Northwest Education | Spring/Summer 2008
Student Engagement Takes Center Stage
Project Engagement
Digital-age projects give students room to follow their own interests.
In the middle of a busy school day at Larrabee Elementary in Bellingham, Washington, teacher Elise Mueller takes a minute to read a grant announcement for purchasing new classroom technology. She doesn't need convincing that technology can engage diverse learners. Her own students have provided plenty of evidence. Mueller makes it a habit to keep her radar up for opportunities. But competitive grant proposals take time to write, and she isn't sure she can meet this deadline.
Just as she is weighing the pros and cons, a fifth-grader happens to walk by and glance at her computer screen. "Oooh! That looks cool," he says. "Are you going to apply?" When she tells him she isn't sure she can meet the deadline, he offers his services—and the help of a few capable classmates.
Before long, the student team is digging into the research and writing of a persuasive, professional-quality proposal. Their self-designed project addresses standards in math, science, and technology while giving students practical experience in research, budgeting, and collaboration. Assessment is about as authentic as it gets: After several rounds of review, the Qwest Foundation funds their grant application to the tune of $10,000 in multimedia equipment for making stop-motion movies. Value of student engagement: priceless.
Looking back, Mueller admits that this "great project" is one she never would have imagined herself. Sometimes, you need to give students room to follow their own interests—and then be ready to support them, wherever their journey may go.
PBL-Plus: Digital Age Learning
As a strategy for increasing student engagement, project-based learning has a long track record. Student-directed learning is a hallmark of the project approach. Students typically work in project teams to solve a problem that may have multiple solutions. They may take on roles that reflect real-world disciplines—such as scientist, historian, or journalist—and produce a product that reaches an authentic audience. Although well-designed projects start with important learning goals in mind, the experience is qualitatively different than more traditional textbook-driven teaching.
Researchers from the Center for Learning in Technology at SRI International examined student outcomes in a five-year study of the Challenge 2000 Multimedia Project. They found increased student engagement, greater responsibility for learning, stronger peer collaboration skills, and increased achievement by students who had been labeled "low achievers."
In the February 2008 issue of Educational Leadership, Jane David describes a British study showing students in a project-based learning school significantly outperforming traditional school students in mathematics skills as well as in conceptual and applied knowledge. Similarly, eighth-graders in a struggling urban district in New Jersey showed gains in reading, math, and writing after using multimedia technology for project-based learning.
Newer digital tools promise to take student engagement even farther. Web 2.0 technologies, such as blogs and wikis, allow users to not only browse the vast stores of information on the World Wide Web, but also create and exchange their own content online. What's more, these powerful tools tend to be easy to use. There is no longer a need to learn programming languages to create Web content. This means students can become producers as well as consumers of information. According to education writer and consultant Will Richardson (whose popular Weblogg-ed blog is at www.weblogg-ed.com), "From an educational standpoint, this new Read/Write Web promises to transform much of how we teach and learn."
Using technology tools for authentic project tasks allows students to build the 21st century skills of collaboration, creativity, and problem solving that are identified in the recently revised National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS-S). Students can use tools to connect with peers in distant countries and work on projects together, expanding the global awareness that is also called for in the new NETS-S.
A program called Bridges to Understanding (www.bridgesweb.org) connects several high schools and middle schools in the greater Seattle area with partner schools in Central America, India, South Africa, and elsewhere around the globe. Students learn a process for digital storytelling that enables them to share multimedia stories about their own lives and cultures. In addition to collaborating online and via videoconferencing, students also meet face-to-face for more direct cross-cultural learning.
"Stories are the glue for deeper engagement," explains Greg Tuke, executive director of the Bridges program, "and you can go so much further with stories that include voice, music, and pictures. These communication tools engage the head and the heart, and allow relationships to form."
For students and teachers alike, learning through authentic projects often feels less like a warm-up drill and more like real life.
Shifting Roles For Teachers—And Learners
Elise Mueller's interest in project-based learning started early in her teaching career. From the start, she sought out continuing education opportunities, such as a Gates Foundation grant for new teachers that provided classroom technology, professional development, and mentoring. "That started the engine for me," she says, and her interest has been accelerating ever since. She recently earned National Board Certification.
"Project-based learning is a journey," Mueller reflects. "You don't just flip a switch and start teaching this way." She can still remember her first project, designed with the help of a mentor from another school. Parents came into the computer lab to watch students make multimedia presentations about the water cycle. Student response to that first project convinced her to keep going. "You start with one project and build on that."
Now, Mueller uses the project approach regularly to help students reach important learning goals. Students in grades 3-5 rotate through three classrooms at Larrabee Elementary. Mueller teaches language arts and social studies; colleagues on her team specialize in math and science. All three teachers integrate technology into the curriculum, and they regularly plan projects that cut across disciplines.
Even with all these pieces in place to support project-based learning with technology, Mueller faces one more challenge. "This is a shift for kids who are not used to driving their own learning," she admits. The project approach often involves "learning in a messy environment." Students are asked to make choices, to work in teams, to tackle problems that may have more than one right solution. "If students are used to just following directions," Mueller admits, "it can be frustrating. It's a new arena for them."
But Mueller is convinced that her students' future success hinges on knowing how to direct their own learning. "They can't sit and wait," she insists. "They have to be able to take initiative. In the 21st century, what will be valued will be seeing a problem and designing a solution."
As one strategy to help students take more charge of their own learning, Mueller and her colleagues have revised their approach to homework. They used to send home a weekly packet of assignments. "The packet would go home Monday and come back Friday," Mueller says, "and everyone got the same packet. We realized this was enabling a passive model, just to do assigned tasks."
After reviewing research about the effectiveness of homework for elementary students, the teachers made a bold decision: No more packets! "Now, instead of homework, students do after-school learning." Some choose to write stories. Others work on fractions by cooking with their parents. "One girl wrote a song about how the ear works," Mueller says. Another is designing a research study to find out whether gum chewing is a factor in higher test scores. On Fridays, students share what they have learned with their classmates. "The peer-to-peer learning is huge," Mueller says, "and parents are really happy. The homework fights are gone, and kids are doing what interests them. This helps build the PBL type of learner."
Supporting Professional Learning
Learning how to plan, implement, and manage effective projects also takes effort on the teacher's part. "It's a challenge for many teachers," admits Tuke of the Bridges program. "We are asking them to do a number of things they are not used to doing." For example, he says, taking on a collaborative digital storytelling project means overcoming classroom isolation and connecting with another classroom, perhaps teaching with another teacher "who may be 10,000 miles away," and teaching with new and unfamiliar technologies. "That's a lot," acknowledges Tuke.
Before coming to Bridges to Understanding, Tuke led a community-based program called Powerful Schools (previously featured in Northwest Education, www.nwrel.org/nwedu/winter_98/article4.html). The nonprofit program took a systems approach to improve schools serving some of the lowest income and most culturally diverse neighborhoods in Seattle. Among the key lessons learned at Powerful Schools: how teachers change professional practice. "Where you see teachers changing," Tuke says, "is when professional development can happen within their own classroom environment."
Tuke has brought that understanding into the Bridges to Understanding model. Participating teachers in the United States receive 24 hours of in-class coaching. Professional development experts come into participating teachers' classrooms to model lessons, answer technical questions regarding technology, give feedback, and support teachers as they grow into the role of project facilitator. "They are not in this alone," Tuke says. Melanie Shelton, for example, is one of three teachers from Salmon Bay Middle School in Seattle who is participating in Bridges to Understanding this school year. She has spent 24 years in the classroom and is well-versed in project-based learning. But digital storytelling—combining photography, voice-over, music, and other elements—is new to her. "And technology does not come easy to me," she admits.
In a three-and-a-half day intensive workshop, she and her Salmon Bay colleagues learned how to use digital photography and editing equipment to make a compelling story. Then, during the course of the school year, Shelton welcomed classroom visits from Bridges mentors. "Having a coach is wonderful. It's like team-teaching, only I defer to their expertise in technology. We can break into small groups. My students don't often get that kind of specialized attention."
A New Worldview
What makes challenging projects worth all the effort? Through the digital storytelling experience, Shelton has seen her middle-schoolers go more deeply into analyzing topics they choose to address, ranging from global warming to homelessness to animal rights. "They talk articulately and passionately about these issues now. They sort of knew something before. Now, they know and feel something about these issues," she says.
Digital storytelling has given them a venue for sharing what they have learned through research, and also for expressing what they care about. "I didn't realize how much these issues mattered to them before," Shelton admits. What's more, most of the stories look past conflict to address solutions. "Problem solving is a recurring theme," Shelton says.
Another indicator of success, from Tuke's perspective, "is that you see kids seeking out information on their own." Recently, he overheard a Bridges student from Seattle approach his high school teacher and initiate a discussion about conditions in Darfur. "The teacher didn't even know that this student was paying attention to world events. Now the student was suggesting, 'Let's contact someone there and find out what's happening.' That's a new orientation to the world," Tuke says. "You believe that you can get information directly, from people on the ground. You question how you look at the world, and you realize that your perspective is not the only one. Everyone sees a different piece of the truth. Put those perspectives together," he adds, "and you can get to a better solution."
For Mueller, success often comes in small steps. Recently, she was working with students on a community mapping project. A girl from Japan—normally reticent to speak up in class—raised her hand and asked if she could map Kyoto instead of Bellingham. "That's the best part for me," Mueller says, "hearing students express what they want to learn. It's more meaningful to them, and that's great."
Also see the sidebars to this article: