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4/2/2021

Using Interdisciplinary Projects to Build Student Agency

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One school's success with unpacking the COVID crisis through project-based learning.
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COURTNEYBROWN
Senior Professional Development Advisor


​​Educators are our superheroes, not because they can swoop in and solve all the big problems, but because they create spaces for students to explore and discuss real issues and pose real solutions. When we offer students the opportunity to engage deeply in meaningful, relevant problems, we can build student confidence and offer them agency over potentially frightening issues. 

When our society seems rife with complex problems, it’s the perfect time to introduce problem-based projects. But before we look at an example of a problem-based project, let’s look to the roots of project-based learning to deepen our understanding of its principles. Problem-based learning can be linked to R. C. Snyder’s “Hope Theory” which promotes agency and hope — crucial concepts, especially for our students during a time of societal upheaval. The positive psychology behind “Hope Theory” is: “simply put, hopeful thought reflects the belief that one can find pathways to desired goals and become motivated to use those pathways.”

Of course, this speaks to one of the goals of problem-based learning for students, which is to develop, practice, and apply key skills to real-world issues.

When we get more ambitious, these problem-based projects may even expand across disciplines and become interdisciplinary projects! Elementary school teachers often do a great job of working across subjects in their own classrooms, but for middle and high school, where subjects are generally taught discreetly by separate expert teachers, implementing projects across disciplines may seem more daunting. 

It can sound complicated, but as our classrooms increasingly shift to online learning spaces, classroom walls and clearly delineated class periods are no longer barriers, offering us opportunities to work more easily with our colleagues across classrooms and disciplines.

Implementing a schoolwide interdisciplinary project

As an instructional coach and teacher, I understand just how complicated planning for blended learning can be; however, I have been inspired by how educators have used the blended and remote learning spaces as an opportunity to innovate, develop, and implement projects.

As we moved into remote learning during the early phases of the COVID-19 crisis, I was working as an instructional coach with the Academy for Computer Engineering and Innovation 2 (AECI2) as it started up its first/founding year as a high school in the Bronx. While the energetic, innovative teachers and principal always gave their all to the students, nobody envisioned that by the end of the school year, we would actually collaborate remotely to create and implement the Living History Project — a remote, school-wide interdisciplinary project that culminated in a call to action letter writing campaign and a community-wide presentation. 

As the initial months of online learning continued and COVID-19 began to seriously impact our community, we realized that our students needed productive ways to synthesize and make sense of what it meant to be living history.

Recently, I met with two of AECI2’s lead teachers, who initiated and coordinated this interdisciplinary project — Chris Mastrocola, an AECI2 English teacher and the school’s technology expert, and Joyce Brandon, the 9th grade math teacher. They offered some valuable insights and tips into successfully developing and implementing interdisciplinary projects, which can be a helpful starting point for developing your own project. Please note that these steps do not need to be followed in order. Different starting points work better for different contexts and communities. 

Collaboration & communication are key

To coordinate all pieces of an interdisciplinary project, Chris suggests establishing regular planning meetings, and making sure that one teacher from each discipline joins an interdisciplinary planning team to meet and work on the project. As our project progressed, weekly meetings focused on different topics relevant to each stage of the project. Regular meetings are not only important when first starting a project, but help keep it moving at each stage of the process. 

Based on our experiences, here are Chris’s suggestions:
  • Identify a regular meeting time, at least once a week, to meet
  • Create an interdisciplinary team with at least one teacher from each discipline to meet and share any information with his/her subject team
  • Identify a project coordinator to monitor progress and coordinate meetings across teachers and classrooms
  • Use Google docs to track meetings, agreements, and next steps
  • Decide on which online platforms will be used and how
  • Describe the final project’s “product” and include a presentation platform to be used
  • Write down all project details for clarity and as a reference
  • Create or use a common rubric that outlines all the skills and components of the project
  • Create a project checklist to be shared across disciplines, to monitor students’ completion of each component

Choosing a problem-based topic 

How do we choose topics for projects? Do teachers or students drive that decision? Or, do project topics naturally reveal themselves?

I’ve found that the most productive projects are those that arise as authentically as possible, driven by a current, complex societal problem. We generally know a topic is worth investigating when our students show an interest in it and are posing genuine questions about the issue.

At AECI2, the challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic and the necessity for coherent local and federal governmental responses were the problems that naturally drove and inspired our project. Students were concerned about the impact of COVID-19 on their own lives and the lives of others. Living in quarantine and practicing social distancing, they were raising questions with teachers about the impact of the disease, how to manage it societally, and also how to cure it. This pointed us to a natural focus for our project.

Joyce reminds us that when choosing a topic to explore, we need to be aware of how the students may experience it. For example, at the time when the students started the Living History Project about the COVID-19 pandemic, they were living in a community with the highest numbers of cases and deaths from the disease in the United States. Joyce points out that when we are living among the numbers, we need to be sensitive to the trauma or hopelessness that students may be feeling. 

Moreover, when our students are members of a community that is disproportionately impacted by an issue, or has historically been marginalized, we want to make sure that the chosen topic or project isn't accentuating students’ sense of hopelessness or powerlessness. Rather, through research and knowledge-building and a call to action approach, we believe in the power of project-based learning as a way to offer students a sense of agency and empowerment.

Defining essential questions

Collectively, we developed essential questions about the problem of COVID-19 to drive our project. Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, the authors of Understanding by Design explain that essential questions are “not answerable with finality in a brief sentence.” Their aim is to stimulate thought, to provoke inquiry, and spark more questions. They are “broad, full of transfer possibilities” and “cause genuine and relevant inquiry into the big ideas and core content.” 

Essential questions can help the teacher maintain a focus on the goals of the unit or project, and also stimulate inquiry, discovery, and meaningful connections for students. 

Here are the Living History Project’s problem and essential questions that we developed:

Essential question:
  • How can we understand and propose recommendations to address the COVID crisis here in New York City?

Guiding questions:
  • How has the COVID-19 crisis had an impact on our personal lives and society? 
  • How has it impacted people's health? Different groups and/or places? The economy?

Project assignment prompt: 
  • What three recommendations do you propose to address and/or solve the COVID crisis in New York City?

Student responses to each of these recommendations were informed by their explorations in social studies, math and science classes, and written in their ELA classes. 

Defining project goals

A major goal of this project was for students to synthesize and apply their research and learning from math, science, and social studies into a coherent set of recommendations about how to address the COVID-19 crisis.

We also wanted students to feel empowered and have some agency over an overwhelming situation that was affecting their own community and lives. 

As you work to establish your own project goals, consider which key standards will be assessed by the project. In this case, we knew that literacy across science, social studies, English, and even math all incorporate argument writing and skills. Each subject teacher identified the key standards addressed in the project.

Backwards planning to teach key skills

Chris and Joyce both attest to the importance of breaking the final assessment product into parts in order to create a plan and teach all necessary skills.

Joyce quickly realized that in her Algebra classes, students needed to really be taught to read and analyze data in charts and graphs, and at the same time, they were learning these skills with a heightened sense of importance as they applied their findings to their recommendations for addressing the COVID crisis. 

Joyce also cautions that percentages are hard to understand — students, and many adults, can't really conceptualize such large numbers, such as the number of people testing positive for COVID, so she began to use comparisons and analogies that were more accessible to students. 

The English teachers at AECI2 recognized that students could use some instruction on letter writing, as well as time to revise and edit their letters. So, we decided that the students would organize, revise, and edit their final letters in their English lessons as a final phase of the project. 

In social studies, Brett Pastore reviewed a range of documents and images with students, highlighting epidemics throughout the ages, including the Black Plague and the 1918 influenza epidemic. From analysis of these documents, students made connections to the COVID-19 pandemic and drew conclusions about how to address the current situation.

And in her Living Environment class, Samantha Cunningham developed a series of lessons for students to learn to analyze data about the health impacts of COVID-19.

Finally, the project was handed to the school’s technology teacher who designed lessons to support students in the final phase of the project, as they formatted and uploaded their projects to Padlet. 

Backwards planning for each subject 

This project expanded across the disciplines as, together, teachers identified how students would complete components of the project in their classes as they worked toward their final product — the call to action letter. Teachers identified the key skills and steps for their subject areas, and developed a sequence of lessons through backwards planning from the final product.

To incorporate the students’ investigations and learnings about the pandemic from across disciplines, we decided to ask each student to contribute a paragraph with specific recommendations, using data and evidence from each of their subjects — Algebra, Living Environment, and Global History. They would then craft and revise their letters in their English classes, applying all the components of argument writing that they had studied. 

Students also made connections between subjects — for example, in math, students referenced what they know about pandemics throughout history to make sense of questions such as do these numbers make sense?, and how are these data related to the data from earlier epidemics?
  • ELA: In English classes, students started the project by writing journal entries about their experiences during the COVID crisis. This allowed them to work through their feelings about their experiences and help them connect personally to the topic, creating a starting point for further research and theorizing. Students also used English classes to write their recommendation letters to politicians.
  • Social Studies: Students analyzed and drew conclusions from a variety of documents about the Black Plague and the 1918 influenza epidemic.
  • Math: Students reviewed and interpreted COVID data and used math to figure out its impact on different communities. 
  • Science: Students read and analyzed texts and data about how COVID-19 is transmitted and its health effects.

Outline a final assessment product
 
Our final product was a call to action letter, addressed to a politician and offering three recommendations on how to address the COVID-19 crisis. The final presentation was presented on Padlet.  All students published their final project with the following components: 
  • A journal entry with their original response to the question: how has the COVID crisis impacted your life?
  • PPT with a call to action letter 
  • Optional images and a video of their presentation 

Plan for presentation/publication of the product

For this project, we relied on platforms that AECI2 teachers were already using — Google Docs for teachers’ planning, and Google Classroom for interacting with students. Building on familiar systems that are already in use is helpful for any project, especially one with this level of interdisciplinary collaboration. 

To present their work to teachers and peers, students first created a presentation using Google Slides, with a slide for each of the following components:
  • An introduction to their recommendation letter
  • A paragraph using math data to support a specific recommendation 
  • A paragraph using science data to support a specific recommendation 
  • A paragraph using social studies evidence to support a specific recommendation 
  • A conclusion with a call to action

Students also included artwork and excerpts from their journal entries about the pandemic, and uploaded their final presentations to Padlet, where it could be shared with the school community for feedback and comments. At AECI2, we decided to use Padlet as our publication platform, since each student could easily add their own post to a school-wide wall, and other students could easily comment on it.

With more time, we could have expanded this opportunity and supported students in filming their presentations using Screencast-o-matic or something similar, which would allow for more connection between members of the community.

Benefits of problem-based projects

Here are some of the benefits of problem-based projects that we encountered with our partners at AECI2: 

  • Students reported that they found this work challenging and exciting. Most said that they enjoyed writing the letter and learning more about the topic. Nearly 100% of students fully completed their projects. 
  • A number of students told their teachers that they learned a lot about how their community is impacted by global or local issues. 
  • Projects offer real reasons to read, research, and discuss topics as students prepare to develop a real-world product such as a letter, memo, or video.
  • Preparing a product for an audience or presentation drives accountability, engagement, and completion of a project. 
  • By analyzing relevant data about their own communities and developing hypotheses, students develop agency and civic awareness. They may also become more engaged in data analysis, in their classes such as science, math, and social studies. 
  • Projects such as AECI2’s call to action letters ask students to synthesize a wide range of key skills and assess multiple standards, as outlined in this school-wide project rubric. 

​Problems in society can drive authentic projects, providing students with relevant topics that can build their confidence, allowing them to feel they have more agency over potentially frightening issues, and offering them an opportunity to pose solutions to real issues that are impacting their communities. 

Our experiences with planning and implementing AECI2’s Living History Project not only showed us the benefits of problem-based learning, but how exciting it is to work across disciplines. We were able to increase interdisciplinary collaboration and work free from traditional educational barriers, such as time and space, as all teaching and learning was happening remotely.

In our new educational spheres, the constraints of in-person teaching no longer exist in the same way, providing a gateway for exciting and engaging work with our students. The opportunities are endless.
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The Center for Professional Education of Teachers (CPET) at Teachers College, Columbia University is committed to making excellent and equitable education accessible worldwide. ​CPET unites theory and practice to promote transformational change. We design innovative projects, cultivate sustainable partnerships, and conduct research through direct and online services to youth and educators. Grounded in adult learning theories, our six core principles structure our customized approach and expand the capacities of educators around the world.

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