Blog #12: Voice and Choice

One of the best ways to give students a voice and a choice in their education is to use project-based learning.  This style of teaching lets students choose a topic that interests them and then research it and apply the knowledge they discover to the "real" world.  The teacher becomes more of a facilitator rather than the leader of the classroom.  For some, this is a hard concept to swallow.  Giving students the freedom to choose what they learn is a bit contradictory to pattern of teaching "to the test" and it's hard to reconcile the two.  However, the critical thinking skills that can be used when doing project-based learning are invaluable.  In addition, PBL requires a ton of work in advance to make sure that the projects the students choose to complete are useful and cover the TEKs that need to be taught.  When properly structured, PBL can allow a student to take the basic knowledge they learned and apply it to something that is relevant to their lives.