Thursday, January 21, 2016

PBL, High Tech High and Learning Commons

Right before Spring Break of last year, I was grateful to be part of a team of 6 teachers who visited High Tech High in San Diego. My principal, Cale Birk, travelled with us to continue the exploration we began back in the spring of 2014. The question being considered was whether Project Based Learning could help us as we lead students towards developing the attributes of a Sa-Hali Secondary Grad: Creativity, Collaboration and Resilience. After experiencing High Tech High, the simple answer to that question was YES!

Now, some 6+ months later, much of that work is being reconsidered, re-evaluated and reworked. The trip to San Diego stirred up animosities on staff and created an active "resistance" to the ideas of PBL, and the on-going work to build learning activities that would lead to "CCR." While the baby isn't being thrown out with the bathwater, the bathwater is being drained a bit and new warm water put in to clear out some of the dirt. With a new administrator, there is a sense that we need to make these ideas truly our own, instead of being heavily pushed forward with someone else's vision firmly in place. We have stopped our PLC collaborations because there is a serious divide on how effectively that time was being used. We finally discussed CCR at our last staff meeting and all initiatives generated in the last two years have been quietly implemented in some classes and ignored in many others. When we discussed it at the staff meeting, the resentment and frustration in the room was loudly voiced by small group, while many in the room were quiet. There is still a long way to go in creating a commonly held vision.

How this impacts the library/learning commons, though, is fairly positive.  With a new administrator comes a new sense that the building is overdue for physical plant renewal. The space will finally be receiving the updating that has been 7 years overdue. Also in the near future is a revamping of curricula, so discussions around resourcing and the future of the materials organized and collated by the library must happen at a staff wide level. I look forward to these discussions, as I've already started finding resources that will help teachers/students make learning active and integrated with the real world. Presentations of learning are happening regularly in the library/learning commons space - a very exciting use of this space. We've had several secondary/elementary partnership projects happening in our space. Also coming soon are meetings with the feeder elementary schools as we co-plan innovation projects and work on professional development.

Will we look like HTH - no, but our space will reflect our community and students as they learn deeply and share their projects. Ultimately, that's what the trip was able to inspire - a vision of how to make learning come alive in community.

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