Simply amazing! This video demonstrates project-based, thematic curriculum can be a successful instructional strategy for ALL students, even 5 year olds!

How would a program like this appeal to a broad spectrum of high-low level learners? To me it would seem that this project-based learning would see a higher success rate than the normal workbook/drill style of teaching for slower learners and be less boring for quick learners. By incorporating all the students together into project-based learning, and not making this exclusinve to gifted programs, kids of all learning types get to find a new arena to excell.

Thanks for sharing this inspiring video of Auburn Early Education Center.

AEEC is the public kindergarten in Auburn. It is for all learners. Half the kids there are on free or reduced lunch! Don't think that because these kids respond so great is because the kids are unique. The great response is because the teachers, and staff all treat the children as authentic learners in authentic learning situations.

Daniel,

The Early Education Center in Auburn is not a gifted program. Every kindergarten child in the entire city school system goes to this school. They have the lowest level child in the system to the highest level. They have ESOL students, special needs students, and they are a Title I school. This curriculum has something to offer every student regardless of their experiences, finances, or academic level. Assuming this is Daniel Dickson from GCPS, please feel free to come and see me and I will elaborate.

Jeff Smith

This video was very helpful for me as a 23 year veteran teaching Kindergarten. I have attended a program called InSTEP that introduced me to PBL, but I'd like to know more. How were you able to fund the needed technology, like white interactive boards for the class? How long did the "cruise" take to reseach and get it in? We have Content Standards and Objectives(CSO's) that we have to cover. Have you been able to cover all needed material using PBL or do you use some traditional approaches?

My daughter Caitlin is in the Blue Pod at AEEC, and her pod took the Cruise ship to Africa. I'm fuzzy on the exact time period, but I want to say that it took the kids about two months to organize and create the cruise ship. Each of the six classes in the Blue Pod made a different section of the ship. Caitlin's class made the lifeboats and life-vests. During that same time period (in fact, all year) they were learning about African animals and culture. Caitlin's class currently has lifesize replicas of a female African elephant (the kids decided a male African elephant would be too big to fit inside the classroom), lion, chimpanzee, meerkat, and African grey parrot. They've also got a spitting cobra, camel, bull hippopotamus, and crocodile on displays outside of the classroom. The kids come up with their own ideas on how to create the replicas... and sometimes their ideas don't work. This is just part of the learning process, and the kids will have to go back and ask themselves, "Ok, why didn't that work, and what can we do this time to make it work better?" I can't express how amazing this school is, and how much my daughter has learned since she started in August. AEEC is amazing.

I am incredibly impressed with the AEEC program - the children do seem to be engaged with each other and with the learning process. KUDOS!

However I noticed something as I watched: in the "Airport" classroom, it looked like the pilots and air traffic controllers were all boys! Considering that those are the best paid and most powerful positions in the airline industry AND they remain vastly male, I have to wonder about the message that sent - however subtle it might have been - to the girls in the classroom. Even if the roles were self-selected by the kids, there remains an ethical duty by educators to promote gender equity. Since the project dealt with the airline industry, I sincerely hope this was addressed at an age appropriate level. After all, the values kids hold as adults are formed in early childhood.

I am the reading coach at Auburn Early Education Center and I can assure you that we at AEEC do everything in our power to empower girls and boys as we strive to lead them to see that the "sky is the limit" for their learning and their future. In this particular video segment, you only saw boys working in the roles of pilots and air traffic controllers. This is only one segment and one piece of footage dealing with the project based learning that our students are engaged in everyday. In another simulated airline experience you would be just as likely to find girls filling these roles as boys. We are always mindful of the gender bias, as well as other biases and prejudices, that exist in the world in which we live. We truly believe that children are our future and that they offer the hope of making our world a better place. Therefore our ultimate goal is to help them become productive members of society and agents for positive change.
Child choice is an essential component in fostering academic skills such as problem solving and critical thinking. It is also crucial to the social and moral development of the child in the movement towards autonomy. At AEEC project work is guided and driven by the interests and choice of the child. Thus, the roles that children participated in during this particular project were not assigned to them, but were chosen by them.
We also realize that our world looks at the worth,value,and importance of a job based upon the power and money associated with that job. While the job of pilot may be powerful and monetarily lucrative, the mechanic whose job it is to ensure the plane is "flight worthy" surely has a job of at least equal importance and value. Thus we strive to teach our children that every job is important and necessary in achieving the ultimate goal of a safe flight for the passengers who have entrusted their lives to the airline. As teachers we experience the "job bias" that exists in the world as a daily reality. However, I don't think anyone would argue the ultimate value and worth that a job in education holds for our society - even though it is not a position of power or great wealth.

I would love to work at a school who believes in project based learning. How do you go about finding these schools? Are there any in Colorado?