I would like to share with you an experience that I have found to be deeply rewarding. For the last two years I have participated in the GLSEN’s Day of Silence. While I had heard of it three years ago, I started participating last minute and on a whim two years ago when I was offered a “Day of Silence Participant” button by a member of our school’s Gay-Straight Alliance.

The stated purpose of the day is to call attention to hate speech and its silencing effects on GLBT students. In this sense, the event is an activist event. For me, this is a noble cause and it takes the admirable form of self-sacrifice. Even if this was the only reason to participate, I would gladly do so.

The Day of Silence is founded on the premise that the ability for GLBT students to express themselves is restricted by hate speech. And so, we voluntarily restrict our own ability to express ourselves to symbolize this silencing. However, the Day of Silence isn’t just an opportunity for activism, it is an exercise in understanding for the participants.

There are some experiences that are simply eye-opening and I count participating in the Day of Silence among one of those experiences. Before participating, I had no idea how incredibly frustrating it is to not be able to express oneself. I had taken my ability to interject through speech for granted and giving that ability up made me see the value that it holds. We, quite simply, do not fully appreciate the value of verbal expression.

While I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the reproduction of hateful oppression found in participating in the day of silence, I can say that it is simply an indescribably educational experience. I learned something that cannot be expressed in words and cannot be taught, I learned something intimate about my relationship with the world around me.

A Day of Silence is something I wish everyone would experience, regardless of the cause. It is an opportunity for learning experientially that I feel no one can afford to miss.

We should always be on the lookout for opportunities where students can learn by experiencing: not only by doing, but by feeling.

1. Gay-Straight Alliance logo
2. Photo by Sifter on Flickr

A few weeks ago, my school embarked on a grand experiment entitled mini-term. Rather than have 6 classes per day, rather than divide learning into 45 minute blocks, we opened the schedule and challenged teachers to engage students in their passion. The experiment was, for most, a success and provided students wonderful opportunities to learn about and explore topics off the path of the normal curriculum as well as complete projects that could not be handled in a traditional classroom setting.

The Hard Details

Mini-terms were taught by teams of two or three teachers. These teachers were encouraged to teach their passion and were free to design their courses around topics of their choosing, with an emphasis on cross-departmental work. The only guidelines for teachers were broad such as a required reading and writing component. The classes ranged from 18 to 25 students each from all four grade levels and met all day, every day for a four-day week. Students selected their top 6 choices, and were sorted into classes accordingly. Teachers were encouraged to take field trips, and engage in hands on projects.

My Experience

The class I participated in was called “Zen and the Art of Furniture Design”, it was taught my a science teacher (Mr. Skinner) with an independent passion for carpentry and an art teacher (Mr. Huber) with years of experience in scenic design and construction. Our class was one big project: design, build, and paint an Adirondack chair, bench and table. Our class was split into two groups of nine to each build one set of furniture.

The first day was spent on the design phase: modifying the stock chair design and planning paint schemes. For the design of the chair, the two groups took different approaches. The other group drew their modifications on the teacher provided plans and then built a scale model of their design. My group took advantage of my CAD skills to modify the original design and produce new drawings and renderings. For paint, each group was required to choose an artist and paint the furniture to resemble that artist. Part of my group spent the day researching and picking an artist, finding work by that artist, and finally tracing that work onto a scale plan.

As we were working through the process, we found many opportunities for incidental learning. One student taught another student drafting skills that were learned in our architecture course so that the original plans could be annotated. Another student experimented on the Wacom tablets in the art computer lab, learning how to control pen size in Photoshop using pressure, then tracing printed artwork into the computer. This learning was spontaneous, not assessed and in some cases not even visible in the final project, but it was learning through doing and the students left with a new skill.

The next day we moved into the shop and began the actual construction. This included ripping lumber, cutting boards to the correct length (and determining those lengths from the plans our group produced), sanding the boards, and assembling them into actual furniture. Due to my technical theatre background, I was right at home in the shop, but still I saw something that surprised me: 18 students all working — no breaks, no “we don’t have anything to do”, no “watch and criticize”, but 18 students all working towards common goals, and enjoying themselves at the same time. It was a truly breathtaking sight, students who had never touched a power tool in their lives were ripping lumber on a table saw and screwing boards together.

Finally, we were able to get dirty and begin painting. The artists in the group went to work tracing the outlines onto the furniture so that we could paint them in. With three students to a piece, we were all busy turning bare wood into a tribute to our artists, and learning about those artists at the same time by both reproducing their work and studying it to produce our color pallet.

We finished with about an hour left in the day. Just enough time to admire our work. After three days of hard work in the shop, we were all tired. But, I have never seen a prouder group of students. We moved the product of our hard work into the chosen spots on campus, and patted ourselves on the back for a job well done.

Why Mini-Term Was Powerful

I can honestly say that I have never had a more immersive learning experience in school. By allowing students to only focus on this one project they weren’t distracted and were well rested. The students were able to enjoy the Zen of the project - the beautiful, in the moment, experience of hard, dedicated work.

By giving students one overarching project, learning was able to happen through experience. Some of us learned about different artists while researching our paint scheme. Some of us learned about paint mixing and color pallets. We all learned how to solve the problems the project presented and the skills to face those problems in the future.

There was no grade, there was no homework, there was no test — the assessments were thrown out of the window. But, it was a stronger experience because of that. Students didn’t fear failure, they weren’t scared to learn something for the experience of learning. There was however a final product, and one that the students could be proud of. Every day, I experience the immense pleasure of seeing students sitting on the chair and bench that I helped build. And, that is something that I can be proud of. How often do our students get to be proud of their school work?

What I Would Change

I was fortunate to be in of the most successful mini-terms. The less successful classes seemed to be those that didn’t embrace the new format and attempted to fill the time with traditional classroom instruction. Students simply can’t sit at a desk for 6 hours a day learning about the same subject matter. Those mini-terms that realized this and used project-based learning to keep students involved provided the best learning experiences. I would work to ensure that this was the case across the board.

I would also include students in the planning and teaching of the mini-terms. One of the best things about my mini-term was that once the initial instructions were given, a large portion of the learning was student-to-student. Each student was able to bring their own skill set to the table — whether it be in design, drawing, CAD, painting, or construction — and students taught these skills to each other. I would work to encourage student involvement in instruction earlier in the process. Students with an interest in teaching and passion for a topic could be provided the opportunity to work with their teachers on the design and execution of a mini-term.

Finally, and this is the smallest issue by far, I would work with teachers to eliminate the pre-break crunch that occurred before mini-term. With students over-burdened the week prior, they entered mini-term tired and resentful. While no other homework was assigned that week, fear over losing their students for a week caused many teachers to assign stealth homework in the form of overdue assignments created by the crunch.

Mini-term was a powerful experience for students and while many of them may not realize it yet, they will be able to build off of their experiences for the rest of their lives. The project truly embraced the kind of experiential and project-based learning we need to produce 21^st century students who can think creatively.

This was originally written for publication for my school’s newsletter’s edition on “21^st century learning”. I present it to you here not as an attempt to present any new ideas, but in the hope that it might help to pull together many of the ideas that are floating around in online education discussions. Those familiar with Dan Pink might see some of his influence here. Enjoy.

Twenty-first century education won’t be defined by any new technology. It won’t be defined by 1:1 laptop programs or tech-intensive projects. Twenty-first century education will, however, be defined by a fundamental shift in what we are teaching—a shift towards learner-centered education and creating creative thinkers. Today’s world is no longer content with students who can simply apply the knowledge they learned in school: our generation will be asked to think and operate in ways that traditional education has not, and can not, prepare us for.

Education has long tried to produce students who can think (and at times, think critically) and it has, for the most part, succeeded. As we move into a world where outsourcing, automation, and the ability to produce a product, physical or intellectual, at the cheapest cost, become the cornerstones of our rapidly evolving global economy, the ability to think critically is no longer enough. The need to know the capital of Florida died when my phone learned the answer. Rather, the students of tomorrow need to be able to think creatively: they will need to learn on their own, adapt to new challenges and innovate on-the-fly. As the realm of intellectual accessibility expands at amazing rates (due to greater global collaboration and access to information), students of tomorrow will need to be their own guides as they explore the body of information that is at their fingertips. My generation will be required to learn information quickly, use that information to solve new and novel problems, and then present those solutions in creative and effective ways. The effective students of tomorrow’s world will be independent learners, strong problem solvers and effective designers.

If we accept the above to be true, I would argue that there are two types of education that will prepare students for the world of tomorrow: experiential learning and project-based learning.

Experiential learning can be best seen in extracurriculars and in some schools, senior projects. These experiences give students the opportunity to face first-hand the challenges that arise when applying the theoretical knowledge provided by traditional classroom learning to real-world challenges. Light designing for MICDS Theatre has taught me how to take my technical knowledge of lighting and apply it to a creative and artistic end. As issues arise, I must problem-solve within the constraints provided by my technical knowledge and my creative vision—I must think creatively.

Project-based learning is the in-class complement of experiential learning. The concept behind project-based learning is simple: give students the basic tools, then ask them to go above and beyond on their own projects, exploring the information in their own way, and on their own terms. The effect can be awe-inspiring. Our students are diving deeper into subject matter than ever before, and doing so on their own terms in ways that they enjoy. Whether it is through producing a movie on burlesque dance or deriving Kepler’s laws using calculus, students are not only learning, but they are learning how to learn.

Traditional-rote learning has its place too, as a jumping-off point for our intellectual endeavors. We are, however, crippling our students if we don’t give them the tools necessary to be life-long learners.

Update: A recent post on the Generation YES Blog talks about a Lemelson-MIT study showing that students are interested in having the tools to (in my language) think creatively.

As I watch students (myself included, as always) work on video projects for their foreign language, English, or other classes, I see a striking similarity between those videos and my family’s home movies. Just like home movies, most of these student videos are lacking a thesis and a design to support them. As technology allows us to integrate creative projects further into our curriculum, we need to give students the tools to funnel their creative efforts into an effective and cohesive whole.

The need to teach students how to design is not a new idea. Dan Meyer has been posting wonderful lessons from his class on Information Design. Scott S. Floyd in his year-end photo post writes:

While we focus on design being important in educating our youth (or their learning), I have begun to pay particular attention in how things look around me. I think that giving our students the opportunity to understand and appreciate the elements of design will allow them to create better finished products to display their learning.

There are many ways that one can approach design. Practitioners of the visual arts might look at it in terms of the principles of design. My background, however, is in theatre and video production. I will also add that my teacher/mentor Mr. Patrick Huber gets full credit for instilling this process in me.

If you asked a director of a theatrical or video production for the thesis of their production, you would surely get a cogent statement of purpose. It might be as simple as “My production is ‘historically accurate’” or a more grandiose theory about the world we inhabit: “by allowing ones’ ambition, not rationality, to take control of the choices we make, we lead ourselves into our failure” (That Scottish Play) or “our perception of our environment is a function of the people in it and our relationships with them” (The Zoo Story). Once a thesis is decided on, a concept for the production is formed that expresses the thesis and every design decision made during the production serves the thesis. This gives directors (or designers, or actors) a basic structure on which to base their production. Used correctly, a thesis can be the most powerful tool in a designer’s arsenal.

I would argue that the reason watching student videos can at times be excruciatingly painful is that they lack a cohesive design. Often, they represent a hodgepodge of ideas strewn together with very little thought to creating a unified whole. However, when students begin with picking a thesis, and then work from that thesis, a pattern, a design, begins to emerge. When the question for every single decision is “what supports my thesis?” those awkward transitions, strange cuts, and random effects begin to make sense.

Let us take, as an example, foreign language video projects. In my school, it is not uncommon for a foreign language student to be producing a short three- or five-minute video to demonstrate their mastery of the curriculum. Normally, the first “production meeting” starts with the question: “What can our video be about that makes it easy for us to use the required tenses and vocabulary?” And so, a script is written and design decisions are made with one goal in mind: satisfying the requirements. The problem is two-fold: While the video satisfies the requirements, it does so only minimally, and while the students are using the class’s language, they may not be fully expressing an idea with the language.

Rather than simply asking our students to combine video technology with their foreign language, we need to be asking them to use both their foreign language and video technology to express an idea. Asking students to reach beyond the requirements is where the real gold lies: it is when we really start to see how well students can use the tools given to them.

This isn’t, of course, limited to foreign language videos. I would classify student video productions into two categories: (1) videos demonstrating mastery of material (such as the above foreign language example), and (2) videos demonstrating the material (such as a video one might produce for a history class explaining some historical event). In this second case, the purpose of a thesis is simple: to make the video interesting. If students are trying to convey information in a video, they need to hold their audience’s attention. Structuring their video and design decisions around a thesis is a powerful tool for creating a cohesive and powerful piece.

I leave you with a series of questions: How and when do you teach students design skills at your school? What types of design skills do you teach them? Do they have the design skills to effectively utilize the creative mediums you provide them? What attributes have you found make student designs particularly effective?

Edit: Changed the title, and corrected some small errors. ~AJC (2008-01-07)

Cognitive Daily has a summary of a study (PDF) on the connection between different types of practice tests and performance on a final test. The conclusion (as reported by Cognitive Daily) shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to seasoned teachers:

more elaborate retrieval processes during practice tests lead to better results on final tests

While the researchers looked at a much simpler form of learning (memorization of lists of words) than we strive for in our classrooms, the applicability of their results is easy to see: make students think. The study would seem to support the idea that when we force students to use their knowledge in elaborate ways, such as class discussions, presenting projects, or defending a thesis in an essay, they will be able to better recall the information in the final test—whether it be an exam, or life.