The Importance of Need to Know

Challenge: How do we make real work when we have standards we are required to "cover" and "teach?"

One of the eight essential elements of project-based learning is significant content. Clustered standards across all disciplines, weaving together content that reflects the way we learn as adults.  But how do unpack those standards with our students? We are used to delivering content with direct instruction, with a video, with a worksheet, and maybe some inquiry. But with project-based learning, we uncover the deeper learning with our students through a Need to Know. Teachers facilitating discussion, empowering students to ask questions and figure out by themselves what it is they need to learn.

Here is a little peek into Studio 1. For their study on plants earlier this year, students discovered the natural community outside of EPiC and spent time as a community brainstorming and naming the important concepts they wanted to learn in order to become experts.

This past month, Studio 1 embarked on a quest to discover what it was to be a leader. Students began their study by unpacking the question, "What is a Leader?" 

After discussion and inquiry, students decided they wanted to interview various leaders in the community, both adults and high school students, to learn what it means to be a leader and what it entails to actually lead others. After a series of interviews with community members, students reflected on their own leadership abilities--how had they lead in the past, how were leading now in the present, and how did they they hope to lead in the future. Students wrote personal essays about their leadership abilities and crafted their own handmade books to publish their writing. Students also identified ways they could lead and share with others, such as as a talent or something they felt they could teach others. Having learned to write a procedure (peanut butter and jelly sandwich), they wrote and produced video tutorials to help and lead others.

Butterfly Research: Project-Based Learning

Challenge:

How can we engage today's 

modern learner in learning?

One of the ways we approached this challenge was to move away from teaching isolated subjects that could easily be "Googled" and engaged project-based learning for our students.

PROJECT OVERVIEW:

• Students will study the life cycle and needs of butterflies in order to create butterfly garden on the EPiC campus.

DRIVING QUESTION:

• How can we as butterfly experts and landscapers create an environment for butterflies to thrive at EPiC?

Learning Outcomes/Targets (Missouri Learning Standards):

• Identify and sequence life cycles (birth, growth, and development, reproduction and death) of animals (i.e., butterfly, frog, chicken, snake, dog).
• Identify and relate the similarities and differences among animal parents and their offspring or multiple offspring.
• Ask and answer questions such as who, what, where, when, why and how to demonstrate understanding of key details and in a text.
• Recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer questions.
• Construct maps with title and key
• Explain how specific images (e.g. a diagram showing how a machine works) contribute to and clarify a text.

AUTHENTIC PRODUCT:

• Redesigning a garden on campus into Butterfly Garden

PUBLIC AUDIENCE:

• All of Liberty and any visitors to our school

After writing a persuasive letter asking for permission to redesign the garden, students meet with the principal to discuss possibilities:

Research on the butterfly lifecycle:

Working with Liberty High School students surveying the space:

Deepening learning about butterflies through movement:

Exploring the butterfly habitat:

A Teacher's Perspective on Project-based Learning

Real work. Real audience. Relevant to students.

A huge part of our EPiC journey this year is to deepen our understanding in designing effective project-based learning experiences that engage, challenge, and cultivate the creativity of our students. We want to grow, learn, reflect, and share.

We sat down with our fourth grade team to hear their reflections and musings on project-based learning, technology integration, and collaboration.

#EPiCback2school

This week the doors opened to 300 eager students, ready for their new adventure to be EPiC everyday. The school buzzed of discoveries, collaboration, creation, and inquiry. 


Second graders embarked on a digital scavenger hunt, exploring their school and documenting the adventure through photos and pic collages. Third graders explored their personalized learning platforms and downloaded their first learning app.


Fourth graders identified character traits of change makers (their overarching theme for the year) by conducting experiments, and the fifth grade learning studio "cooked up a little learning", listened to an expert chef demonstrate creativity, and spent time getting to know one another.


In the halls, in the common spaces, in cubbies, together, individual. Conversations, quiet moments, focused learning.

As one of our fourth grade teachers reflected at the end of the day:

"50 kids, 2 teachers, 50 ipads, 25 explosions, hundreds of pictures, 50 bags of goop, one stellar parent helper, flexibility - creativity - innovation, 4 very full trash cans, buckets of safety goggles, lots of hugs, and a VERY supportive community = an EPiC first day of school.”