Visitors to High Tech High often misconstrue its approach to planning as “loose” or “anything goes” compared to traditional schools, because teachers aren’t following a pre-set curriculum. In fact, High Tech High is “tight” on things that most schools a “loose” on.
Alec talks to fifth grade teacher Jeff Govoni about a project he and his fifth grade colleagues did last year, in which students designed and built dog houses and cat condos for animals seeking adoption.
Every Friday, Mr. Reading Pot would make a grand entrance into the classroom and be seated in the middle of a large circle of squirrely kids. Mr. Reading Pot was a bad-tempered and curmudgeonly fellow.
There are two questions I hear a lot from visitors to High Tech High that are TOTALLY different, but both based on the same misconception about Project-based Learning.
Lots of teachers come to High Tech High, see how collaborative the teachers are, and get inspired to make their first project a massive interdisciplinary collaboration between, say, English, Spanish, Biology, and Algebra.
This is almost always a bad idea.
Alec and Nuvia talk to artist Scarlett Baily about her life, her art, and in particular the process of collaborating with 200 elementary school students
In Student-Centered assessment the students first reflect and then receive feedback from peers, teachers, community, and experts to fully develop their projects.
Middle School teacher Sean Gilley explains how he uses Chat GPT to share the load on project planning, so he can focus on the parts of teaching that matter most
