network literacy – Michelle Shields

Last Friday my class visited the Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry. Although I had never heard of this school before I was pleased to find out that it is a high school that personalizes education through a formal inquiry process where learners create projects and activities that take them through the curriculum on their own. Seeing this type of learning environment in person was very eyeopening for me.

Previously, I had loved watching the documentary “Most Likely to Succeed” in class. Although there are differences between HTH and PSII, both schools are doing some pretty different stuff compared to the traditional model of education. Plus, watching a movie barely compares to physically visiting a school. While walking around PSII I could feel the energy of the students and see how well that type of learning environment can work. Every single student was engaging with something throughout the hour that I was there. While talking to different students I felt like I was having a conversation with my own peers. I could see each student light up when talking about their current project. They were genuinely interested in the material that they were learning about and they loved talking about it. To me, it is without a doubt the future of education.

One thing that I would like to learn more about at PSII is assessment. Jeff Hopkins briefly described this process stating that students and teachers work together to discuss evaluation and grading. I got the sense that there is a lot of formative assessment during the year where teachers are working one-on-one with students, although there is still summative assessment where student learning needs to be compared to curriculum standards.

On another note, I really liked the integration of technologies like WordPress and Trello into the classroom, as I didn’t start using these technologies myself until taking this course. In fact, many of the students Trello accounts were much more creative and better organized than my own. It’s super awesome that students are getting acquainted with these sites as I believe that the internet provides a vast amount of entrepreneurial opportunities. If students are already starting to explore some of their ideas online they could have a successful business already built by the time that they graduate high school.

It was also interesting to hear how students are using virtual reality in the classroom in different ways. For instance, some students were using it for building, others gaming, and others art (I have mostly viewed virtual reality as a type of 3D gaming device, but it can be used for so much more!)

Although I can’t describe everything that I loved about this school, because there simply is too much, I encourage you to browse the schools website https://learningstorm.org/ and watch Jeff Hopkins TED talk about an inquiry approach to education.

Last class we watched a film called “Most Likely to Succeed,” which is a documentary examining the history of education in the United States. This film revealed some of the shortcomings of the conventional education system in today’s increasingly technological world. Specifically, this film followed the problem and project based learning strategies used with students at High Tech High. Problem based learning requires higher order thinking skills that go beyond the level of understanding required by traditional classes that have clearly defined questions to be solved. The problems presented can often be too difficult to be solved individually and therefore require teamwork and collaboration between students. Additionally, project based learning allows students to increase their autonomy by giving them control to create their own projects, although teachers still define parameters and completion dates. For instance, in the film all of the students in the school were working towards a project that would be displayed at the end of the year in front of other students, teachers, and parents. The project based approach to learning challenged students to overcome problems (such as, working with others, defending points of view, dealing with frustration) in order to produce a project of substantial work.

Watching problem and project based learning was super interesting because I could see how students were being prepared for future careers. On film it looked like students gained confidence, increased their communication skills, learned how to critically think, and became more creative. This is awesome because schools today aren’t necessarily preparing children adequately for the workforce (in the way that education does not always lead to a job.) One of the reasons that this has occurred is due to an increase in technology that decreases traditional white-collar jobs. (I have seen this in action with friends and siblings and worry about it myself!) For a large majority of my own educational experiences I feel like I have only been taught how to memorize things effectively and take tests – without retaining a majority of the information presented to me.

Although I think that this new school is extremely forward thinking and fantastic, I can see how certain students might have problems with the way that things are done. For instance, there is lots of group projects and presentations which may make more introverted students feel burnt out. (It would be interesting to see if schools could be built and run according to learning styles or different temperaments? Why are we still stuck using one similar model of education when students are extremely diverse? Does more research need to be done? Are we too closed minded? Is it even possible?)

I hope that wasn’t too long for you..Thanks for reading!