth Radio, the author of the piece gets the final say in what the piece looks like. This needs to be there. Otherwise, it’s the adults driving the inquiry, making the judgments and owning the process. So young people have the ultimate say. But, they have to situate their own perspectives, desires, analysis and intentions within the larger context of what the work needs to do in the world, what its purpose truly is.
To learn more about Lissa’s work at Youth Radio and her research on critique and collegial pedagogy, check out the following: Chavez, Vivian & Soep, Elisabeth (2005). Youth Radio and the pedagogy of collegiality. Harvard Educational Review, 75(4), 409-434. Soep, Elisabeth (2006). Critique: Assessment and the production of learning. Teachers College Record, 108(4), 748-777. Soep, Elisabeth & Chavez, Vivian (forthcoming). Drop that knowledge: Youth Radio stories. Berkeley: University of California Press. You can also access Teach Youth Radio curriculum resources that offer lesson ideas building on youthproduced stories at: http://www.youthradio.org/archives/teach-youth-radio http://dropthatknowledge.wordpress.com
3. Read “The Power of Audience”, by Steven Levy
READING & RESPONSE
Steven describes the difference between introducing projectoriented learning and project-based learning at the beginning of his article. Response: What challenges did the teacher face in making the shift? How does introducing an authentic audience change the perception of the work for students?
November 2008 | Volume 66 | Number 3
Giving Students Ownership of Learning Pages 7579
The Power of Audience Steven Levy When student work culminates in a genuine product for an authentic audience, it makes a world of difference. I was meeting with Laura, a firstyear 6th grade Spanish teacher in an urban school. She slumped deep in her chair, exhausted after another frustrating day. Quite a contrast from her enthusiasm at our summer institute, where she had first encountered the idea of Expeditionary Learning Schools. Laura had been particularly excited about learning expeditions —academic investigations that teach standardsbased content and skills in the context of meaningful projects. Although she had not had time to design an expedition during our summer work together, she had developed a few ideas that she thought would engage students. She had received encouraging feedback when she presented them to her colleagues. During the first three weeks of school, however, she received different feedback from her students—numerous eye rolls and incessant grumblings. All the activities she thought would appeal to them were greeted with yawns. They couldn't have cared less about her songs, dialogues, or posters. When I met her, she was returning from the copy machine with a stack of pages copied out of a Spanish workbook. "At least they'll be doing something you're supposed to do in Spanish class," she said grimly. "Is there anything you did that seemed to get their attention?" I asked hopefully. "Well, I asked them to make lifesize posters of themselves and label the body parts in Spanish. I thought that would be fun, but mostly they just goofed around. At least they did something. But I know that's not really what expeditions are about." "Do you have any other plans?" I asked. "I thought it would be interesting to study some countries where they speak Spanish. But these kids are too difficult to manage, and it's too hard to organize. No, for now we'll just keep doing pages from the workbook." How could I help this teacher? I thought of a photograph my wife and son had just brought back from a twoweek trip to Guatemala where they were helping to build houses in an Ixil community called San Juan Cotzal. Women and children were the main inhabitants of this highland village. Many of the men had been killed by either the Guatemalan army or guerrilla revolutionary forces. The photograph showed a small "school" in the village: a patchwork tin roof held up with some poles, with no walls, a dirt floor, and children of all ages gathered around the teacher. One
teacher for 40 kids. For these children, most of whom spoke Ixil as their native language, the key to any future life outside their village (or to a productive life in their village) was to learn Spanish. But the school had few resources—and certainly no Spanish books to help children learn the language. I told Laura about my family's trip and about the school's desperate need to teach its students Spanish. "Do you think your students could make simple books, first readers, that we could send to the Ixil children in Guatemala?" She seemed interested. "But what about the district standards?" "Let's say your students are going to write a simple story. Aren't characters an important part of a story?" I asked. "They'll need to learn the parts of the body to be able to describe their characters. And setting, isn't that an important part of a story? They'll have to learn about all the geographic terms and natural features: mountains, rivers, trees, sky, and so on. And plot, doesn't there have to be some action in a story? Won't they have to learn some verbs? And sentence construction? Aren't all these part of the standards?" We went on exploring all the ways she could teach her students core content and skills in the context of making these books for the Ixil children. Because students were at different levels, some students could make an ABC book with pictures and Spanish words, and other students could add sentences. Students who already spoke Spanish could actually write more complex stories. All these would be authentic products, genuinely useful to various children in San Juan Cotzal. The next week I visited Laura's class, told some stories about the conflict in Guatemala, and showed some photographs from San Juan Cotzal. Laura introduced the idea of making books to send to the children. In a short time, Spanish class was transformed from "Gotta do boring worksheets" to "Can we make books to send to these kids in Guatemala?" To be honest, the finished books were not of particularly high quality. But at an exhibition of student work in which all the books were displayed, you would have thought the students had each won the Pulitzer Prize. They radiated pride. The parents were equally enthusiastic. Many had never seen their child work so hard to produce anything like this book. The students read their books to younger children learning Spanish at the elementary school. The school librarian put copies in the library. Laura's students had learned much more than they would have from worksheets. Laura still had much to learn about improving quality by using models of exemplary work, establishing criteria for excellence, teaching students to give feedback, and supporting them through multiple drafts. But the culture of her classroom had changed. She had learned the first principle of getting students to take responsibility for their own work: the power of audience. Why Audience? Writing teachers know about the power of audience. When you write an essay, you have to know who your audience will be so that you can adjust your message and style accordingly.
Chorus and band directors know the power of audience. Why do students work so hard practicing the same passages over and over, week after week? Because the audience is coming for the concert! But who is the audience for 99 percent of the work students do in school? Right—the teacher. If you happen to work with students who come to school eager to win their teachers' approval, you won't need to do much to motivate them. (There might be other problems ahead for students who do their work mainly to please their teachers, but that's another story.) But more and more students come to class with no desire to please their teachers and no vision of the role school might play on their path to success. They may have no one in their family who has traveled that road. The most effective way to engage these students in learning is to create an authentic audience, giving them a sense that someone else (besides teachers and parents) cares about their work. They need to have a vision of a product that matters. They need to learn content and develop skills to complete the product. One of the first things we consider when we design curriculum in Expeditionary Learning Schools is how students can apply knowledge and skills in creating a product that will serve an authentic community need. Examples of Authentic Audience Dimillo's Floating Restaurant Make sure to bring your family with you when you eat at Dimillo's Floating Restaurant in Portland, Maine. The children won't mind waiting for their meal because they'll be busy working on the activity book created by 2nd graders at East End Community School. Teachers Holly Merrow and Nancy Hess invited owner Johnnie Dimillo to their class to talk to students about a problem at his famous seafood restaurant. He told them how kids often got bored waiting for their food, a problem 2nd graders could relate to. He asked the students whether, as part of their study of ocean habitats, they could create an activity book to keep children engaged until their order was ready. Teachers and students looked at models of activity books and brainstormed a list of the things they might include in theirs. To produce a highquality product that the restaurant could really use, they found that they needed to master much content and many skills. One of the essential features of products in Expeditionary Learning Schools is that they demonstrate mastery of the learning targets. The activity book the 2nd graders created showed their scientific understanding of ocean habitats, life cycles, and systems, as well as form and function. For example, one page, which traced a lobster's journey from the ocean to the table at Dimillo's Floating Restaurant, required them to build their economic understanding of goods and services. The students spent a day on a lobster boat and interviewed the captain. They visited a lobster pound. They met with a chef, collecting notes along the way. They read books on lobsters and the ocean habitat. They refined their writing skills and developed rich vocabulary as they produced many drafts. Their learning was embedded in the creation of an authentic product for a famous restaurant. The Erie Canal
Many students in the city of Rochester, New York, study history through an important local landmark, the Erie Canal. The original canal flowed through the city until 1920, when it was converted to a subway system that ran until 1956. Now it is a dilapidated corridor that the state has proposed to fill in with concrete. Students in Shannon Hillman's and Kate Daniels's 6th grade class at the Genesee Community Charter School learned about an alternative plan to revitalize downtown Rochester by recreating the canal. They embarked on a yearlong expedition investigating the pros and cons of the proposal. Guided by the New York State social studies standards, they began their expedition by developing an understanding of the historical roles and significance of canals, which enabled early cities to rise in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, Rome, and the MesoAmerican culture. They examined how the construction and uses of canals have changed over time and how canals have affected the economics and environment of the communities they serve. They studied the physics principles at work in locks, boats, and construction equipment. To understand how cities make decisions about economic development, groups of students traveled to four cities in the United States and Canada where similar downtown waterways have been successful in revitalizing and preserving urban neighborhoods. To raise money for these trips, the students all completed a Red Cross babysitting training class and offered their services to families in the school. They also got a grant from a local bank to supplement funds in the school's fieldwork budget. In Ottawa, Canada; Providence, Rhode Island; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and San Antonio, Texas, students met with city planners, business owners, mayors, city engineers, economic development experts, city council members, and visitors' bureau representatives. They met with the architects of the waterway projects. They also interviewed tourists and residents. Students gathered data about steps in the planning process, financing municipal projects, economic outcomes, and the effect of revitalized waterways on residents, business owners, and visitors. They prepared a formal report of their findings to present to Rochester's mayor, Robert J. Duffy, who agreed to squeeze them into his busy schedule at 7:30 a.m. because he had a city council meeting at 8:00. One by one, students approached the podium and presented different parts of the report. When they finished, the astonished mayor invited the class to repeat their presentation to the entire city council. The class also presented their research at a public town meeting and hosted a callin talk show on a local radio station to elicit public comments and answer questions about the plan. In a subsequent meeting, the city council appropriated $350,000 to do a feasibility study of the urban waterway plan. Tuskegee Airmen Students who attend Central Alternative High School in Dubuque, Iowa, have been unable to succeed in a traditional school setting. Dubuque social studies teacher John Adelmann designed an expedition to teach students about World War II. He began by choosing a compelling topic—the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the famous allblack air force squadron—which would act as a case study through which students would master curriculum
standards related to World War II. Students in John's class weren't much interested in the Tuskegee Airmen until they discovered that one of the airmen, Bob Martin, had attended the same Dubuque elementary and middle school that some of them had, and had graduated from Dubuque High School in 1936. Students wrote Martin and several other surviving airmen, asking many questions to get their perspectives on the war and their part in it. They followed up with an invitation to the airmen to come to Dubuque to be guest speakers at a public seminar in which the students would teach the community what they had learned about the extraordinary achievement of these courageous Americans. Students conducted research on the war and the Tuskegee Airmen. They practiced public speaking before going into the community to raise awareness of the squadron's remarkable story. They spoke at various community and civic organizations, did live radio interviews, and orchestrated newspaper coverage to raise public awareness and generate funds. They brought four of the Tuskegee Airmen to Dubuque, sponsored a public seminar attended by more than 900 people, and donated $5,200 to support the Red Tail Project—an effort to restore a P51C Mustang fighter, the same make and model the Tuskegee Airmen flew over southern Europe. John collaborated with English teacher Tim Ebeling to help students turn the firsthand information they gained from the letters and questionnaires into a book. The students wanted to tell the whole Tuskegee story, including the disturbing similarities between Hitler's racial policies and the United States' racial practices at that time. Their book, The Tuskegee , includes 230 pages of original research and has sold Airmen: Victory at Home and Abroad more than 1,500 copies. William Holton, the historian of the Tuskegee Airmen Oral History Documentation Project, has entered the book and the interviews conducted by the students into the national database as a resource for historians. John noted, An interesting parallel between the perceptions the military had of the airmen 50 years ago and the public's impression of alternative students today was not lost on student Drew Brashaw. Drew commented, "These guys had something to prove. The world didn't believe that black men could fly planes, let alone protect bombers. Sometimes it feels like we have something to prove, too, just because we go to Central. Some people think we're lazy, and won't ever make anything of ourselves."
Not after this expedition. A World of Difference These expeditions are not isolated examples of exceptional teachers and gifted students. Expeditionary Learning Schools Outward Bound works with 4,300 teachers and 45,000 students, many of whom are struggling to overcome racial and economic disadvantages. There is, of course, a wide spectrum of implementation as teachers like Laura learn how to design and manage expeditions, but there's one thing all our teachers have discovered: When student work culminates in a genuine product for an authentic audience, it makes a
world of difference in student engagement, learning, and achievement. At Expeditionary Learning, we have a growing archive of more than 400 authentic products, including biographies of nursing home residents, field guides to neighborhood flora and fauna, water study presentations to city councils, portraits of recent refugees from wartorn countries, geological guides to regional landforms, themebased calendars on everything from fitness to civil rights heroes, and alternative energy reports to school committees, to name a few. These products show what students can accomplish when we give them meaningful projects and the right support. When students work on curriculum standards in the context of producing a genuine product for an authentic audience, the result is enhanced achievement in contentarea knowledge, literacy, craftsmanship, and character.
About Expeditionary Learning Schools Expeditionary Learning Schools Outward Bound is a national nonprofit organization that works with schools to improve student achievement, build student character, enhance teacher practices, and instill a positive school culture. At the heart of this approach are learning expeditions: interdisciplinary units aligned with state and district standards that culminate in sophisticated products demonstrating student skill and understanding. The Expeditionary Learning approach is experiential and project based, involving students in original research—with experts—to create highquality products for audiences beyond the classroom. Thirdparty studies conducted by the Rand Corporation, the Academy for Educational Development, the American Institutes for Research, and the National Staff Development Council support the effectiveness of the Expeditionary Learning approach. To learn more about the projects described here and others from Expeditionary Learning schools, visit the Expeditionary Learning Schools Outward Bound Web site at www.elschools.org .
EXTENSION
‘Real Learning, Real Work’, by Adria Steinberg
WATCH
REAL Interactive #1: Project Tuning Protocol
Stages of REAL Project Design Use the Project Process cards to assess a project that you have completed in the past.
ACTIVITIES
Identify an area for improvement and refine your process thinking. Present your new project plans to a group of colleagues in a project tuning. Team Task: Ref ect as a team. Discuss and moderate differences in how you assess the projects.
Module 4 / 18pt, regular
Stages of REAL Project Design
Module 4 Advanced Project Design Stages of REAL Project Design
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Module 4 / Advanced Project Design
Stages of REAL Projects Design
REAL Project Components: Stages of Development
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Module 4 / Advanced Project Design
Stages of REAL Projects Design
REAL Project Components: Stages of Development
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Module 4 / Advanced Project Design
Stages of REAL Project Design
PROJECT-ORIENTED LEARNING Overview: Project-oriented learning is characterised by applications of knowledge that is gathered through mainly traditional (directtransmission) teaching methods. That is, the teacher gives lectures, and the students are given a task to produce an assignment related to their learning. Project-oriented learning include products, and may include some level of multiple drafts and critique. The final product may or may not be exhibited in a public setting, but is mainly designed for students apply and demonstrate knowledge and skills acquired through classroom instruction.
Examples: •Book Project •Science Fair •Castle Project
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Module 4 / Advanced Project Design
Stages of REAL Project Design
PROJECT-BASED LEARNING Overview: Project-Based Learning is characterised by learning experiences that are driven by the creation of a product that resembles professional standards. They include complex essential questions, public exhibitions, and a product process of multiple drafts and critiques.
Examples: •Roller Coaster Project •Scenes of War Project •Bridge Project
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Module 4 / Advanced Project Design
Stages of REAL Project Design
REAL PROJECTS Overview: REAL Projects are characterised by a rigorous, engaging, and authentic learning experiences. REAL Projects include complex essential questions that are asked in real world environments, authentic audiences, public exhibition, and critique and multiple draft processes for all student work to achieve standards of excellence.
Examples: •Words for Wildlife Project •Beyond the Crossfire •Historical Heroes Project
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Module 4 / Advanced Project Design
Stages of REAL Project Design
Target Areas: Design Brainstorm
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Module 4 / 18pt, regular
Stages of REAL Project Design
Target Areas: Design Brainstorm
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Module 4 / 18pt, regular
Stages of REAL Project Design
INVITE COLLEAGUES TO A TUNING PROTOCOL Overview: A protocol is a structured conversation focused on a specific goal. Protocols are designed to provide a focused, safe, and equitable way to share your work and receive feedback to make improvements or answer dilemmas that you are facing.
Protocol: Download the full Project Tuning Protocol Handout (PDF) •Overview (5 minutes) Presenter gives an overview of the work and explains what goals he/she had in mind when designing the project. The presenter then shares a dilemma by framing a question for the critical friends group to address during the discussion. •Clarifying Questions (5 minutes) Critical friends ask clarifying questions of the presenter. •Probing Questions (8 minutes) Critical friends ask probing questions of the presenter. •Discussion (15 minutes) The group discusses the dilemma and attempts to provide insight on the question raised by the presenter. •Reflection (5 minutes) The presenter has the opportunity to respond to the discussion. •Debrief (5 minutes) The facilitator leads a conversation about the group’s observation of the process.
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• What did you learn from the project tuning?
REFLECTIONS
• How can you implement these changes in your next design? • How might you share this tuning process with colleagues at your school?
