(I joked with a Cohort 21 member during our last session at B.S.S. that my action plan may need to be an action plan for having an action plan. I think I have moved beyond that, but perhaps only just…)
At Trafalgar Castle School, our Experiential Learning Coordinator, Christina Schindler, recently initiated a fabulous school-wide programme based on The Rotman School of Management’s iThink methodology for problem solving. For students in Grades 11 and 12, the methodology forms the basis for a cross-curricular independent research project. Students were to find curricular connections for their ideas to at least two courses that they’re currently taking. This proved more difficult than we’d all thought.
I wondered if skills-based assessments were the magic bullet for making interdisciplinary PBL projects truly cross-curricular?
Students easily discovered that their ideas related well to, say, math and bio–but not necessarily to Calc and Grade 12 Bio. Connections to disciplines were abundant. Not so connections to specific courses.
As a potential solution, I suggested that students ask their English teachers if they’d be willing to assess their projects from a communication perspective, either oral, written, or media. This “catch-all” expedient was possible because of English’s unique position of having an entirely skills-based curriculum. (I’ll let you know how this works out!)
Based on this experience, I wondered if skills-based assessments were the magic bullet for making interdisciplinary PBL projects truly cross-curricular, so as to not stress over the content as much?
Can English contribute more to PBL assessments than solely communication skills? If so, how?
And, as an English teacher, I wondered if there could be more for English to contribute to PBL assessments than communication skills (and obvious thematic overlaps)? (I don’t for a second suggest that strong communication skills aren’t essential. I’m merely curious if we as teachers and our kids as students of English can offer more?)
So that’s the kernel of an idea for a potential action plan for developing an action plan.
Should I uncover other usefulness for we English folk in the PBL/cross-curricular arena, I’ll certainly proliferate. If not, I’d like to focus on how best communication skills should be employed in 21st-century learning.