I'm a journalist who writes about the power of teaching and learning to improve lives and transform communities. Author of Bringing Innovation to School: Empowering Students to Thrive in a Changing World and co-author of Reinventing Project-Based Learning: Your Field Guide to Real-World Projects in the Digital Age, I'm inspired by educators who push the boundaries of the traditional classroom. I'm on the National Faculty of the Buck Institute for Education, and have also helped nonprofit organizations design programs that teach both youth and adults how to improve their communities with innovative, sustainable solutions.
Blog Posts
When teachers embark on project-based learning with their students, there's no predicting exactly where projects will go. Good projects are open-ended by design, leading to sometimes unexpected results. For 500 of the world's most accomplished PBL teachers, the project path recently took them...
Read More.Previously in this series on going deeper with project-based learning, we've explored the importance of teacher reflection in teacher reflection in PBL, considered how to plan...
Read More.Although most students will be watching Inauguration Day festivities from afar on January 21, they can get into the spirit of the day by putting pen to paper, or voice to video, and offering some second-term advice for their newly reelected president.
Read More.Student reflection is a key ingredient in project-based learning, and for good reason. As John Dewey reminded us nearly a century ago, "We do not learn from experience . . . we learn from reflecting on experience."
Reflection not only makes learning stick at the end of a project but...
Read More.With election season entering the final stretch, political discussions are at a fever pitch. Attack ads and debate "zingers" may be dominating the news, but they don't tell the whole story when it comes to how voters -- and future voters -- think and talk about important issues. In classrooms...
Read More.John Seely Brown, renowned scientist, insightful writer, and all-around big thinker, is serious about play. Playful, adventuresome experiences that engage both mind and body are how we learn best, he told a rapt audience at the recent...
Read More.A blog without an audience is like...a library without books, a car without an engine, Beyonce without a ring. Those were some of the responses David Mitchell (@DeputyMitchell) got when he asked his Twitter followers to fill in the blank.
Read More.When six middle-school girls from Bowling Green, Kentucky, got the wild idea to launch a camera into space, they knew there would be big challenges ahead. They would have to learn about everything from weather balloons to high-definition cameras, raise thousands of dollars to buy the gear they...
Read More.With the presidential election dominating the news between now and November, there's no shortage of timely material to bring into classroom discussions. If used as the starting point for project-based learning, the 2012 election can engage students in thinking critically about everything from...
Read More.What does it mean to rethink teaching and learning in the age of the Internet? That timely question will be examined from all angles this week by educators from around the globe. Appropriately, conversations will take place online in a free event called...
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