Four years ago I created a video on project based learning to showcase to the school board at the district I used to work for showcasing the power of project based learning as an instructional framework. I titled it “Project Based Learning: It’s More Than Projects!” and you can watch it below(be prepared for all star cameos)
This week, four years later I still am passionate about project based learning when done correctly. I was lucky enough to rejoin the school I used to work for and be part of three days of PBL Works PBL 101 training. It was a great three days of learning to help first-year teachers create a project while also tapping into veteran and expert project teachers to share their insights and skills to create new projects of learning.
I want to revisit my original thought of “It’s More than Projects” as showcased in the video.
Let me start with a story that happened during lunch on day 3 of this training. When we broke for lunch, my phone notified me of a message. It was not just any message; it was a message of hope, excitement, and a reminder of the simple things we take for granted every day. It was a message reminding me about the joy and of happiness witnessed through beautiful smiles when we take time to care about our fellow global friends.
Last school year I was fortunate enough to work with one of the best educators I have worked with, Nikki Armstrong. She developed a global project on the following topic: The Power of Water
We partnered with Livingstone Kegode who works to help educate and support students at HIP Academy in Kenya, Africa. Livingstone is a person who I am so honored to not only call a friend, but admire in the work efforts that he does for the students and community. While I do my best to understand it all, I am so humbled and honored to be part of the journey to play a small part in the work he does. He reminds me that we must continue to support one another.
You can read all about the project on the site page where we used tools like Flipgrid to connect the students to explore four topics on water to gain a global understanding of the water issue. Students in Nikki Armstrong’s class used the standards to help kids strengthen their writing, reading, research, and speaking skills. As students developed not only mastery of their standards and learning, they could not lose sight of something that I think is even more important…..
Empathy and Global Awareness
The students could connect with students on the other side of the world to better understand how a resource like water is perceived and used in similar ways and vastly different ways. When we could speak to the students and see images of their needs we felt compelled to do more than simply study facts and read articles and pretend to care about an issue. The students wanted to help the moment they saw the faces and heard the voices of the students on Flipgrid. The issue became real. It became relevant. It was more than simply doing work for a grade. It was about doing work to make an impact. We tapped into the huge hearts of the students who were driven to do their best work to raise the money necessary to provide the students in the village another water tank to ensure that they had enough water.
As the school year ended and students were able to achieve their goals, we had to endure all the red tape that comes with bringing the money the kids raised from the school to the proper location for Livingstone and ensuring it made it to the right hands. For anyone that has not done something like this before, it is not just writing a check or doing a finger scan on Paypal. It is quite the process to make sure it all ends up where it needs to go. THANK YOU Tracy Hanson for all of your help, guidance, and support to make this happen.
Over the summer as we worked through various circumstances some events developed. Livingstone contacted us to let us know that the water issue being addressed by means that were way better than what we could provide. Instead, we could convert the money from the water issue to their food issue.
The school needed food. Food gets the kids to school and we all know how hard learning can be on an empty stomach. Once we approved all the paperwork, we waited to see how it panned out……
Today, we received word that food had been purchased and sent to the school.
The money and hard work of the students allowed the school to receive the following
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Rice 150kg
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Beans 120 kg
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sugar 50 kg
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cooking oil
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tea leaves
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salt, soap
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Firewood
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maize/corns 160kg (100kg delivered, waiting for 60kg)
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paid for milk that will be delivered every morning for making tea.
This provides enough food for the 70 students to have two meals for the remaining part of 2019. This is incredible. It gives me goosebumps to think students made this happen.
And this is the essential moment of a project like this one. While we must ensure students are learning, we could help the students become better people. We developed empathy. We broke down barriers and judgment by bringing students together. We could shed light on bringing awareness to the need to learn and understand the world so students can not only develop more awareness of themselves, but how they can use their skills to make a positive change. What a project like this does is to allow students to feel that they matter and that they can do something about issues they care about. It also provides them a chance to experience an opportunity that maybe they did not realize they cared about until they endured the journey of making it happen.
While we can get caught up in the details of standards, assessments, logistics, planning, and the 3000 other school variables that every single educator deals with on a daily basis, I hope you see the visuals and read this story to know how important this work is in our world today. We need more people empowering students to build their confidence, their skill sets, and motivation to create positive ripples across the world.
And there are educators and leaders like Nikki Armstrong and Livingstone Kegode as living proof that this can be done. Providing students authentic learning experiences is one of the most important experiences we can develop in our schools today.
As you think about your classroom and the projects you are developing, I hope you remind yourself that what we do is more than lessons and standards. It is about developing good people to do good work in this world.
Are you ready?
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