As a former teacher and now school leader, I know that nothing is worse than missing the mark with your students. It’s both disillusioning and frustrating to know that you’re failing to provide them with the tools they need to drive their own learning.
It was this realization that convinced me that something needed to change. We had to do high school differently.
In 2017, the staff and I reviewed the model and program of our alternative public high school to try to understand why a significant number of our students were not graduating or unable to continue their studies afterwards.
We discovered that it wasn’t necessarily the students who were failing, but rather the model that was causing the students to fail. Our students were actually ask for more rigorous and relevant courses.
We chose to listen and we delivered real-world, project-based learning that mattered to them. As a result, they immersed themselves in “understanding” rather than “discovering” the answers to the questions. This latter approach sometimes alienates learners from traditional courses.
I think some lessons from our high school in southeastern Massachusetts might be useful in the United States, where too many high school students are “just crossing the finish line” to graduate.
Related: There’s a lot going on in classrooms from kindergarten through high school. Follow our free weekly K-12 education newsletter.
Our transformation consisted of designing and opening a different alternative school model, one that centers teaching on project-based experiential units built on real-world scenarios. Known as TLEs, or transformative learning experiences, these units lead students to ask “why this matters” to their learning, so that engagement happens naturally. They challenge students to think critically and change their perspective on issues and dilemmas in their own lives and communities.
With the support of our technical partnernon-profit organization Springpoint, our school now offers 25 TLE units; students especially like the one titled “Does College Make Pennies?” ” in which they use mathematics to assess what type of postsecondary learning might best support their future goals.
Students who never imagined graduating from high school said they gained a much clearer picture of the path forward, supported by their own research. Many decided that a two- or four-year college was indeed the most prudent and accessible route for them.
Others discovered technical apprenticeships that supported their talents and interests. It was both affirming and powerful to hear students explain how their school experiences changed their belief systems.
In our eighth year of using this program, we can confidently say that it is not only a different way to do high school, but also a meaningful and relevant way that better serves all students and particularly re-engages students who had previously been off-track.
Our internal data supports this belief. Our attendance increased from 50 percent to 85 percentand our graduation rate increased from 60 to 84 percent. In a student focus group, our newly engaged students raved about their relationships with their teachers and credited their learning experiences with giving them purpose and helping them reimagine and change their trajectories for the future. They told us they love learning again, just like when they were in elementary school.
Data the information Springpoint collects from all its partner schools helps us reinvent our work; this shows that 92 percent of students make connections between what they learn in TLE and their lives.
When students are given more choices in how they learn and more opportunities to showcase their critical thinking in the classroom, transformation occurs.
As part of this approach, we seek teachers who are interested in elevating student voices and who see their role as facilitators of rich academic discourse.
Related: OPINION: Don’t force students to choose between college or career: preparation for both is crucial
Transformative learning experiences help rewrite classroom discourse and convey to students that lifelong learning is the goal. Transforming the learning experience works best with a technical partner working alongside teachers to help prepare lessons and build momentum early in the process.
If we, as school leaders and policymakers, want to enact policies that will have a lasting impact on our students, we must place students at the center of that policy change. The work we submit to our students conveys our beliefs about them.
Provide students with an opportunity that honors their abilities and helps them reach their full potential and postsecondary goals. Provide them with a curriculum that empowers, elevates, and transforms them, and build frameworks that support classroom freedom to explore locally and engage critically.
Again: Too many high school students in our country are simply “crossing the finish line” to graduate. Transformative learning experiences inspire our students to view graduation as a “starting line” and ignite their passions and interests for future learning and meaningful careers.
Here’s my advice: start small, incubate success, and orchestrate larger-scale change through transformative learning experiences. I saw this work in Massachusetts; I believe it can work everywhere.
Janet Schweizer is the director of Evolve Academy in Fall River, Massachusetts.
Contact the opinion editor at opinion@hechingerreport.org.
This story on project-based learning was produced by The Hechinger reportan independent, nonprofit news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Register with Hechinger weekly newsletter.
The article LEAD VOICE: Our off-track high school students weren’t very interested in school until we looked into hands-on learning, appeared first on The Hechinger Report.
