Delivering Project Based Learning in an Independent Study School

When I tell other teachers I’m a project-based teacher for an independent study school, I get strange looks. Yet, I knew what I was getting myself into. I knew working for a new school would come with challenges laden with wonderings of making the right call. I loved the possibility of everything being brand new. In a field when many teachers are focused on keeping the status quo, I embrace change and the “new”. New school. New challenges. New problems to solve. There was one major problem to solve. How do you combine two models of education that are virtually on opposite ends of the educational setting spectrum?

Coming into Method Schools, I was well-versed project-based learning. I had worked at High Tech High where project based learning is at the core of its educational model. I knew the many concepts that focus on creating meaningful projects. The most successful projects have several key factors: They focus on student engagement and autonomy, 21st century skills, creating a collaborative environment, ensuring feedback and critique, and sharing work with a meaningful audience. Project design doesn’t happen overnight; there are hours of research, collaboration and thought put into projects. The best projects hit all of those factors.

I was excited to implement the seminal project for Method Schools. The first project we carried out at Method Schools was called the My Community, My World project. This was where students could build their perfect society. Students recreated their own city. The objectives were to have high school students focus on the city planning and design. The younger students would build different structures, such as public and private sections of the city, neighborhoods and parks. Looking back, it was a huge undertaking with a brand new school. We were all optimistic it would be a success, and for the most part, it was. However, there were many shortcomings that, having never worked at an Independent learning school, I didn’t account for. The largest obstacle was grouping; because of the nature of Independent study, not every student attends the site on the same day. Some students are on different tracks. Some students attend site one or two days per week, others four. When students were grouped, some days there was only one student represented and needed to carry the weight of the team. The other pitfall was that the project lasted about 9 weeks in total. Way too long. In my experience, student motivation dwindles after about six weeks. A last issue we had, was student buy in. Some students didn’t enjoy the project and felt as they were forced into creating something they didn’t want to.

To rectify our mistakes, mid-year we launched short cycle projects. Those were projects that last anywhere between 2-4 weeks and students can go at their own pace. At the end of their project, they turn in their work and present to their project manager (a teacher). This alleviated one major problem; grouping and the ability of continuous students enrolling. (Something I was not used to at all when working for a seat-based program) Students had over 10 projects to chose from in each subject area. Thus, solving the dilemma of student choice. Once they completed one project, they would start another and continuously cycle through projects. These also aligned more with the online curriculum. It felt seamless. It was less messy. Students could design a clothing company, survive a zombie apocalypse, or study graffiti art.

For the first three months, we thought we had fixed the issue. But as time passed, the projects became repetitive, and students lost steam. Additionally, because all students were at different points of different projects, logistically, it was challenging to hold students as accountable as they needed to be. Any teacher will tell you, once students find a loophole, or a way to get out of something, they will. Without the accountability factor, student engagement and effort diminished and most students stalled in their projects. There were many short cycle projects left unfinished. However, there were many bright spots to each of these project-implementations.

Like any reflective work environment, we at Method Schools sought to find a way fuse these two ideas, discarding the items that didn’t work and extract the elements that did.

With the longer group projects, students and teachers enjoyed the building, designing and collaboration and critiquing aspect of the Methodville project. We liked that they were off computers, communicating with one another and problem solving.

With the short cycle project we found that students liked the idea of working independently at their own pace. They liked having a choice in their curriculum and, if they found one they liked, they were invested in it throughout the duration of the project. In year two, we are planning on blending the two ideas together and rotate each month between group projects and independent short cycle projects.

Blending project based learning with online independent study settings is a challenge that we met head on. We believe that in combining the hands-on, critical thinking practices that project-based learning brings, with the rigor of an online coursework, we created a dynamic blended learning program where all students are engaged, have fun, and most importantly, learn to the best of their abilities and passions.