News for Collegiate School Families and Friends
Digging Deep
L
Spring 2014
Project-based learning helps students understand units of study in depth.
earning by doing is not a new concept—Confucius, Aristotle, Socrates and John Dewey all advocated for doing, questioning and researching real-world challenges as a way of achieving a thorough understanding of subject matter. And it’s never been more relevant to preparing students for a future where collaborative teamwork is a mainstay of the workplace. With a new modern name, project-based learning (PBL), this method has been embraced by educators who are seeing that students retain what they learn better when they’re inspired to discover, dig deep and ultimately share with others their findings. To develop expertise in using PBL in the classroom, a group of our Lower School teachers met monthly to discuss their initial efforts, kept a blog of their progress, worked with a facilitator and attended a workshop with educator Diana Laufenberg. “Three sets of teachers have visited the Duke School in Durham, NC to observe their PBL program in action,” says Lower School Head Jill Hunter. “That has been really helpful.” 2nd Grade teacher Jessica Catoggio explains the process that involves discovery, research and sharing: “During our big units of inquiry including oceans, birds and rain forests, the class spends about two weeks learning a general overview of the topic. This learning is done whole-group and exposes the students to habitats, climates, animals, etc. During this time, the children keep individual notes about facts and tidbits that interest them. Following the twoweek overview, they pick one of their interesting facts and develop a question
Jessica Catoggio’s 2nd Grade class studied flight and the anatomy of bird wings. Based on what they learned, the students built their own birds and launched them on test flights in the Lower School garden.
that they are interested finding an answer to by studying it further. “The next two weeks are spent researching and hopefully answering their question by reading books and websites on the topic. Research is closely supervised, and the children’s learning is guided by asking probing questions throughout the research process. Once their questions have been answered, the children choose how to demonstrate their learning. Choices often include, but are not limited to, building a habitat, writing a non-fiction book, creating a creature out of recyclable material, or a technology project. Regardless of the way in which the learning is demonstrated, the unit is project-based, but, more importantly, it is choice-based. The children are studying what they are interested in, they are guiding their own learning and their engagement and interest in these topics is so very exciting! At the end of each of these units, the children share their final products with an audience. Our audiences have included parents, administrators,
other 2nd Grade classes and even Kindergartners. Having the opportunity to teach others what they have learned is such a powerful piece of the project-based process for these 2nd Graders!” Sarah Williamson, a 1st Grade teacher who has implemented PBL, likes the impact the process makes on the student. “It allows the children to have ownership of their learning. They are able to select a specific topic that they want to research … by having a choice, they are able to really play to their strengths.” Though PBL is being used in Upper and Middle Schools, too, every grade level in the Lower School is using it and finding that it makes a difference in their curriculum and engages students on a new level. “The role for project-based learning in the Lower School is that it gets students thinking in a much deeper way,” says Dr. Hunter. “They learn how to learn as they research a question that intrigues them. Being able to find the answers to big questions is an important skill to have.”