Embedded Files
This year's process started in early April with an exploration of previous senior projects and a deep dive into all the resources accumulated over the last four years.
The updated instructional post delineated below then improved on last year's models. It includes the PBL Gold Standard that has inspired the project-based learning throughout our district, and it breaks down possible project outcomes into three overlapping and inclusive categories:
Senior Showcase: TED Talks, Portfolios, and More
Senior Showcase: TED Talks, Portfolios, and More
Learn more about the projects by reading the instructional overview. Pay special attention to the flexibility and individuality of the process:
The most important element of project-based learning in this space — so important that it’s been repeated and bolded multiple times in this post — is this: You can individualize almost every aspect of the work. You might even be able to take “almost” out of that sentence, because the exceptions are there in any classroom. You’re going to have to read and write, and there will be required texts and essays; after that relatively short list, though, every aspect is malleable, if not outright fungible.
Remember what a makerspace does: It poses problems, solves them with available resources, and evaluates the process in order to improve. In the Humanities, our problem-solving is focused on the skills of reading and writing, with a secondary focus on building a better self through what we read and write.
Spring Reading: Literary Merit Projects
Spring Reading: Literary Merit Projects
Wisdom, Goodness, and Sanity
Wisdom, Goodness, and Sanity
The governing concept in a Humanities space is that literature is the best tool we have for developing empathy and a sense of ourselves. Its best articulated in this video: "Literature deserves its prestige for one reason above all others: because it’s a tool to help us live and die with a little more wisdom, goodness, and sanity."
We use this expansive definition of literary merit to explore new texts alongside canonical ones. In Q4, students are able to choose their own text to read.
The Self-Prescribed Literature Project post contains all of the instructional material for this work. This year, a Spring Reading Choice Board was introduced to give students more options.
Course Makerspace Components
Course Makerspace Components
Start with the homepage for the makerspace, or use the links below to visit the resource pages directly. The images are from a 1974 award-winning animation of Sisyphus.
The Practice of Empathy
The Practice of Empathy
The first skill emphasized in our course — and in the real world — is empathy, and we spent part of the second semester reading and writing toward a deeper understanding of the role empathy plays in our community.
There is an excellent resource page for this unit that includes our work on The Bean Trees and short fiction. The focus, that we are part of an everyday network of others, led to the overhauled project options seen here:
Empathy also dictated some of the decisions regarding what was shared. Some student work is shared anonymously, and some work was not shared at all. Students were able to choose, and that choice was honored.
In fact, students chose the format, structure, and audience for their projects, relying on the structure of the makerspace and the daily feedback and checkpoints to guide them. Everything from their font choices to the mechanical errors that survived a few rounds of revision are left intact.
That authenticity requires empathy, too: As you explore student work, you should remain empathetic and forgiving. It is never easy to share one's creations, no matter how small the audience is.
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