Authentic Learning Experiences

A Real-World Approach to Project-Based Learning

Dayna Laur

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317921318
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Educación general

Learn how to implement a real-world approach to project-based learning. Authentic learning experiences are created around genuine, outside audiences and meaningful purposes. They meet the Common Core, engage students in critical thinking and 21st Century learning, teach important skills such as research and collaboration, and improve student learning. This practical guide provides step-by-step instructions to make it easy for teachers to create their own authentic learning experiences. The book is loaded with a variety of examples from different grade levels and content areas. Bonus! Each example incorporates technology and addresses the Common Core State Standards.

CHAPTER 1

Authentic Learning Experiences: An Introduction

Imagine a school where students sit in straight rows, facing the front, while diligently taking lecture notes. Day after day, the focus of learning is teacher centered. Test scores run the gamut. Many students receive As, but have they truly learned the material? Plenty of students fall within the traditional bell curve by attaining average grades. However, is mediocrity a display of true understanding? And what about those students who have failed? They certainly didn’t learn the content or master any standards. How then do these students collectively perform on the state standardized tests? These questions have become more relevant as the Common Core State Standards movement has gotten under way. Finding answers to these questions should be the goal of all educators, veterans and novices alike.

I have always believed in active learning for my students. While there are times when I still need to use lecture in the classroom, being a stand- and-deliver-only teacher is something I decided to abandon early on in my teaching career. I simply wasn’t meeting the needs of many of my students. In the early stages of my career, I found the only way to let go of lecturing was to create simulations for student participation. I tried to include a simulation with every unit I taught. Through the simulated experiences, I would have my students pretend to be members of an important committee convened in the classroom, or I would have them write letters to government officials that were never actually sent. These experiences, while valuable on some level, didn’t create the spark of excitement I was seeking for many of my students. I needed something more. I also included elements of what could be defined as Project-Based Learning, with an open-ended question to be answered in an extended period of inquiry. In the end, however, much of it was still simulated, as Project-Based Learning encourages authentic-like opportunities but does not require full authenticity.

A few years ago, I decided that instead of simulating the real world, I wanted to bring the real world into my classroom. These real-world occurrences are what I call Authentic Learning Experiences. I’d like to take you on the journey of one of the Authentic Learning Experiences that proved to exceed my expectations.

My Story

While struggling with how to best provide my high school eleventh- and twelfth-grade law students with an understanding of the appellate court system, I stumbled upon information on the Cardozo School of Law’s Innocence Project. I immediately contacted the Innocence Project to inquire whether my students could work with an active investigation. I couldn’t think of a better way to get my students immersed in the learning process than to connect them to a current case! Unfortunately for my students, the folks at the Innocence Project weren’t as excited.

I would not be deterred, however. I could do this one on my own. I picked six inmates from my home state of Pennsylvania for my students to investigate. All six individuals professed their innocence. However, I couldn’t start with simply giving my students hundreds of pages of court documents to analyze. First, I needed to build up the anticipation leading to the investigation, and I needed my students to have the background knowledge to be able to complete the investigation.

I began with the PBS Frontline documentary on the plight of Roy Criner, a former Texas inmate who was convicted of the rape and murder of a sixteen-year-old. Criner maintained his innocence and was eventually pardoned after serving ten years of a 99-year sentence. The students watched in awe as the District Attorney, in reference to the DNA tests, stated, “I don’t know that it’s not his, just because they tell me it’s not his.” I had them hooked! And they were beginning to understand that “innocent until proven guilty” no longer applies once a jury has laid down a conviction. At that point, the inmate must prove his or her innocence, rather than the prosecution having to prove guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt.” In the middle of the video, as all twenty-eight sets of eyes were fixed to the screen, I had a colleague slip into my classroom to steal my purse as it sat in the front of the room on a table. My colleague was dressed in a black hoodie and dark sunglasses. She did not cause a commotion but merely walked in, paused and looked at the class before she picked up my purse, and quietly left the room. Not one student reacted. However, a few minutes later, when I inquired where my purse was, only a handful of the students had even seen the purse snatch. At that point, I called in our school resource officer, a local uniformed policeman assigned to our high school building. He came to the classroom and took my students through an eyewitness investigation report. As you can imagine, the reports varied greatly. The height reports ranged from five foot six to six foot three, and the weight reports ranged from 125 pounds to 175 pounds. The clothes descriptions even included that she was wearing plaid! The point was made, and the students were enthusiastic. They were ready to investigate our Pennsylvania inmates.

Over the next several weeks, students researched the causes of wrongful convictions. They compiled their information on a wiki and completed case studies of people who had been released due to the efforts of the Innocence Project. At that point, they were ready to dive into their own investigations. The class was divided into groups, and each group was given an inmate to investigate. They read court documents and conducted phone interviews with people involved in the original investigation. In one case, a group of students was invited into the home of the parents of a slain child; the couple’s older son had been convicted of the killing. I was amazed, and the students were truly involved in an Authentic Learning Experience!

As the investigations progressed, each group was able to choose the manner in which it could bring attention to the plight of its assigned inmate. In one case, the students decided the inmate was rightfully convicted. This group of students created a general action plan on behalf of all wrongfully convicted inmates and sent their ideas to our local state representative. In the other cases, the action plans ranged from writing a letter to the governor to creating a plan for a new TV show that they pitched to Investigation Discovery. Another group of students was disappointed that Dateline NBC didn’t respond to their request to feature their inmate on a show. The governor did respond to a group. Much to the students’ dismay, however, the response included the fact that, as governor, he was powerless to do anything about the case per the Pennsylvania Constitution. The Pennsylvania Board of Pardons would have to be contacted and the appropriate forms completed. Thus, the very next semester, another group took up the plight of inmate Noel Montalvo and sent him a letter requesting that he complete the forms. While I was certain that his lawyer had probably taken this very same action at some point, I allowed the students to follow their own plan. Amazingly enough, three months later, I received a letter from Greene Correctional Institute, Death Row. It was addressed to “The Law Teacher at Central York High School.” I tracked down the only group member who hadn’t yet graduated, and she read the letter in awe and amazement. Montalvo had responded to them! The letter was typed and in broken English, but it included the latest forensic investigation on his case. It reported a possible mistake in the original investigation and named a local detective, who just happened to be a football coach in our district, as one of the main players in his conviction. The student was amazed! Montalvo also thanked the students for wanting to help: “I appreciate your interest in my particular case, and I need your help to exonerate me.”

While my quest for an Authentic Learning Experience for my students initially reached a roadblock from the Innocence Project, I quickly found that I didn’t need the organization’s help. I created my own Innocence Authentic Learning Experience for my students. While my students were unable to actually see any of their efforts realized, the lessons learned from the experience won’t soon be forgotten. My hope is that all students are given the opportunity to engage in these kinds of experiences and that the classroom meets the real world more often.

Unlike the scenario described in the opening paragraph of this chapter, my Innocence Authentic Learning Experience had me relinquish much of my control of the classroom, turning it over to the students. I became the facilitator of my students’ learning, while my students became the directors of their own learning experience. Learning, in my classroom, is no longer categorized as a “one size fits all” model.

Figure 1.1 (page 5) summarizes the effective elements I’ve determined need to be part of Authentic Learning Experiences. We’ll discuss each element in the next sections.

An Overview of Authentic Learning Experiences

Give a student an assignment that is too easy, and the student quickly becomes disengaged. Conversely, give a student an assignment that is too difficult, and frustration is quickly exhibited. Providing students with a challenging investigation in an Authentic Learning Experience is imperative for student engagement. This process must be tailored to create a desire for students to dig deeply into the course content and standards of learning. Students in today’s classroom must be presented with complex problems and challenges to solve. These challenges are action oriented in nature and leave the philosophical questions to be contextualized within the process of the challenging investigation. Additionally, these challenges are not designed to be simulated experiences in which students pretend to be experts in their field of study. T...