February/March 2016 69 a presentation day with students acting as their fictional personas. McGinnes set up the unit with dramatic flare. She placed miniature Statue of Liberties and such artifacts as ship tickets around the room, and then read aloud the famed Emma Lazarus poem (“Give me your tired, your poor … ”) She also acted the part of immigration official and put youngsters through interview questions real immigrants would have answered. “ How did the students respond? Emma (all students’ names changed) rose to the challenge: “It was different because we had more freedom. We weren’t told what we had to do—we could do whatever interested us and I liked that a lot. Getting interviewed was nerve-wracking.” Todd: “I liked how we worked in groups and got to see the immigration project from another person’s view. “ Lisa: “We got to feel what the immigrants felt.” Dale: “I got to see that…even if you were a good person and a healthy person you still might not get through. Many immigrants had a hard time getting to America.” McGinnes recalls that a couple of kids didn’t make it into the country. If you chose to be Chinese during the Chinese Exclusion Act,” she pauses, “well let’s just say it was very visceral.” Side lessons arose. One child, playing a Hungarian shoemaker, claimed to have $1,000. That turned into a discussion about inflation and whether it was plausible he’d have that much money. “That lesson will connect now when children read about money. They’ll remember that character,” says Adams. “This is a great opportunity to get out of the silos of learning,” Jeremy Adams says. “When parents go to work every day they know that interpersonal skills and collaboration are huge. All that gets wrapped up in PBL. No parent says to us ‘no, just teach them out of a textbook.’” ❝There’s no failure in learning.” —PAMELA ANDERSON-BRULE, NOTRE DAME SAN JOSE founded in 1851, Notre Dame is a Catholic all-female high school that is carefully but enthusiastically moving toward more PBL. “It’s a natural fit for our mission,” says Director of Professional Development Eran DeSilva. “Our motto is teaching ‘what they need to know for life.’” “We have some courses that are PBL and some courses that are assessed by projects,” says Vice Principal of Academic Affairs Janice Tupaj-Farthing. “Slowly as we move curriculum we see it happening. But are we a PBL school? No.” She later adds: “this is a work in progress.” Currently, classes such as computer programming and art, and the senior Service Learning Project clearly fall under the PBL structure. So does Notre Dame’s ninth grade “Woman’s Place Project,” where students create ceremonial banquet place settings that celebrate women who changed history. Says DeSilva, “A teacher is there more as a supporter and coach, and the students do the heavy lifting. You need as a teacher to know you’re a learner just as much as a teacher.” With PBL “the biggest problem is teacher preparation,” according to Tupaj-Farthing. “If a project is well designed it needs to be open enough for student interest, but if the student skill set is not there they can become frustrated and the project is out the window.” Plus, if a project requires student collaboration “a teacher needs to be very aware of group dynamics.” A prime example of PBL is Notre Dame’s “Design and Creative Thinking” class, now in its second year and lead by San Jose architect Pamela Anderson-Brule’. Students create three hand-built projects a semester and present them to design industry professionals. “The key concept is to provide a forum to learn how to think from a design perspective, articulate through words, images and physical models, and learn to take professional critique,” says Anderson-Brule’. “They have to move from conceptualization to presentation.” The Flying Pig provides students at Kehillah Jewish High School with a fun way to study circular motion. “Introduction to Engineering” students at San Jose’s Notre Dame High School build prototypes of bridges using manila folders, wood glue and rubber cement. FROM TOP: COURTESY OF NOTRE DAME SAN JOSE; COURTESY OF KEHILLAH JEWISH HIGH SCHOOL
South Bay Accent - Feb/Mar 2016
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