Apathy Vanquished!

As the year ends, I am re-posting my five most popular 2011 musings.  This one is a personal favorite and was ranked #5 in page views.
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Thanks to a Challenge Based Learning project that truly rocked, for at least one night, "teenage apathy" was brought to its knees.

Lynn Waldsmith, Mike Gruber and I challenged our students to defeat teenage apathy in our English and American Government classes.  These ninth and tenth graders worked several weeks to develop their solutions,

implement them, and explicate them to classmates.  But tonight, all seventeen teams staged a Fight Apathy Fair.  It was the kids who suggested exhibiting the solutions in the evening in a science fair like venue.  In addition to inviting the entires school, each girls was required to email five other persons, personally.

Some 200 friends, teachers, uncles, cousins, neighbors, moms and dads milled through the lobby.  There was a buzz in the joint.  And the students were excited!  The attendance from our students was close to 100% and they were actually thanking us for the chance to present from 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm.  The parents were delighted and were shocked to learn that this was a first time event.  We teachers were shocked too.  As Mike remarked the positives far surpassed anything we might have imagined.

If I have had doubts about the power of CBL, they were vanquished too!

Final Round of CBL Projects

My tenth grade American Government class is moving into the final phases of their Challenge Based Learning projects.  These ten teams have been challenged to "Get Teenagers to Care about Politics."

This challenge has included a couple of new twists:

1) I have really emphasized the importance of the students' gauging the effectiveness of their solutions.

2) We are planning a "Fight Apathy! Fair to exhibit our solutions to invited guests.  This event is being planned in conjunction with teams from two other classes (17 teams total).  Other staff members are also assisting with this event.

As we move toward the finish line,  I plan to blog on the following topics:

Weird, Wayward, and Wonderful Solutions
Already, I have encountered new issues which have occurred primarily as the result of the teams' enthusiasm.  Some students have gone very public with grammar errors and factual mistakes.  In addition, the challenge has produced a surprisingly rich variety of solutions which I look forward to sharing.

Presentations as Assessment
Starting tomorrow, teams will be making in-class presentations about their challenge journeys. Once again I have given the students a "Ten Commandments" to follow.  This set includes the importance of evaluating the success of their solution implementation.

Fight Apathy! Fair
It all goes down on April 13, 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm in school lobby.  Hundreds of students, teachers, friends, and relatives will be invited.  (Wish us luck!)

Group and  Individual Reflections
Following the Fair, the groups will be completing a written reflection.  Individuals will submit audio files.  I'll be using new prompts in both instances.

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Flickr CC Photo by Dan Bock