JAL: Why do you feel your work is critically important at this time in education? Why do you advocate for project-based service learning? What do you believe are its benefits for learners?

JS: My mission is to make Project-Based Service Learning an integral part of the “pedagogical toolkit”. It is simply the most powerful teaching methodology available. Students work in small cooperative groups, are engaged in real world problem solving, hypothesizing, extending what the have learned, take ownership of their educational processes, and, as a matter of course they are learning good citizenship skills.

When students are working like this in classrooms, classroom climate and behaviors improve dramatically. Teachers use PBL to satisfy their grade appropriate curriculum and standards objectives. PBL works especially well for students who have not responded well to the classic educational models, and for Special Ed. students with a myriad of needs.

Authentic projects effectively address the needs of students who have a wide array individual learning styles. More and more statistical data, gathered both personally and nationally, shows that when students are engaged in good projects, their proficiency in nationally normed tests rises. What’s not to love about this way of teaching? PBL/SL is truly a pedagogy where no child is left behind.

JAL: What evidence do you have that your students’ learning is improving?

JS: In 2002, I tracked an inner city class of students from 3rd to 4th grade. Their 3rd grade teacher used a standard lecture model of teaching while their 4th grade teacher relied on Service Learning as her predominant method of satisfying her students’ academic requirements. These students’ nationally normed test results (see attachment) from 3rd to 4th grade in Reading and Math showed unprecedented, remarkable growth. The one variable between these students’ 3rd and 4th grade experiences and success was that their 4th grade teacher was an experienced Service Learning practitioner.

In October, 2004, 4th grade students at an inner city public school in West Philly took part in an 8 week “Green” architecture project where they wanted to design their “school of the future”. I have likened keeping the energy focused in that classroom to a performer who is riding 4 horses around the circus ring while standing up.

Working in 5 cooperative groups, the students, while learning about scale and other mathematical principles, public speaking, using technology, reading for comprehension, science, architecture, sustainable design, alternative resources, and LEED, designed and built amazing models of their school of the future (see attached photos). All this wrapped in a package where these students will be thinking about natural resources and sustainable design in a culture shifting, market transforming way.

Like any good Service Learning project, this project addressed students multiple intelligences (body, kinesthetic, verbal, etc), offered the teacher the opportunity of differentiating instruction based on learning styles, and employed multiple modalities where many senses are involved in the learning process, thereby increasing the learner’s ability to retain knowledge.

JAL: John, your Green School Projects have an enormous potential for students to connect what they are learning in the classroom to the real world. Could you share with us a student experience in one of those projects?

JS: A young Palestinian 8th grader, we’ll call him ‘Danny’ from a Philly middle school participated in a Green Schools project. This school was academically at the bottom of the District’s middle schools—so much so, that it was taken over by the District and put into the hands of a for profit education company—an extreme measure for a school where students were failing miserably. This was another case of a student whose behavior was atrocious. This class had students from Vietnam, Albania, Puerto Rico, the Gaza Strip, and Italy. There was even one child who was born in the United States.

This young man and his classmates conducted the project, which involved the students devising energy conservation strategies for their school based on data they collected. The students formed the “Energy Patrol” and it was their job to educate their peers and teachers about how energy was being squandered and to offer solutions to make the school more energy efficient. Danny immediately became a leader of this effort and he spoke very persuasively to his peers and teachers about the importance of the Energy Patrol’s mission. Besides effectively “selling” the idea of saving energy at the school and that it had to be a collective effort, Danny was instrumental in “crunching the numbers” from the data that was collected via the Green Schools toolkit, data upon which the Patrol’s schoolwide energy saving strategy was based.

The learnings across the curriculum are too numerous to state here. Suffice it to say that Danny and his peers were learning in a very powerful, “painless” way, significant pieces of their grade-appropriate math, science, social studies, reading, and technology curriculums.

This project was extended into the neighborhood, as the students decided to gather energy data on their own homes. Their parents and guardians became instant champions and believers when, after changing their energy use habits in minor but significant ways, they saw the savings generated on their monthly utility bills.

This project was conducted at such a high level that these students were asked by the Alliance to Save Energy to present their findings at the Press Club, in Washington, DC. At the conclusion of their presentation, they were given a standing ovation by the audience, which consisted of media, government, and energy professionals.

Through this one project in one of the most distressed schools in the city of Philadelphia, Danny found his voice as a productive citizen who can have a positive effect on his world.

Peace and Love,
John Sole

John Sole is President of Guerilla Educators and it’s educational video counterpart, Sole Productions.

Guerilla Educators is an educational consulting company specializing in the professional development of educators to train them how to conduct authentic Project-Based Service Learning in their classrooms and schools with real students doing real projects in and out of real classrooms.

Sole Productions creates powerful, tightly edited video documents that demonstrate the PBL/SL process on the front lines, in classrooms.

John can be reached at Tcherjohn@aol.com

References

Lackney, Jeffery A. (2005). New approaches for school design. In F. W. English (Ed.) The SAGE Handbook of Educational Administration. Pp.506-537.

Taylor, Anne. (1993). The learning environment as a three-dimensional textbook. Children’s Environments, 10(2), 170-179.

Washor, Eliot (2002, August). Translating innovative pedagogical designs into school facilities designs. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Johnson and Wales University, Providence, RI. ( See also Innovative Pedagogy and School Facilities, Washor 2003.)

Wolff, Susan J. (2001, September). Sustaining systems of relationships: The essence of the physical learning environment that supports and enhances collaborative, project-based learning at the community college level. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Oregon State University, School of Education. (See also Design Features for Project-Based Learning, Wolff 2002.)

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