1. What is Your Driving Question?

The question my son originally asked, "Where do bats go during the day?", became more of a question about habitat. "What is the habitat of a bat? What environment do they require to live?" This is an umbrella question with many sub-questions to explore. Where a species resides is dependent on available food, shelter, proximity to water, foraging behaviors, nesting/resting behaviors, predators to avoid and how they avoid them, etc.  

2. What Is Your Final Product? 

I showed my son pictures of several bat house designs from Pinterest, many of which had the Batman emblem painted on the front. He decided (mostly because of the Batman symbol) that he wanted to make a bat house to put out near the front porch. Making a functional, successful bat house requires an understanding of bat habitat and behavior.  

Note: Showing my son a bat house makes it no less child-led. He had no idea what a bat house was, he had never seen one. Part of the role of the facilitator is to guide the learning experience by providing insight, community connections, suggestions, learning opportunities, and even structure. ​

4. What Community Experts Could You Use?

My high school project-based learners, with my help, brainstorm potential community experts and add those individuals to their project proposals. They may happen upon more as they work on their projects, and that's great!

My son and I went out into the community to gather information about bat habitat so that we could create the best shelter possible. I took him to a library to check out a variety of bat books. We went to a local nature center where he was able to speak with a naturalist. She led us on a short tour to see the bat boxes they had on their property. She could have easily been invited to us, but visiting the area gave us a better picture of what to create. 

A project like this is highly modifiable. Learner-led project-based learning is personalized, so projects should organically fit the needs, goals, interests, and abilities of the student in question. A project like this one could be adapted to any learner. The amount of guidance would depend on the student, their age, their abilities, and so on. Younger students, like my son, need a lot more guidance than would a high school student. 

Conservation is the best way to determine a student's interests. Download my free interest survey from more store to scaffold those conversations. 

As a science teacher, I love this project because it brings those life science standards to life. Students learn about ecosystems through hands-on, student-led inquiry. On top of that they build skills such as creative design, collaboration, networking, finding credible information. They begin to understand their local communities and what they need. Student-directed project-based learning is multidisciplinary and the results are mind-blowing. 

I recently added a PBL maker challenge to my store that parallels my son's project - Build a Wildlife Shelter. Students choose a local native species of interest, learn about their behaviors and natural history, and build a shelter for that species to place in the community. 

Follow Experiential Learning Depot on Pinterest and Instagram for more on project-based learning and experiential education. You can also check out my TpT store for more experiential learning resources such as problem-based learning and inquiry-based learning. 

I have been on a project-based learning posting spree this summer in hopes of inspiring some movement in that direction. Up to this point I've written a post on each specific component of PBL, the benefits, tips and trick and now the "how to". For those of you gearing up for the upcoming school year, consider adding project-based learning to your curriculum. Start strong right away in the fall! For those of you that do year-round school, unschooling, world schooling, outschooling, and every other type of "schooling" it's never too late to start PBL. All you need is the right tools and the confidence. This post will give you that confidence, as will time, consistent reflection, and willingness to adapt and modify as you go. 

Not long ago my children and I got on a cheese-making kick. It all started from a simple question: "Where does cheese come from, Mom?" We hit up the library, took a look at children's books on the subject, checked out some cheese-making cookbooks, met with a cattle farmer, visited a creamery, and even got to meet a one-day-old calf. My son learned about the process of turning milk into cheese. He learned about the properties of milk and how heat and time impact the outcome of the cheese. The number of concepts involved in an activity like this is endless and could be modified for all learners of all ages and skill levels if PBL is the approach. After gathering information we made cheese, failed, adjusted, and made more cheese, a learning experience in itself. My daughter and I used the cheese that we made to make cannolis and pizza, which we  served at a community gathering. 

This is project-based learning - asking a question, learning through experience, creating an authentic final product and sharing that information with a real-world, relevant audience. A simple question led to a full blown PBL experience for a 5 and 2-year-old. I have spent the past 10 years applying this same concept with middle and high school students. Project-based learning works for everyone. That is one reason I stand by it. I am an advocate for integrated, community-based, authentic, experiential learning opportunities for all. Project-based learning encompasses all four. 

If you are homeschooler, a teacher doing an entire course on passion projects, an authentic project-based educator, etc., where you have flexibility to give your students choice in subject and topic, your first step will be to begin to understand EACH student and who they are as individuals - their interests, goals, long-term pathway, skills, strengths, hopes and dreams, etc. - to help them develop and design personalized projects. Students ask the question and design their own projects based on their interests. 

You can learn about your students in a variety of ways. I have each of my students do a personal learning plan that includes goals, interests, project-ideas, etc. You can also have students start with an interest survey. Check out my free download here. After students have shared interests and brainstormed project topic ideas, move onto the steps written below.

For subject-based instructors that do not have the flexibility to allow students to choose their own topics, you can choose the main ideas for them. Students design their projects around that given topic. I teach seminars throughout the year on specific subjects. These content specific seminars are still project-based. I choose the project topics, my students choose how they will gather information, demonstrate learning, and share new skills and knowledge. This allows students to take something that is subject-specific and make it multidisciplinary. Once a topic has been established, your students will go through the following steps, and you will facilitate the process. 

Once students have a project topic, whether determined by the teacher or the student, continue on with the following steps. An important thing to note is that these steps don't necessarily have to go in this order. Step one is an important first step, but the others may overlap. 

Step 1: Project Design

My own children went to storytime at the local library. One of the books was about how cheese comes from milk. My son wondered how to make cheese from cow's milk, the driving question, and a project was born. ​

At this time students will complete a project proposal which includes a driving question, research categories or questions, a final product plan, a community expert plan, and an authentic presentation plan. You can all of this and more from my Project-Based Learning Toolkit. This kit includes all templates essential for implementing project-based learning on any topic. 

If you choose to have students create their own assessments, this is a great time for them to do that. Check out last week's post on student-led assessments. 

Take a look at PBL rubrics available in my store including self-generated. 

Step 3: Progress Evaluations

Throughout the project process students will self-assess and peer-assess using a generic project assessment or the student-generated assessment. As I said earlier, I typically stick with rubrics. You can organize this process in a variety of ways. One option is to outline checkpoints, times at which students will self and/or peer assess. You could also have regular project circles, which is when the whole group gets together to share progress and offer feedback and suggestions to each other.

You can also ask that community experts involved in the project assess student progress periodically. Invite them to walk the room during designated PBL time. They offer an authentic lens. You can also organize student/teacher check-ins throughout the project process as well. 

Step 4: Authentic Final Product Assembly

Making cheese and creating a video tutorial on the experience will take more time and effort than putting together a poster board on how to make cheese. Students would have to actually make the cheese, get it on video, edit the footage, and make a professional final product to be shared with the community. Give students ample class time to work on creating high quality final products. Peruse the room offering consistent feedback as they work. My children and I made cheese, several rounds of it because we didn't get ideal results the first few times. We also made recipes with our cheese, pizza and cannolis, and assembled platters for serving samples. 

If you go back to earlier posts in my project-based learning series you will find several that mention authentic final products. This is how students assemble information and demonstrate learning. It might be a blog, an advertisement, a documentary, photojournal, etc. For more details on final products check out Key Elements to Project-Based Learning. You can also check out my post 100 Final Product Ideas for Project-Based Learners for final product ideas.

Students can begin creating their final products at any point in the project process.  If the final product is authentic, which it should be in order to be considered project-based, creating the final product will take some time.

Step 5: Authentic Presentations

My children shared their cheese making experience, along with samples of the cheese that they made and recipes they made using their cheese, at a neighborhood event. 

One element of project-based learning that separates it from other teaching approaches is the authentic presentation piece. In short, an authentic presentation is one where students share their new skills and knowledge with an audience that is relevant and can benefit in some way from the information or the final product itself. For details on this go back to my post on Authentic Learning.

Once students have completed their projects and assembled their final products, they can share that product or information with their authentic audience. 

Step 6: Reflections

After students give their authentic presentation they will write a final reflection. The reflection piece is critical. They will not only look back on the content and what they've learned, but the experience in itself. They will analyze their own strengths and weaknesses throughout the process and build on that moving forward. 

My project-based learning bundle and toolkit both include a reflection template. Scroll down for links. 

Step 7: Final Evaluations

Once students have completed projects, presented to an authentic audience, and reflected on the experience, they will present to you, the class, and if you wish, their community experts. Audience members can provide feedback and if you wish, you may complete their final rubric at this time. 

I prefer to meet separately with each student after their presentations to go over their rubrics one-on-one. The students bring a self-evaluated rubric and their reflection to the meeting. We go over it together, determine credit, and make goals for the next project. 

There are a variety of advantages to child-led assessments. The greatest advantage is the intrinsic motivation to learn. When you give student’s choice and voice, they organically invest in the outcome. Learners develop a strong self-concept, intrapersonal intelligence, the skills to identify their own strengths and weaknesses, and the wherewithal to grow and adapt. That in itself invaluable for lifelong learners.

Another result in favor of student-directed assessments is the development of competencies that are relevant to life outside of the classroom. A traditional assessment, whether it be a multiple choice test or a teacher-created rubric, doesn’t always address critical life skills, emotional and social awareness, or technical abilities, for example. They are generally intended to assess content knowledge only. Learning important subject concepts isn’t a bad thing. The trouble comes when the assessment ONLY targets content knowledge, and it’s the instructor determining the measurements for all students, not individuals.

Student-generated assessments along with consistent self-reflection and meetings with the facilitator/teacher throughout the learning process gives students indispensable feedback. Students go back and revise and improve their work. That in itself, the motivation to improve, is a skill often lost in teacher-centered classrooms with teacher-created assessments. The result of creating one’s own assessment, having voice and choice in one’s learning and outcomes, and aiming to improve, is passionate, life-long learners. Putting personal opinions about education aside, isn’t that a solid accomplishment and desire of all educators? 

I use the following assessments strategies with my project-based learners. If it seems like a bit much, try a few things at a time or attempt to introduce some of the ideas gradually. At some point in your journey to a project-based learning environment you will be able to implement all of these strategies seamlessly because they are building blocks. They work off of each other. Good luck! 

1. Goal-Setting

At the beginning of a session or project have students write personal and academic goals. You are setting students up to be able to design their own assessments based on their vision, needs, and learning goals. Each of my students has a personal learning plan (PLP) that they create with me at the beginning of the school year. This is where they record their strengths, interests, and short and long-term goals. They return to their PLP periodically throughout the course of the year to reflect and adjust their plans. You may also consider asking students to write goals specific to a given project. They can create a few goals before they start.

I use PLP's for goal-making, I have students make project goals before each project, and I also have students do my "goals maker PBL challenge" at the beginning of the year. I guide students in the goal-making process. There is no specific system . Do what works well for you.

2. Student-Generated Assessments : 

PBL projects are typically assessed using rubrics. I use a generic rubric for my beginner project-based learners. Eventually students can begin to create their own rubrics where they determine criteria to be evaluated. Criteria might relate to goals, strengths that they would like to build on, interests, skill level, and even the nature of the project. This idea could apply to any assessment style, not just rubrics. You could even have students design formative assessments throughout the course of the project. 

For example, if your students are doing a neurology project and they're learning about neurotransmission, allow students to decide how they will demonstrate their understanding of that concept. They might create a moving model, an animation, a poem, etc. The list goes on. Check out my previous post on 100 Ways to Demonstrate Learning.

PBL Formative Assessments
Generic Project-Based Learning Rubric
Student-Generated Rubric with Word Banks

3. Self-Evaluations

An important life skill is the ability to reflect on one's work, identify areas that could use improvement, and make adjustments. Teachers have to do this every day - reflect and adapt. Ask students to self-evaluate periodically throughout the course of the project and again before their final project evaluation with you (facilitator/teacher). My students fill in their generic or self-generated rubrics as their self-assessments. We often have work days where students work on their projects while I meet with students one-on-one to take a peek at their progress and go over their self-assessments.

4. Peer-Evaluations

A critical element of project-based learning is feedback, and another important life skill is the ability to accept constructive feedback and make improvements. This isn't a skill that everyone innately has. Students often revolt when asked to pump up the quality of a project or go back and try this or that. Establishing high standards of student work starts with feedback and the chance, and expectation, to improve. The end goal is for students to want to improve, or get excited about the prospect.  

Foster as many opportunities for feedback as possible. One way to do this is through peer-evaluations. Have students share their work with each other, offer suggestions, and the chance to go back and make improvements. You can ask them to develop partnerships for a specific project - a project buddy. You can have them do project circles where students get together every so often to share their progress with the group. Students can then ask questions, give suggestions, and offer insightful feedback. 

5. Community Expert Evaluations

The same idea applies here as with peer-evaluations except community experts have an authentic perspective. In project-based learning students connect with community experts (look back a couple weeks for a post on this concept). If learners are doing a project on puma habitat, for example, they might connect with a local zoologist, conservationist, or ecologist. If their final product is creating a documentary they might bring in a film-maker from the community to help with formatting and editing. Students can maintain consistent communication with these community members throughout the project process and ask that those experts evaluate their progress as they go. These community experts can also attend final presentations and play a role in final evaluations. 

6. Student-Led Final Evaluations with Instructor and/or Evaluation Committee

After students have presented their final products to the class/teacher AND their authentic audience (see last weeks post on authentic presentations) I meet with them one-on-one to go over their rubrics (generic and/or self-created). They bring a self-assessed rubric to this meeting. The student justifies their self-evaluation, I give them my feedback, determine credit, we talk about future goals, and move onto the next project.

This process can - and should if you can make it work - be done using an evaluation committee. An evaluation committee is a small group put together to evaluate student projects. The group might consist of another staff member, students, community experts relevant to the project, and you, the instructor. This limits subjectivity when assigning a final grade or credit and offers students feedback from a variety of perspectives. 

If you're interested in implementing any or all of these strategies, consider checking out Getting Started with Project-Based Learning Package from my store that includes 20 integrated PBL projects, an implementation manual, and all of the templates necessary for seamless execution of PBL, such as a personal learning plan.

Students from all backgrounds, skill levels, age groups, and instructional environments can take an active role in their education by simply having the chance to create and manage their own measurements of success.  Every student is able to create their own assessments, and they will take pride and ownership in the outcome. ​

"Authentic" is a buzzword in the project-based learning world. Authenticity is the foundation of PBL and plays a role in every step of the process from project design to final evaluation. That is one feature that separates project-based learning from other teaching methods. The learning experiences, final product, resources, presentation, assessment, reflection, etc. should all be authentic - they should be relevant, real, have meaning and purpose in the lives of learners. 

For example, an authentic learning experience would be one in which a student interviews an oncologist vs. reads about cancer on Wikipedia. An authentic final product might be a mini-documentary that follows the experience of a cancer survivor vs. a poster board with tidbits of information about cancer. An authentic presentation would be hosting a community screening of the mini-documentary vs. a presentation to the class.

This post is specifically about that authentic presentations. ​

Backtrack a few weeks to posts from my project-based learning series for more details on PBL. 

An authentic presentation is the demonstration of new skills and knowledge to a relevant audience in the community.  The idea is that the information or the final product reaches an audience that could use the final product or benefit from the material in some way, where the learner can experience and visualize their new understanding of a concept or skill at play in real life. A presentation that is not authentic would be one given to the class followed by the final product getting tossed in the trash, never to be thought of again. An authentic presentation would leave a mark on the community, and depending on the nature of the presentation, possibly make a profound long-term impact (check out my community action projects, a type of project-based learning that leaves a lasting impact on the local or global community).

One reason to incorporate authentic presentations is quality. When students know their final product will be seen by more than the teacher they up their game a bit. Other benefits include encouraging community collaboration, building communication and networking skills, promoting citizenship, enhancing students' worldview, understanding their local and gobal communities, and more. The result is deeper learning, learning that goes beyond content knowledge. This is true because learners construct meaning through real-life experiences. They see relevance and purpose as it relates to their lives. 

Reaching a relevant audience and making an impact on the community doesn't mean your students have to do public speeches everyday. Speaking to a community audience, such as performing an original skit on bullying to a local elementary assembly, is one way to deliver new skills and knowledge in an authentic way. There are other ways for those educators and learners that are confined to the classroom. Other options include publishing work on digital media such as a blog, submitting work to an online publication or contest, displaying student work in the community, and even bringing the audience to you.

One way of bringing an authentic audience to your students is to host exhibition or presentation events at the school or at your home (if you are a home educator). This gives students the chance to showcase their work to the community. Invite relevant community members, family members, friends, and experts utilized in student projects. The cover photo is of one such exhibition night that my school hosts quarterly.

Check out the graphic organizer below for more authentic presentation ideas. My students use this organizer when designing their projects. Feel free to do the same with your students. A free printable version can be found at Experiential Learning Depot. ​

Example of an Authentic Presentation in Project-Based Learning:

Project Description:

You assign a PBL project to your life science class. They are to do a project on symbiotic relationships. Each student designs their own project around this topic. Each student chooses how they will find the information, which experts to connect with, how they would like to demonstrate learning, how they would like to present it and who will be their audience (other than the teacher and class). This is what the PBL process looks like in my seminars. I give the topic and the learners direct the learning experience (with my guidance). I will be doing a post in the near future on the steps involved in student-directed project-based learning. Stay-tuned for that. In the meantime, I highly recommend reading Passion for Learning by Ronald Newell.

One student decides to create an infographic on the different types of symbiotic relationships (authentic final product). She collaborates with an ecology professor from a nearby university and a graphic designer in the area (authentic learning experiences). They work together to create a professional quality infographic with solid, accurate information. The student then needs to determine how she will share her learning experience with a relevant audience that will benefit from the information and/or the final product itself (authentic presentation).

Examples of Authentic Presentation Options for this Project Using the Graphic Organizer Above:

1) Distribute Final Product to a Relevant Audience in the Community:

• Student offers the infographic to college biology or ecology professors to use in their courses or to students to use as a study tool. 

2) Display Final Product to a Relevant Audience in the Community:

• With permission, the student could post a printed version of the graphic in the ecology section of the library, in the ecology department of local universities, in biology classrooms across the community, or in the visitor center of a nearby nature center.

 
3) Present Final Product to a Relevant Audience in the Community:

• This would be an example of the "public speaking" comment above. Connect with the education director at a local forest preserve, state or national park, nature center, zoo, aquarium, etc. Give a presentation to park visitors. 

 
4) Publish the Final Product:

• Ask a textbook company, ecology publication, kids science magazine, etc. to print the infographic in their next issue. 

 
5) Share your Final Product Digitally:

• Student shares her infographic to the community through social media, a blog, a digital magazine, etc. Pinterest is a great way to share graphics with a mass, relevant audience. Student could also find life-science or ecology related Facebook groups and post their infographic on the groups' pages. Instagram is another great option for posting graphics. Add a relevant hashtag to the post and you've met your authentic audience. Social media publishing is a great default option. You can also have your students contact me through the contact link on this blog to have their work published on my here. They could contact any number of relevant, established bloggers to have their digital products published. 

 
6) Other:

• Student invites their community experts, relevant students/school staff/homeschool coop, and other relevant community members to watch them present their project. 

Good luck! If you're overwhelmed by the possibilities, utilize some of the organizational templates provided in my store, including the one above. Many of them are free.  Implementing authentic experiences in your curriculum does not have to be chaotic. Even student-directed learning can have structure and SHOULD be teacher facilitated. I am a firm advocate for authentic learning and love to talk about it. If you have questions or are seeking out advice or tips, please reach out. I would be ecstatic to help out! 

My TpT store, Experiential Learning Depot, is filled with PBL learning resources. Check them out if you think project-based learning is something you might love to try with your students. 

• Project-Based Learning Bundle: 20 Integrative Projects and PBL Teaching Manual 
• Free Student-Directed PBL Brainstorming Activity
• Project-Based Learning: Planning Cheat Sheet
• Project-Based Learning Toolkit

Follow Experiential Learning Depot on Pinterest and Instagram for more on experiential education.

A couple weeks ago I took my two young children to the zoo. On our way home my four-year-old said "did you know that jellyfish can grow their bodies back when they get chopped up?" In other words, they can regenerate when, say, they have a close call with a sea turtle. My son learned this from chattin' it up with a zoo volunteer. He practiced communication skills, asked questions, took a social risk, and gathered information from an expert on a topic of interest.

I often talk about project-based learning on this blog because it's what I know and use in teaching. An overarching theme of project-based learning is community, from generating projects ideas to the final assessment. Students use community experts to gather information on their project topics, create innovative final products that impact the community, and present their projects to an authentic audience, one that is relevant and often public. All of the PBL components just mentioned involve the community in some way or another. 

Before I get into any details on specific ways to use the community as a resource in project-based learning, let's first talk about why you would do this in the first place? Sounds like a lot of work, an extra task or thing to organize, or time away from teaching content. It can be an extra task if you let it. But you could also put some of the responsibility on your students. They can certainly and should be tracking down their own community experts and authentic audience. Community experts also deliver much of the content you would have to otherwise. It also doesn't mean you have to leave the building. As an experiential learning educator I strongly advocate for doing so, but that is not an option for everyone. If it's not an option in your situation, then bring the community to you! And your students can do the same. I'll get to some options soon, but first, why bother to use the community as a resource?

Benefits of Utilizing the Community in Project-Based Learning: 

1) Development of 21st-century Skills - students learn a variety of important life skills such as resourcefulness, communication, and collaboration. 

2) Real-world application of content - students make meaningful connections when they can see and experience concepts first-hand. For example, shadowing a genetics counselor would allow students to experience genetics concepts in the context of real-life.

3) Building a professional and personal network - students develop a hefty network that could lead to future references, job offers, lifelong mentorships and even friendships. 

4) Strengthening the community - community collaboration puts students in a position to actively work at breaking down walls between students and community members that may have developed due to misunderstandings or stereotypes. There is so much to be learned from others, and not just from their expertise, but from their stories. 

5) Access to resources you may not be able to offer - I took a graduate class with the biotechnology department at the University of Minnesota several years ago. They offer up their equipment to educators and their students, which I have taken advantage of many times. There have been a variety of scenarios where my students have needed a resource that our school couldn't provide, from actual materials to expertise or skill. 

​The following are ideas or ways that I have personally used or have seen coworkers use the community as an element of learning experiences. You do not have to be doing project-based learning to include community resources in your curriculum. Use some of the suggestions below and adapt them in a way that works for you and your learners. 

• Shadow or observe experts in action out in the community. What this means is highly dependent on the community your students are a part of. My students live and learn in the heart of the Twin Cities. The Twin Cities are surrounded by natural parks, the Mississippi River runs between them. This metropolis is burgeoning with businesses and community events, colleges and universities, medical centers, research centers, non-profits, etc. We utilize ALL of these resources as much as we can. However, just because you don't live in a large city, doesn't mean there aren't options. All communities provide valuable learning experiences, you just need to get students in it and involved. Examples might be bringing students to sit in on college classes, go see community speakers, shadow a business owner, or take a class from an expert in their working space. 

 

• Invite community experts to your learning environment to assist with projects or other learning activities. This could be ANYONE and could be incorporated into ANY learning activity. 

 

• Ask students to use at least one community expert for every project they complete. They can do this by interviewing, shadowing, or even having the expert come to the school to teach them a skill or work with them on a concept. I have a FREE PBL community expert form in my TpT store that might help students organize and plan their use of experts. I also have a product line of guided project-based learning resources that require community expert use.

• Invite community members to come speak to your students on a topic related to a project or to introduce a topic. This is a great option for those of you that can't leave the building.  
• Invite community members to teach your students a skill. We have invited artists, graphic designers, chefs, self-defense instructors and more to work with our students. 

• Use the world as the classroom (if you can) - take students on field trips and travel experiences simply to provide opportunities for sparks, and to learn about and develop an appreciation for any given community. 

 

• Community feedback - One way of using the community as a learning resource is to ask that community members weigh in on student work. Invite the student's project community experts to evaluate their work periodically as well as provide formative feedback. You can also ask community members to observe and evaluate student work at presentation or exhibition events. You don't have to only include community members that have been actively involved in student projects. Invite everyone in the community so that they can see what your students do. This is one way of correcting misunderstandings or stereotypes that I talked about earlier.

 

• Civic engagement. Have students get involved in community issues.  For example, I have my students do two projects that directly involve participation in the community. One is to study a local business. The other is to shadow the organization and execution of a community event such as a festival. Students could also take direct action on a community issue. My students do community action projects every year, where they take action on one community issue that is important to them. 

• Service learning - Encourage students to get out in the community and provide a needed service such as home maintenance for the elderly community, volunteering at a food shelf, cleaning up garbage in the neighborhood, or reading to local elementary students. This could be done as a group activity or as part of a student-specific project.  

​

• You could also do service learning projects right from your classroom. This may not make as much of an impact depending on your delivery, but if you can't get your students out in the community, serve the community from your classroom. Examples include creating holiday cards for veterans or making blankets for a homeless shelter. 

 

• Share resources - There have been many instances where I've used equipment or learning spaces outside of our school. The University of Minnesota has been amazing in this way. I have done science lessons using their greenhouse, we have used wind turbine kits to study wind energy in their biotechnology lab. A neurologist from the U of M has come in to my school with an actual human brain for students to study. A nearby church donated all of their leftover garage sale items to our school for our own sale. One of my students was building a go-kart for his senior project. He worked with a mechanic the gave him half of the parts he needed. The list goes on.

 

• Student mentorships - I left  my teaching job to stay home with my children as this program was really starting to take off at my school. We now have a mentorship program thanks to some dedicated staff and board members. This is so critical, especially for teenagers. 

These are only a few options of many. When planning community involvement in your curriculum, consider the topic of study. Take constraints such as time, your own skills, equipment and space into account. Think about your needs and how a community member might be able to fill that role or provide that resource. It may seem like an additional task to an already demanding load. But if you plan well and put some of the responsibility on your students, it may actually feel like you're saving time, and the end result is worth it. The benefits are worth it. 

What are some ways you currently use the community your curriculum? I would love to hear more examples. If you don't currently, what is keeping you? What obstacles do you face and how could you work around them or work through them? 

​Follow Experiential Learning Depot on Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook for more on experiential education, and check out my TpT store for experiential learning resources. ​ ​