31 Days of Deeper Learning & PBL Blog Series | 1: Intro

I have been immersed in the wonderful and complex world of teaching and education for over a decade. I often wish I started blogging from day one so I could go back and realize how much I have changed thoughts, ideas, and what works in education. It would go to prove that being a lifelong learner means that I can only improve with age.

Typing that previous paragraph reminds of what John Dewey is known for saying, “If we teach as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.”

This post is an intro to 31 post series where I want to document my learning and thoughts I am grappling with as an educator and parent. I have spent the last few years working my thoughts around project based learning ever since I visited High Tech High back in October of 2011 where I started to bring ideas to paper(keyboard) here while on the airplane or here where I mesh my experience of visiting the school with lightsabers, PEZ, and more.

Over the course of almost 4 years of exploration, experimentation, implementation, success, disasters, and more I want to bring a cohesive look at not only project based learning, but a framework of Deeper Learning. Deeper Learning took root in my mind when I read the book Deeper Learning by Monica Martinez last year. I am starting to see how all the pieces fit together.

What I have planned are 30 topics of discussions exploring all aspects of project based learning and how it connects with deeper learning to enhance the learning of all students. Schools need to change. It is time. We must stop the facade that things are okay. They are not. We must look to transform our teaching. I cannot get the following statement out of my mind from the book Transforming Schools in which the authors state something Jal Mehta said: “On the whole, we still have the same teachers, in the same roles, with the same level of knowledge, in the same schools, with the same materials, and much the same level of parental support.”

I have all 30 topics ready and in draft development as I prepare to hit the publish button of this post. I will be taking an honest look at education, learning, pbl, and deeper learning. For anyone who reads this blog or knows me I shoot it straight. There is nothing behind this series except to allow myself to process all my ideas into a coherent series.

With that being said as I go along on this journey bringing my ideas to light with my keyboard and blog I want you to help. If you have questions, agree/disagree with my ideas, or have thoughts to contribute please reach out to me. As I hear from you I will work to include everything into the posts as they will change and be tweaked as this goes along.

I hope you will join me in the conversation. I do not have THE answers(they don’t exist so sorry for the spoiler). What I have are opinions based on my decade long journey in public education with a school of amazing educators working like to mad to meet the needs of students. I hope you find this helpful and thoughtful for your own journey.

With that being said, what would you like to gain from this series?

Coming up next will be taking a look at what exactly is Deeper Learning(What) and PBL(How).