Transforming Schools Using Project-Based Learning, Performance Assessment, and Common Core Standards

I have been doing a lot more research and book reading this year to make an effort to really educate myself around solid principles in project based learning, deeper learning, and how to infuse these elements into the classroom without teacher burnout.Screen Shot 2014-08-04 at 10.15.21 AMIn 2014 I read and reviewed a book titled, Deeper Learning by Monica Martinez(MUST READ!!!!) which really inspired to push the envelope of thinking and learning in my school. The book opened my eyes to so many solid ideas that it lead to a book club, chats with the author, and some very powerful conversations with educators in our building. Over time we have slowly made subtle changes to our teaching and culture to allow deeper learning to take root. We have begun to develop some very high level projects and opportunities for deeper learning in our school due to the hard work, perspiration, and boundary pushing of the teachers in our building.Recently I came across this book, Transforming Schools Using PBL, Performance Assessment, and Common Core Standards, and just had to buy it. I was so intrigued by the long title because it spoke to the exact dilemma that we are working through in our school right now. How does one incorporate the framework of Deeper Learning with quality elements of project based learning while not losing focus on the Common Core and still finding time to enter grades into a gradebook to keep parents and students happy?Bob Lenz and crew have written a book that speaks volumes of honesty, learning, examples, and more to make this all happen. The book comes with an appendix about the same size as the contents of the book to give the reader everything they have developed in their schools. This is a huge bonus as it allows the reader to absorb the ideas, see examples, and then time to go make a modified version to fit the needs of a particular school.This book proves that it is possible to dive deep, craft high quality projects, meet the standards, and not burn yourself out. The book provides many examples, links to further resources that just the resources alone are worth the cost of the book.What I found to be powerful for me was to first read Deeper Learning by Monica Martinez to understand Screen Shot 2015-02-03 at 3.03.08 PMthe framework for Deeper Learning. Understand how to look at your school and identify what needs to be fixed and what is working. It is more like the Why this system works. It develops the overarching framework. From there you can move into Transforming Schools to learn the How to make this happen. This book provides examples. It speaks truth. It walks the walk and does not talk down to the reader. It keeps a sense of reality in check when sharing the ideas. If you want to take it a step further you can move into the What by reading Leaders of Their Own Learning: Transforming by Ron Berger to develop day to day teaching tools to make sure you are on the right track.This is a must read. It is a book you must purchase as you will write notes, highlight passages, watch the DVD contents, cross reference with Deeper Learning and Leaders of the Their Own Learning and soon you will be making changes to the classroom to develop students in ways nobody thought was possible. I found the book to be very powerful in terms of thinking project based learning. I have written on project based learning for several years and this book gave me pause to think through some ideas and where I need to improve my thinking.I guess this review is a suggestion for three books. Over the course of April my reading of these three books will lead to a blog post a day documenting my ideas about Deeper Learning, Project Based Learning, and Student Engagement. I look forward to sharing more specifics. In the meantime start reading these books! Transforming Schools is a must read and will be one of my main staples of books to use again and again.

This book is amazing and the information in it is clear, concise, and helpful. I wish I taught at a school like this.I take one star off for the videos, however. Though they, too, are interesting and informative, the quality is horrible. They are so pixelated you feel drunk watching them. I've taken to mostly just listening to them because the picture is so hard on the eyes. For such a high quality book, you would expect better.

There is much happening in education today. Frankly, our existing education system is still operating pretty much as when it was designed more than 100 years ago, and yet we live in a very different economy with very different skills required to succeed. One only need look at how many college grads have trouble finding jobs to confirm that. Envision Schools, co-founded by Bob Lenz, is one of what are called "deeper learning" schools that are pioneering completely new ways of educating for the new age -- essentially moving from teaching to learning. I liked this book because it provides a very thorough understanding of the Envision approach. The book goes into detail about the guiding vision or philosophy of learning around which the new learning environment is built. How this affects students, the calendar, the teachers, and the assessment are all covered well enough to get a reasonable understanding of the approach. Model project descriptions and rubrics are also offered. The approaches taken by the deeper vision schools are so different that most people, educators included, have a hard time understanding the environment -- it just seems like it cannot work. While the full understanding really requires visiting a working school, I believe this book will do as much as anything I have seen to bring the reader up to speed on the deeper learning transformation. For that reason I highly recommend it for anyone interested in bring our schools up to what is needed for the future of our country, which should be everyone.Having said that, from my experience the Envision model does not go as far as the best examples today. It clearly achieves significant advantages over traditional schools. However, it uses the framework of a few project experiences to tie together a more traditional teaching approach. At one point Lenz even says project based learning really involves just creating a project before one teaches a lesson and then relating the lessons to that project while teaching pretty much as before. This makes it easier for teachers, certainly. However, in my experience, one can achieve even better results, even deeper learning that transforms even more students, by going further to truly have students take the lead in all their learning. So read this book to take advantage of the big effort made to explain deeper learning, but then look for ways to take the model even further from teaching to learning. Don't get me wrong. If more schools followed this model we would be much better off. It is just that one can do even better in my experience. Making this transition is very challenging, and I want to encourage anyone doing it to go for the very best. Fortunately, Envision is still learning, so I suspect they will gradually go that way, also.

I came across this book as I was looking for powerful lesson plan designs. I bought it because I was interested in reading more about the topic of Project Based Learning and Student Defenses, which I wholeheartedly believe in. I just finished reading through it for the first of what will be many times and the guidance, templates, stories, and videos are incredible. I wish this book was available 15 years ago when I started teaching but better late than never right?!

Excelente visión para una escuela interesada en mejorar