Solving Real World Problems at Foothill Knolls Stem Academy of Innovation Jennifer Morris We believe that children can save our world by solving “wicked” problems through design thinking. At Foothill Knolls Stem Academy of Innovation, our Project Based Learning opportunities provide teachers and students with authentic learning that organically promotes science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and empowers kids to be a part of solving today’s problems.  Our fourth grade students are highly concerned with animal rights. They are true animal lovers. Our conversations on classism, racism, gender bias, age bias, and homelessness often lead to ideas about animal [...]

Transforming Renaissance Public School Academy with Learning Celebrations Lisa Bergman I am the Leader of a K-8 charter school academy in the middle of the lower peninsula of Michigan.  Six years ago we began a journey of multi-age, project based exploration that is not common in our part of our state. We began to explore programs that seemed to be "breaking the mold".  Within a year we moved to a multi-age, individual focused approach where students began to loop with their teacher for two years.  We wrote units and held our first "Learning Celebration" in December of 2014.  Each [...]

Empowering Students Through Sharing Janice Walton This is part 1 of a 4 part series about how student engagement increases when students share their learning. When students are provided an opportunity to publicly share their knowledge about something they have learned, they are given more opportunity to take ownership of their work, which demonstrates that it has value, and many also see their self-esteem increase as they take pride in their work and their sharing. Authentic public presentations of learning may also lead to increased student engagement, which is why a campaign called Share Your Learning was formed. [...]

How a Community Organization is Helping Students Find and Share Their Voice Janice Walton This is part 2 of a 4 part series about how student engagement increases when students share their learning. We have been exploring how authentic public presentations of learning may lead to increased student engagement and why a campaign called Share Your Learning has been advocating for more teachers, schools, districts, and organizations to commit to sharing student learning. In our last feature, we learned how an elementary school teacher is using student-led conferences to empower her students. We encourage all [...]

Exhibition at Big Springs High School Bill August Our foray into the world of student exhibition came about as a result of a number of factors. The first of which was a general dissatisfaction with our parent/teacher conference times. Contractually, teachers are required to do twelve hours of evening conference hours spread throughout the year. Historically, and particularly since the advent of parental access to grades on-line, parental attendance has been low and we don’t feel as though we get much “bang for our buck” for the time investment. These hours had the look and [...]

Explore how the K-12 community at High Tech High learns deeply through projects. Learn more about project elements such as reflection and exhibition, and see examples of how these and other elements make up a project.

Dive deep into exhibitions, student led conferences, and presentations of learning in this free and open online course.  SYL co-designed the course with our partner 2Revolutions, and it is jam packed with activities and resources to support your practice.

Dupont Elementary School in Hopewell, VA, celebrates their first exhibition of the year!