For the final project in our middle school technology class, I wanted to do something special. So far we have done a few projects with digital media, we’ve made infographics, and I’ve introduced coding through Scratch.
Taking inspiration from the Google 20% projects and Genius Hour projects, I decided to do a Passion Project that my colleagues in Brazil had used for 9th and 10th grade science. I spoke with the middle school learning coach (Tracy) and we got some advice from the high school learning coach (Alexis) to come up with this set of instructions:
Tracy had the great idea of allowing the students to choose which standards would be used to assess their work. Alexis suggested that we phrase it as a research question to ensure that the students have a direction.
The response from students has been mostly positive but I will outline some of the difficulties we ran into:
- With the topic of the project so open, some of the students froze. The students with higher grades would try to get me to give them a topic. Other students informed me they aren’t passionate about anything (not too surprising as they are middle school students). For many of the students, choosing a topic was the most difficult part of the project.
- Even though students chose the topic and how they would be assessed, it still wasn’t their project. One student writing a song in GarageBand asked me, “How long does my song have to be?” She was still making something for me to judge her, which is what I was trying to avoid.
- I didn’t ask them to think about the audience before they started. A few different students wanted to do something anti-bullying related but they didn’t know where their projects would ultimately end up. I think they assumed it would end up buried in a folder on my computer, like most of the projects they have done over the years.
For the future of this project, I will help the students with the initial brainstorming process by going over some strategies. I will also introduce a larger audience for the projects by opening them to the school community and possibly the outside world. We will also begin the projects by having discussions on creativity, ownership, learning and passion.
I will admit that initially I was a little disappointed with the projects the students chose to work on. I had the unrealistic expectation that all of the students would produce amazing projects that would change the world. Not all of the students were willing to take risks or take advantage of the freedom this project afforded them. I think that shows just how much we need projects like this in schools. As a teacher, I need to look past my content (ex. how to use Google docs) and focus on the bigger picture (ex. how to come up with great ideas).
The Physics Boss 