The Student-Centered Shift: Empowered International Schools and Classrooms Through Project-Based Learning

How much voice and ownership do you provide students in their learning journey?   I understand the fears the fears of inviting too much input:   What if students go in a direction I can't support? Steer too far away from mandated curriculum? Decide on projects and products I've never developed myself? And so oftentimes we keep learning experiences locked in a tightly sealed, 'teacher-centred box.'...

There are several skills that are hard to build in students within the walls of a classroom. Skills like leadership, community building, survival, mentorship, global citizenship, and expedition planning.  On expeditions outside of the classroom, these skills come naturally; whether it's assisting farmers plant in the marshes of Indonesia (pictured above), or cultural treks to learn about isolated...

Designing a learner-centered experience isn't that complicated. It requires only a few shifts in the way we currently design projects, units, and lessons.  Building a learner-centered environment to allows the experience to fly? That takes years.   It requires a long term commitment from staff, leadership, parents and students to create a culture built around the learner. I call that PBL 2.0.  How...

AI is here. And while many schools are still wrapping their heads around how to best use it, some classrooms are already using it to enhance learning experiences.  Whether that's in animating student written memoirs; or acting as a co-pilot in student research and investigation. AI can improve learning outcomes and make our lives easier when we have the courage to embrace it.  In this episode I si...

What happens when we co-design learning experiences with our students? Give them choice over the product they create. Questions they pursue. Teammates they assemble.  This was Maheen's big pondering when she began sharing ownership of PBL experiences with her year 3 students. The results were immediate. Learners inquired more critically, brought in talents she never knew they had, and planned pres...

We talk a lot about tips, strategies, frameworks, and components of project-based experiences, but we don't talk a lot about mindsets.    How do you develop the mindsets that allow for creativity, agility, uncertainty, and experiences that move in several directions? In this episode, Thompson Morrison and Kavita Tanna, Founders of Ustawi Movement Global expose us to a process that builds these min...

As an edu-transformer, if someone asked you point blank, what are the top 10 ways to re-imagine the schooling experience, what would you tell them?  That's what I asked longtime experiential educator, innovator, school designer, podcaster and project-based learning practitioner Steve Shapiro. And because Steve believes in continually being counter-culture, he gave me 11.  This episode unpacks thos...

Why do we still use traditional transcripts to report on learning? As if academic marks are all that matter.  Transcripts don't tell the story of a learner's strengths, special talents, competencies, certifications, or skills. Or their abilities as critical thinkers, leaders, creators and collaborators.  But what if they did? What if in a highly visual way, they created a narrative for the WHOLE C...

As learner-centered practitioners, I imagine we are all firm believers in the benefits, and postive outcomes project-based experiences have on our students. But what about our learners? Do they feel the same way? In this short podcast interview, I chat with two learners, Stanley and Flora at experimental PBL School VIS Better World Lab in Taiwan to get their take on how project-based experiences h...

What do all of these assessments have in common? 💡 A field guide to the of the local flora and fauna in the region. 💡 A community garden. 💡 A recipe book for healthy meals using only 5 ingredients. 💡 A tourist handbook of the 'hidden gems' of the city. 💡 A podcast featuring community stories of hope. 💡 A published paper in a professional magazine around how to protect the local wetlands. The...

Why do we grade students?   Is it to measure and evaluate learning? Provide students an incentive to do their work? Reflect the 'rigour' of our classroom?   Research shows that grades don't accomplish any of these things.   What if there was a better way to measure, monitor and evaluate student growth? And share a story of their learning journey... What if we eliminated grades entirely?   That's e...

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have become a focal point for many schools.  But few are taking real ACTION on a local level to make these goals become a reality.  What would happen if we shifted the focus away from seemingly out of reach global goals, to more tangible local goals? 'Think global, act local,' is the motto Paul Karpawich as adopted to achieve this aim through REAL projec...

It's not unusual to find MakerSpaces popping up on several school campuses as a way to offer students hands on learning opportunities.  But does 'making' have to be confined to the MakerSpace for only a few classes per week? What would happen if ALL educators adopted a 'maker' mindset, and provided hands on opportunities that spanned all classrooms, subjects and learners?  My guest and MakerSpace...

It's easy in project-based experiences to get caught up in the shiny final 'product' at the end. But just like the tip of an iceberg, the product is only a small part of a much deeper PROCESS of learning taking place underneath. How do we capture that process, and make it more visible? What simple tool might allow learners to document that process on their own? Welcome to Unrulr, a social learning...

Many powerful project-based experiences are borne inside Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs, electives, STEM or after school classes. But for most of these PBL experiences, that's where they stay.  What would happen if these project-based experiences moved beyond the walls of these progams and into the mainstream curriculum and broader community? What IMPACT might they have then?  In th...

Many schools spend millions of dollars on state of the art learning environments, yet few of them have the desired impact on learners. Why?  Because they weren't designed WITH the learners, and integrally connected to learner-centered EXPERIENCES.  In this episode, I sit down with Ashley Durdle of world renowned Verso Inernational School to discuss how to seamlessly connect the two.  Learn how the...

The SDGs (sustainable development goals) have become a huge focal point for many schools.  With climate change, water pollution, and elimination of biodiversity effecting the entire planet, it makes complete sense. But how do we address these HUGE issues on a local level?  In this podcast episode, I sit down with Margo LaPointe, director of award winning Seaview Learning, to hear how her students...

Lots of large international schools are seeking ways to make learning experiences more relevant, interdisciplinary and project/problem-based.  Yet between fixed timetables, a demanding curriculum, large student bodies, and siloed subjects, they are finding it difficult to do more than offer a few lessons per week.  What if there was a way to make experiences like these the main course?  In this po...

Imagine your most challenging students- The ones who can't sit still, blurt out, submit low- quality work, have difficulty working with others, and seem totally checked out suddenly self-managing, coming in voluntarily after class, submitting polished work, and leading teams. That's what happened in several classrooms when they were transformed into canvases for student-run businesses.   These for...

So many schools are spending millions of dollars to reconfigure learning environments to be more fit for the '21st century' and project-based learning. But when the spaces are finally built, they don't have the effect on teaching and learning that they desired.  Why? Because the LEARNERS weren't involved in designing them.  But what if they were? And what if it was their first project?  In this ep...

How can the most innovative square mile on the planet also be plagued by racial injustice 2 blocks away? And what can we do about it? This is just one of the many difficult questions teens at 'Innovators For Purpose' are tackling through project-based experiences they design in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They are building installations. Publishing books. Creating augmented reality simulations. Buil...

What would happen to learning if you collapsed the timetable, paired teachers, and co-designed community and passion driven projects? This is what American International School does for one week each year with its "PBL intensives." It is now in iteration 3.0.  The results have been incredible...  Teachers have re-configured their classrooms to be more learner-centered. Built partnerships for learn...

What if before developing 'Projects' we first built P artnerships? Connected students with real P eople? Became more familar with our P lace?  P urpose? This is what Dr. Jane Shore, Director of Community Partnerships at the Revolution School advocates for in her unique version of 'PBL.'  Learn more about how she co-creates this space with learners and how to seamlessly:  Build partnerships with yo...

What if schools operated more like a start-up?  Students as entrepreneurs.  Schedules- flexible.  Community as partner.  Community needs, and student-generated solutions as the curriculum.  Teachers as project mentors.  Assessment as value. This is what learning looked like for 14 year old student entrpreneur Raheen Fatima, when she joined a local incubator in Pakistan.  In this podcast episode, I...

Are you planning to launch your very first project-based experience in the 2022-2023 school year? That can be exciting and terrifying all at the same time.  This episode provides insights and tips from teaching team Michelle Willis and Dave Sheenan who launched their first project in the 2021-2022 school year. Through the re-telling of their 'Suenos Unidos' (Dreamers Unite) project, they teach us...