Expeditionary Learning Creates Positive Changes
Utilizing Expeditionary Learning as the structure of my teaching has achieved incredible results. In an Expeditionary Learning model, each semester, the teacher creates and executes an expedition. The expedition is standards-based, hands-on, and community focused. It is grounded in either science or social studies standards and acts as the integrated lens through which nearly all content is taught. The expedition incorporates fieldwork, local experts, community service, hands-on in-school activities, Socratic seminars, inquiry-based exploration, and artistic connections. Each component of the expedition is layered, step-by-step, so the critical connections can come to life for the students at an extremely high level. Each expedition is split into 2-3 case studies, which delve into separate, though connected, aspects of the expedition. The learning is deep and complex and culminates, after each case study, in a final product that is an authentic product for an authentic audience. The final product is made to serve a purpose in the community that will create positive change in some aspect of the community.
Issues this Best Practice Addresses:
Too often students are not inspired in their learning. Because of this, they fail to thrive and eventually move through our education system with their brains only partially engaged. Low achieving students are not held to high standards of critical thought and in depth achievement and so are not motivated to go any further than the standards to which they are held. High achieving students are bored because the worksheets they complete do not challenge them daily to push themselves to a deeper level of knowledge. Expeditions are specifically created to address both of these issues, while focusing the entire atmosphere of the classroom on self-assessment and challenge, critical inquiry, and hands-on engagement.
Major Challenges to Implementation:
There are three major challenges to implementing expeditions, though all can be overcome to great effect. Firstly, most students are not used to being challenged to think critically for each and every minute of their school day. Though many may be excited about the idea, at first, it is a change that must be grown into. Students gradually challenge themselves more and more as they see the high expectations of the teachers coupled with both engaging methods of teaching and support in the process. After some time, the students begin to own the process and finally take leadership of it. The second major challenge to implementation is the time and energy it takes, on the part of teachers, to create the expeditions and help the students to break through the barrier described above. Piecing together an expedition that will combine all of the aspects listed earlier in a way that will challenge and engage students while also providing the critical layering necessary to allow the students to focus step-by-step on deep concepts takes an exorbitant amount of time. However, if we assume teachers get into their careers in order to help students take dynamic ownership of their education then, even when tiring, creating and teaching an expedition is most inspiring as you see the difference in your students. Finally, fully integrating math into an expedition can be challenging. Because of the need for authenticity in the learning connections, without which the expedition moves toward aspects of simple thematic units, math is also heavily supplemented outside the expedition. There are, however, also excellent opportunities to incorporate mathematical instruction into the expedition itself (example: during this semester’s expedition on bats, students utilized knowledge of measurement and computation skills to build bat houses for a community service project.)
Benefits Derived from Implementing this Best Practice:
The first and most immediate benefit of teaching through expeditions is a huge improvement in active student engagement as they delve into the hands-on and inquiry-based components of the expedition. Once the students become engaged, a further benefit is a level of self-assessment and challenge that I have not seen in teaching through any other curricular system. The students develop a confidence as they strive to achieve the high expectations set forth that allows them to look inward and locate where and how to challenge themselves. As the students work to develop their final product, the amount of pride they are able to take in this museum quality piece continues to motivate them to demonstrate said quality in all they do. The community then benefits by the lasting effect of both the final product and the young citizens who created it. Through it all, the students learn more deeply and in a more connected fashion.
Evidence Illustrating Success:
Throughout the year, as they further engage in each expedition, the students have demonstrated an obvious love of learning I have never seen in another setting. This is clear both in their demeanor each day as well as in their thoughtful and in-depth questioning of each concept we introduce. The students’ first final product of the year was a hard-cover book entitled, We Can Make a Difference: Five People who Persevered to Change our Community. The book was accepted for circulation at all three branches of the Muncie Public Library and has been selected for inclusion in the MLK Dream Bus project. The students have received voluntary and superlative praise from each community leader with which they have worked. All students in my class have advanced their reading level, including 92% who increased their reading level the equivalent of 2/3 of a year in one semester and an incredible 30% who increased their reading level the equivalent of one full year in one semester. In addition, their writing has drastically improved in both fiction and non-fiction genres. In all areas of learning, students not only learn more but they learn it more deeply. To quote one student after Exhibition Night (a fully student-centered 2+ hour demonstration of a semester of learning), “This has been so great, I’m still pumped…I am going to be pumped tomorrow, no, I’m going to be pumped NEXT YEAR!” That is what teaching is all about and that is what creating and utilizing expeditions in your classroom/school achieves.
Submitted by: Ari Hurwitz, Inspire Academy