Meeting the Demands ofA New AgeIn President Barack Obama’s inauguration speech, he called on our nation to “… transformour schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.” These wordsresonate among progressive educators who demand that we recognize that the world ourstudents are learning in today is quite different from the one their teachers, their parents,and even their older siblings grew up in. The skills that students need to be employable,marketable, and ready for citizenship in an unpredictable future include – but also extendfar beyond – the foundations of reading, writing, and procedural math.Through PROJECT-BASED LEARNINGBy Peter Hessand Matt Butcher“What we resolve to do in school only makes sense whenconsidered in the broader context of what the society intends toaccomplish through its educational investment in the young.”~ Jerome S. Bruner, The Culture of EducationAccording to the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, someof the skills that students will need to be competitive in ourrapidly evolving global economy include:• Thinking critically and making judgments• Solving complex, multidisciplinary, open-ended problems• Creativity and entrepreneurial thinking• Communicating and collaborating• Making innovative use of knowledge and informationAt <strong>Brewster</strong> we always have been keenly aware of the needto adapt our program to meet the needs of our students. Withthe introduction of the <strong>Brewster</strong> Model in the early 1990s, wecreated a program that defined standards of excellence forboth student and teacher performance, identified pedagogiesrooted in demonstrated effectiveness, developed adifferentiated curriculum that serves the range of ourstudents’ abilities, and integrated technology in meaningfulways to enhance learning.This practice of adapting our program continues underthe guidance of Head of School Dr. Michael E. Cooper.His keen awareness of our responsibilities in preparingstudents for college and beyond has driven us to infuse ourprogram with learning activities that help ensure studentsget practice developing the skills needed for this newcentury.To this end, we have begun incorporating project-basedlearning (PBL) into our program. In project-based learningstudents usually work in groups to solve challengingproblems that are authentic, curriculum-based, anddesigned to help students to see connections acrossdisciplines. Learners make choices, decide how to approach aproblem, and figure out what activities to pursue. They gatherinformation from a variety of sources and synthesize, analyze,and derive knowledge from it. Their learning is inherentlyvaluable because it is connected to something tangible andinvolves real world skills such as collaboration and reflection.They communicate their work creatively using a variety ofmedia that can include text, sound, images, and video. At aproject’s conclusion, students are judged by how much they’velearned and how well they communicate it. By engaging in thisprocess students have a wonderful opportunity to develop theacademic skills, the thinking skills, the problem-solving skills,the technology skills, and the interpersonal skills that reflectthose needed for this “new age.”Teachers at <strong>Brewster</strong> have begun incorporating PBL activitiesin their classes, and Matt Butcher, English department chair,is at the forefront of this effort. Here Butcher describes whathe has discovered as he has taken up the challenge of creatingprojects for his 10th grade students.Bridging Disciplines in 10th Grade EnglishTo learn and to think, one must first question. To helpstudents develop into critical and creative readers, writers,and thinkers, we first must help them learn to ask questions;then we can help them learn how to respond to the questionsthey’ve raised. This past year, sophomores engaged in severalPBL activities in their English classes; these activities havehelped our students develop several essential abilities forlearning – especially inquiry,research, communication, andcollaboration. Project-basedlearning is creating tremendousopportunities for our studentsto develop the essential abilitiesfor learning and working in ourrapidly developing world.As we designed PBL activitiesfor the sophomore Englishcurriculum, we began withrelatively simple projects that hadsignificant structure; as studentsprogressed throughout the year,they gradually completed morecomplex projects while workingwith more independence. In one oftheir first collaborative projects, students studied the HarlemRenaissance. Rather than receive information from the teacheron the topic, students worked in groups to respond to thefollowing question: what was the Harlem Renaissance andhow has it influenced American culture? To approach thequestion, students selected a literary figure of the movement,such as Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, orZora Neale Hurston, then researched that person’s life, times,contributions, and influences. Student groups then created anddelivered presentations on their literary figures to the class.For their presentations students created movies that integratedtext, image, music, spoken word, and video. Through thisproject, students were encouraged to explore the reciprocalnature of history and literature, where the artists of the4<strong><strong>Brewster</strong>Connections</strong> • Summer 2009• www.brewsteracademy.org • 5