Boston Roundtable Reflections

The group of programs that gathered were indeed diverse in their approaches. Of the programs that attended, 74% said their staff led academic activities (homework included) 31% STEM activities (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), 66% visual arts, 41% music, 38% dramatic arts, and only 15 media arts. What united these programs was not their topics of choice but their approach - all these programs could and many already supported project-based learning as an approach to create some structure around very open learning.

The framework is simple. Have fun projects that are guided by staff interests rather than set curriculum. Create three or four learning goals set up as open-ended questions you can ask the children you are working with (not "you will learn about dinosaurs, but "what creatures lived long ago"?) so that children are able to begin exploring these questions with what they already know rather than waiting for you to tell them answers. Set a goal that is tangible and achievable. Change these plans to go around obstructions and challenges.

To reach this understanding the room was given some Learning Goals

1. what are fun projects I can do with children and youth?
2. how to I plan my project?
3. what will I need to make an effective project?
4 what skills do I need to work effectively with youth?

To answer this we:

Created projects using the project planning sheets (learning goals 1 and 2)
Did a hands-on activity with soda cans (learning goals 1, 3, 4)
Did a hands on activity with apples (learning goals 1 - 4)
Listened to a short lecturette about the fundamentals of project-based learning (learning goals 1 - 4)

Our final product (for many of us) was a project plan that was started we can take back and use at our sites.

Our evaluation was - well, the evaluations everyone always does at the end of any event, training, gathering, or movement. From this evaluation we learned that 94% of the people felt it was a good use of their time. We also learned that 78% of the people self-identified as "direct service" even though 48% of those people were directors and 5% were engaged in fund raising for their site or organization.

In all, what was interesting was the level of engagement - especially during the apple activity where people all made really complicated artistic creations out of their apples rather than cutting them up only in a scientific way (here, we had the flexibility to allow that rather than a narrow definition of what is appropriate). What was challenging was getting through so much material in such a short amount of time (I have in the past done entire summer institutes on this topic for OST members) and that OST has, after all these years, not embraced PBL an approach that allows learning to be done differently out of school.

The pervasive mentality appears to be that of formal education, get them to do their homework and if there are activities they are aligned with curriculum and done with expensive specialists. This prospect to link school and after school is tantalizing yet why keep linking things to create a "seamless day"? Think of yourself eating corn all day. All you eat is corn. Would you want, given an opportunity, to eat more corn or try something different? No one is saying the corn isn't good for you... But, why, if we are given the opportunity to lead new and exciting projects, do we want to struggle with our meager budgets to align with schools to do more of the same - the thing that may not be working for all children in the first place?

Project-based learning has worked in many programs, but I would be the first to admit that after ten years of teaching it, few programs see it as the center to a unique developmental setting rather than an add-on when they have solved behavior, enrollment, vouchers, and relations with the school which may or may not be assisting or hindering the growth of the community-based program. Project-based learning has, after all, been the way private progressive schools have moved learning out of books and into the minds of children. Do we at least want that opportunity for all children and can we not provide at least a taste of that approach in our Out-of-School programs?