Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • >>Teacher: On March 24th you're going to stand in front of your peers.

  • You're going to stand in front of your parents.

  • You're going to stand in front of a panel of engineers.

  • You will have data.

  • You will have graphs.

  • And you're going to knock the socks off people.

  • >>Narrator: Seattle teacher, Scott McComb is outlining a project

  • to his ninth grade physics class that will have them creating, building,

  • and testing various wing structures that they will design in teams.

  • McComb is part of a growing group of educators

  • who believe project learning is the most effective way to teach.

  • >>Man: Try right now.

  • So you know how to do it?

  • >>Linda: When you think about project-based learning,

  • learning that results in demonstrations of performance,

  • real tasks that have brought challenges to students to solve,

  • you can see that it's in context with the ways in which kids have

  • to be able to be functioning adults.

  • >>It's quite an improvement.

  • >>Remember our first wing didn't even hold water?

  • >>Narrator: Project learning is a hands-on student directed activity

  • in which students create something

  • that demonstrates what they have learned whether it's a website,

  • a play.

  • >>Can you believe this arrogance?

  • They think they can stop us.

  • Nothing can stop us.

  • >>Narrator: Or a wing design portfolio.

  • >>Seymour: First thing you have to do is to give up the idea of curriculum,

  • curriculum meaning you have to learn this on a given day.

  • Replace it by a system where you learn this where you need it.

  • >>So that means you're going to put kids in a position

  • where they're going to use the knowledge that they get.

  • >>Narrator: Projects involve in-depth investigations of subject matter

  • which are often guided by professional experts who enrich

  • and supplement the teacher's knowledge.

  • >>Teacher: We do this in the real world too and it's very cool.

  • And that's- I'm hoping to show you how cool it is.

  • >>Hayley: I like doing hands-on projects more just

  • because I feel I learn better by learning from my own experiences.

  • When we were doing the wing project I learned

  • like our first wing was really bad

  • and then our third wing, we did really well.

  • >>Oh I'm so proud of us!

  • >>Narrator: Current research shows

  • that project learning can be more effective

  • than traditional instruction in increasing academic achievement.

  • It is also effective in helping students understand,

  • apply, and retain information.

  • Other benefits include building skills like critical thinking,

  • communication, and collaboration.

  • Students who work on projects show increased motivation

  • and engagement in their studies.

  • >>Our task was to create a high-efficiency, low-weight wing

  • that when tested it would, you know,

  • it would show the values you'd want for a real wing.

  • >>Mike: These kids the way they present themselves,

  • they're articulate, they know what they're about,

  • they know what they've learned.

  • They've obviously been able to work together and in a situation like this

  • for ninth graders to pull off something

  • like that is absolutely remarkable.

  • >>Student: And here's our data for our wings.

  • This would be the first round would be one, two and three,

  • then four and five and six.

  • >>For more information on what works

  • in public education go to edutopia.org

>>Teacher: On March 24th you're going to stand in front of your peers.

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it