3 minute read
From Delivery to Discovery
THE PSYCHOLOGIST JEAN PIAGET HAS HAD AN INDELIBLE IMPACT ON THE FIELD OF EDUCATION. He was fascinated by the origins of knowledge and was particularly interested in the cognitive development of children. Where others saw kids on a playground simply at play, he saw young learners in the act of exploration and discovery.
Piaget’s focus on how individuals develop, rather than on how individuals are influenced in their development, stimulated a reformation in education. Information delivery is being eclipsed by information discovery, which lies at the heart of The Peck School’s emphasis on student-centered learning. Student-centered learning shifts students from assignments to experiences that authentically engage them. They are guided to become active, responsible participants in their own learning.
Peck’s 2015 Strategic Plan envisioned this shift to more student-centered learning for all grades, which includes more project-based opportunities. That promise is overwhelmingly visible on a day-to-day basis and the result is that students are increasingly making meaningful connections between in-class learning and the real-world problems around them. Peck is not only providing education in all the necessary subject areas—but is also infusing students with the lifelong ability to ask essential questions and dig deeper into subjects and solutions.
In addition to cognitive benefits, student-centered learning carries a host of emotional benefits. It is a teaching and learning approach that explores the intersection between experience and ideas, and so factors in the range of feelings encountered as students embark on projects, research, and assignments.
Throughout the learning process, students progress through states of uncertainty, optimism, confusion, frustration, doubt, clarity, a sense of direction and confidence, as well as satisfaction or disappointment. Students become more accustomed to this range of emotions, which better prepares them for lifelong learning and contributes to their sense of perseverance and grit.
The real world increasingly demands this mindset, as well as the self-direction to conduct research on a daily basis. Having the comfort level to ask questions and dig for answers is an essential skill in high school, college, and life. That’s why the student-centered approach at Peck also incorporates the concept of essential questions— thought-provoking queries designed to stimulate the search for deeper meaning. At the beginning of each academic year, this structure sets the stage for discovery, collaboration, and multidisciplinary project-based learning opportunities.
This year, fifth-grade students at Peck began with the essential question, “What makes a civilization?” While they explored this question in history classes, studying the key qualities of successful ancient civilizations, they also connected this question to their yearlong multidisciplinary project asking what it would take to sustain a civilization underground.
Last year, the fifth grade’s yearlong project involved building a civilization on Mars, and each year the faculty team will vary the location and parameters of the project while still maintaining the general civilizations theme. Grade 5 teachers in all subject areas are encouraged to tap into the civilizations theme to design their own non-traditional, student-centered units of learning.
To introduce the theme in English class this year, the fifth grade read City of Ember, a book set in an underground civilization. The underground society suffers from incompetencies and incivilities that threaten its survival. Knowing the qualities that define a robust civilization, students wrote their own underground civilization story and created visual representations of their underground setting, characters, and the problems they faced.
As students studied mythology, they paid particular attention to how different cultures harbor different beliefs about what inhabits the underworld. They are also writing skits that depict the variety of notions and superstitions various cultures maintain regarding the underworld.
In their art classes, fifth graders also encountered the underground civilizations theme. As they explored the concepts of form and function and looked closely at architecture as an art form, they were inspired to design their vision of practical or necessary underground buildings. After sketching their concepts and then rendering them as 3D digital models, they laser-etched and painted a facade of their buildings from mat board.
In their science classes, fifth-grade students are examining the benefits and constraints that might be imposed when attempting to seed and grow plants underground.
The underground civilizations topic has also found its way into other disciplines such as math, history, and technology.
The end result of this strengthened focus on student-centered learning speaks to the ultimate goal of education: that students will master the art of their own learning, that they can infer what are the important questions, and that they are confident in their ability to find their own answers.
