The Student-Centered Shift: Empowered International Schools and Classrooms Through Project-Based Learning

As the invasion of 🇺🇦 Ukraine intensifies, how might we use the same process to empower our students as global citizens, critical thinkers and problem-solvers? Yesterday, I had the great privilege of chatting with Robert Gold, the Model United Nations Coordinator at the International School of Kuala Lumpur on how to start the discussion in our classrooms. Through the interview we learn how to:

1. Help students understand the complexities of the conflict
2. Seamlessly weave together history, geography, and language topics found in our curriculum
3. Help students differentiate between 'real' and 'fake' news
4. Organize our own Model United Nations conference with little to no experience
5. Motivate students to give up entire weekends to the process of diplomacy

Connect with Rob: [email protected]

MUN Free Resources: https://bit.ly/35ulpgz

Additional Ideas for Discussion: https://transformschool.com/category/blog/mun/

These past 2 years have been some of the toughest we have ever faced as educators. We've been asked to teach in new mediums. Had to work double shifts. Been required to work in unsafe conditions. And at the same time seen our salaries and pensions dwindle. For these reasons, many of us our leaving the profession. How do we re-ignite and re-imagine our love for the classroom during this difficult time?

I sat down with veteran educator and master storyteller Todd Shy, to chat about his new book 'Teaching Life: Life Lessons for the Aspiring and Inspiring Teacher,' and hear stories that help re-ignite the joy and wonder that only a life of teaching can bring. During our short interview, Todd helps us remember:

❤️ To be charmed by our students ❤️ That we are called to be both artist and engineer ❤️ To prepare students for life, not a test ❤️ The wonder of the Groundhog years

Get Todd's Book : https://press.avenues.org/teaching-life/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/school/avenues-the-world-school/mycompany/

Prevent 'burnout' through job rotation: https://www.hourly.io/post/job-rotation-pros-and-cons-for-your-business

Connect on Twitter: @Avenues_org/with_replies

Facebook: @AvenuesTheWorldSchool

Todd's Bio: Todd Shy has taught for more than twenty-five years in North Carolina, California, and New York. Currently, he is Head of the Upper Division at Avenues The World School in New York City. His essays and book reviews have appeared in the Raleigh News and Observer, the San Francisco Chronicle, Salmagundi, and the Harvard Divinity Bulletin. In 2008, he was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing.

How do you build community partners for project-based experiences to make learning more 'real world,' and meaningful for students? There's the 'old school' way of doing things. 🥱 Plan a learning experience inside your classroom in a silo, or shared office, and then figure out how it fits with the community. Or there's the more effective, '21st century' way of doing things. BUILD the project together with students and community partners 🤝. That's how Julia Kao, PBL teacher, and community outreach curator at VIS OneWorld Lab School in Taiwan builds projects.

In this short podcast episode, we learn from Julia how to:

• Develop community partnerships that last well beyond the project due date
• Help students co-create products with community partners that serve purpose in the real world
• Utilize community partners for feedback, critique and adjudicators for student work
• Seamlessly integrate your core curriculum and content to lead to DEEPER learning

Website: https://vis.tp.edu.tw/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vis_betterworldlab/?hl=en

Program Overview

Take the 12 Shifts for Learner-Centered Classrooms Scorecard: www.transformschool.com/12shiftsmastermind

What do learner-centered classrooms look like?

15 years ago, as a rookie PBL teacher, I wouldn't be able to answer that question. But after leading and teaching in some of the most renowned PBL schools in the world, I can confidently answer that question.

Learner-centered classrooms require 12 key shifts.

Making these shifts will tranform a teacher-led classroom, into one that creates student self-managers, leaders, and 21st century socially, globally and emotionally aware citizens.

With the help of my dear friend, mentor and co-founder of High Tech High Rob Riordan, we have outlined each of the 12 shifts, and the necessary steps to get there.

In this episode, I detail each shift and how you can make them in your classroom, school or own learning environment.

Take the 12 Shifts Scorecard: www.transformschool.com/12shiftsmastermind

Being an innovative and imaginative Project-Based teacher can be lonely. Sometimes we are the only ones doing this work in the corner classroom of a large school.

What if there was a way to expand the audience and find collaborators for our project-based experiences? Might we feel less isolated?

In this short episode, Kelly Pfeiffer, human network architect, dedicated PBL educator, author, blogger and presenter shares how she accomplished this through the 'Dark Sky' Project. She shares how she connected her project to NGOs, other schools, 60+ industry experts, and even the ministry of education. She also shares how we can:

• Build community collaborators by starting PBL with a real, authentic problem
• Leverage social media and other channels to find project mentors within minutes
• Find your PBL 'tribe,' and build capacity for PBL across your entire school
• Build meaningful projects in the metaverse with your students as co-creators
• Use PBL to transform formerly passive students into active, engaged problem-solvers and global citizens

Connect with Kelly:

LinkedIn

Twitter (@kelmade5)

'Dark Sky' Project Website (free resources): https://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/About-Us/Our-Programs/Dark-Sky/Dark-Sky-education

Kelly's Bio:

A human network architect, dedicated educator, author, blogger and presenter, Kelly is the point person for PBL Global in Australia and an innovator in distance education PBL. Kelly co-created the widely-adopted Dark Sky PBL unit, nominated for the Dark Sky Defender award through the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA). In 2019, she won the Australasian Association of Distance Education Schools (AADES) for Teaching Excellence. In addition, her Dubbo School of Distance Learning Futures Team received the New South Wales Department of Education Technology 4 Learning (T4L) award for Leader in Developing Digital Collaborative Communities.

What does a theater director and the coordinator of a wall-to-wall PBL program have in common?

They are both experts in facilitating several projects at once.

Whether that's script writing and set design in preparation for a major performance, or student-designed health apps and meal plans in response to the obesity crisis in their community.

In this short interview, Kim Flintoff, coordinator of TIDES (Technology, Innovation, Design, Enterprise, Sustainability), a year 7-10 micro-PBL program, shares with us how to:

• Use a few simple frameworks to help generate and facilitate multiple student project ideas
• Partner with and frame project-based experiences around REAL issues in the community
• Use a repeatable process to help students self-assess project work and become self-directed learners
• Build 'future ready skills' and still cover our curriculum
• Build momentum for learner-centered PBL across the whole school

Connect with Kim: LinkedIn (@kimflintoff), Twitter (@kimbowa), Facebook (@kimfutures)

Kim's Website: http://www.stem4innovation.org/

TIDES Program Overview

Kim's Bio:

Kim has traversed many roles in forty-odd years since he left school. Studying in a range of disciplines across the arts and sciences, and working in many areas including theatre, circus and media before settling into education where his combined experience seemed to find a home. Formerly an internationally recognised high school Drama teacher and teacher educator, then inaugural Learning Futures Advisor at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia, in 2021 Kim returned to a role in school leadership (TIDES Coordinator) and his work continues to engage him in global advisory and consultation roles in all education sectors. As well as establishing and coordinating the Learning Futures Network, Innovative Schools Consortium and shared development of STEM4Innovation, Kim is also a founding member of the ShapingEDU community and continues as Lifelong Change Maker, advisory board member to Consortium of Schools Networking Driving K-12 Innovation initiative, FutureWe, NetEDU, OneHE and other projects around the world. Kim's ongoing research interest is considering the impact of educational collaborative networks on school innovation and transformation.

When Ayesha Inam moved her co-designed project online, something unfortunate happened.

She watched 100% engagement in class dwindle to less than 50% online. Half of her kids weren't even showing up to lessons.

And then she tried something magical.

She gamified it.

Suddenly ALL of her students were engaged.

In this short podcast episode, Ayesha Inam, Head Facilitator at micro-school LEO's Workshop by Beaconhouse, describes how to 'gamify' our PBL experiences to increase engagement and how to:

Co-design your projects with student input

🎮 Set up the gamified experience and NEVER have to teach again.

🎮 Improve quality of student work by 'badging it.'

🎮 Make seemingly dry subjects come to life with the right challenges.

🎮 Have students self-organize and organize team meetings on their own well beyond online lesson time.

Connect with Ayesha:

Instagram (@thestemlabpakistan), LinkedIn, Twitter (@ayeshainam036)

Website: www.Leosworkshop.net

The Gamified Unit: https://transformschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/SLOP-The-Game-Plan.pdf

Sample Gamified Leaderboard (from Andres Joubert of Park Maitland School): https://docs.google.com/a/parkmaitland.org/spreadsheets/d/15VHH21d6jvr9p3Z7WwOhp49RAY1Z1PcBtw5C_2_OpeI/edit?usp=drive_web

Ayesha's Bio:

Ayesha Inam is a Computer Software Engineer by her degree, a K-5 STEM Education Specialist and Project-Based Learning Practitioner by passion.

She co-founded a small educational organisation - the STEM Lab of Pakistan in 2016 with a friend. The SLOP (The STEM Lab of Pakistan) is an after-school club that promotes and inculcates the love for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics in young children, especially young girls through play-based and game-based educational activities.

She started her PBL Journey at TNS Beaconhouse in 2017, as a Grades 2-5 PBL Practitioner & later as a PBL Coordinator for 4.5 years, where she fell in love with Project Based Learning instantly because of the amazing things students were doing during their projects. Apart from many other valuable certifications in education, she holds a Distinction in a rigorous certification course of Teaching and Learning with Digital Technologies by the University of Cambridge. Using PBL Methodologies she has facilitated more than 150 students in creating products such as useful gadgets by using electric circuits for their families, blogging about the helping staff of their school and making their stories visible(https://fan.school/spaces?spaceId=8vok7hkqgikp1l2ljz0x7m56k), redesigning their school spaces and their suggestions taken in account by their new school's architect, Rosan Bosch; creating an Urdu rap song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5WbxUeUeyc) to make the learning easier for novice Urdu learners, analysed the impacts of people in history, setting up small slime and cookies businesses, hosted discussion panels with International space scientists and Pakistani children to raise awareness about space sciences amongst children(https://fb.watch/asQnhzTyyf/) and many other such innovative ventures.

Currently working as the Head Facilitator of an innovative private K-5 micro-school, Leo's Workshop by Beaconhouse for implementing the best PBL Practices at the school. She also serves as the Creative Director at the STEM Lab Pakistan so the love for STEM subjects keeps growing in the hearts of little children.

She loves investigating the science of learning; learning about the things that drive and motivate children to be interested in their own learning processes. Ayesha dreams of making academic learning as fun and addictive as the gaming industry some day.

She loves interacting and engaging with children, helping them learn how the world works; through gamification, game-based and play-based activities. In her leisure time, she likes to read books, perform crazy science experiments with her two biological kids and meditate whenever she can.

How can play therapy help elementary students cope with the trauma caused by the pandemic? This was the BIG question facing Emily Burk's (MakerSpace and Technology Integration Specialist) high school students in Anna, Texas. Their task- design play therapy toys for their younger peers to use in the newly constructed social + emotional well-being rooms. This was real PBL. There were real users. And the stakes were high. In this short podcast episode, Emily unpacks this dynamic PBL experience, and how she used the design process to transform students from apathetic teenagers, into empathetic and engaged toy designers. We learn how to: ❤️ Use a simple 5- step design process to guide our projects ❤️ Make our socially distanced environments more 'hands-on' ❤️ Connect our projects to real users and real audiences ❤️ Improve social and emotional well-being through hands-on PBL

Connect with Emily: Twitter (@tech_edu_burk), Instagram (@annaisd_makerspace)

Emily's Bio:

Emily Burk is a Maker Integration Technology Specialist in a 3,744 square foot public high school makerspace in the North Texas area. Emily has had 22 years of experience in the classroom varying from fine arts, English-Language Arts, career and technical education, and media and technology integration. She has a passion for project-based learning, making learning applicable and relevant to all learners, and providing all students equitable access to maker education.

Do you set New Year's Resolutions?

I used to. Until I broke nearly all of them by February. Sound familiar?

Vision Boarding is a FAR more effective way to reach milestones you never dreamed possible, and improve your life- both as an educator, and human. I've been using them since 2016, and I now have a life I could have never imagined if I stuck with boring resolutions.

In this short bonus episode, I teach you how to create yours and:

• Set in motion a new, improved you
• Manifest your dream day, life and new habits
• Show up as the authentic educator your students se desperately need

Get the Vision Boarding Template - -> https://bit.ly/3pv0JMI

Do you have a hard time letting go of control in the classroom? 

Letting go isn't easy. It requires trust and confidence in our learners, while we take a backstage role in the classroom.

But when we do, we unlock unlimited student potential.

Yvette Larson, a PYP teacher and future mindset guru, has a classroom full of unlocked potential; with 30+ self-directed students, and 30+ projects happening at the same time. In this short episode, Yvette teaches us how she creates this kind of magic, and builds future mindsets through the story of her Winter Fair Project and how to:

• Trust in the process.
• Ask the right questions, rather than providing all the answers.
• Wait....and then wait some more.
• Lead learning with WONDER.
• Turn over control of our classroom to students, and still maintain our sanity.
• Build future mindsets in students by starting with what they care about.
• STILL COVER OUR CURRICULUM STANDARDS!

Connect with Yvette: LinkedIN

Yvette: https://yvettelarssoncom.wordpress.com/

AHA!: https://ahaacceleratingeducation.org/

Yvette's Bio: Yvette is an international Swede, born above the Arctic Circle, in Swedish Lapland, by Sami ancestry, with over 20 years of international experience, a polyglot, a nature lover who inspires others to live their best lives and take care of the earth. She is a very open-minded and informal person. Yvette is the co-founder of AHA! Accelerating Education, a science-based platform that seeks to boost human potential with the help of applied neuroscience, and provide tools for learners in the 21st century. AHA! Seeks to explore questions like: "What does it mean to be human in a global age of technology" and "What happens if we educate the heart first and foremost?". AHA!  encompasses Learning and Education Innovation and Foresight.  Yvette is the country LEAD Sweden for LearnLife, a global hub for innovators in education.  She is also an IB Educator at the International School of Helsingborg, Sweden. 

Yvette's recent works revolve around being a member of the Hundred Advisory Board for the Social-Emotional Spotlight in partnership with Lego. She also co-founded a PBL-based global Hackathon for youth, where young people have a say on what education in the 21st century should be. She co-created The Future Mindset Program © with a focus on the upskilling of competencies to become more resilient and adapt to the fast-paced world we live in, she co-developed The AHA! Wellbeing Program that promotes Youth Health, Social-Emotional Learning, and Educator Well-being. Yvette is passionate about many things that start with a C: courage, curiosity, collaboration, communication, care, community, and creativity.