Adventures in Personalized Learning at Meadows Valley School

Guest Contributor /// Patrick Berg, Principal at Meadows Valley School

Meadows Valley School has embarked on a new adventure in personalized learning. Tell us where this began.

Once we learned that for the next 3 to 5 years we would be a part of the Idaho Mastery Education Network (IMEN), we began planning the new approach we would take with our students’ learning. As a team, we also viewed the education documentary Most Likely to Succeed. This film provided innovative ideas and broadened our thinking about Project-Based Learning (PBL). Our middle school teachers were confident that incorporating PBL with our 6th through 8th-grade students would help them be more engaged and better prepared for the real world. We knew that PBL was the personalized approach we needed to help us reach our goal to increase student engagement and achievement.

How is PBL different than the traditional teaching method?

The creative chaos of Project-Based Learning is more than simply planning, imagining and doing. PBL is about working for an extended period of time investigating and responding to an authentic and complex challenge or problem while collaborating with others and gaining new knowledge and skills.

Our PBL team strives to make the engagement and drive completely student led, with teachers serving as a guide and a source to help connect students with other resources and mentors. The results have been projects beyond what we hoped for, and students with a greater depth of knowledge and skills than we could have ever envisioned. Yes, the classroom looks and feels louder and even more chaotic at times. However, students are teaching each other, collaborating across several media types, including face to face, conversing both on topic and off (yes, we know it happens), using critical thinking to encompass the needs around the essential question in relation to their project, and discovering content without the dullness of typical teacher driven education.

Some wonder about the teacher’s role in a PBL classroom and question whether the teacher is doing any teaching. The teacher is definitely teaching, but beyond teaching, they are exploring, discovering, collaborating, and creating right alongside the students. Our teachers are no longer just a person of knowledge, they too are students…with a bit more of a plan to guide, not direct!

What are some of the skills Meadow Valley focuses on?

We decided to incorporate and focus on the 21st-century skills including collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and communication. Using these 21st-century skills was the overall focus in our projects and during our community days. Prior to us joining IMEN, we knew these types of skills were essential, but we had no framework to teach them on a daily basis. At the end of our second project, Pay it Forward, the students were asked which 21st-century skill came natural or easy to them, and which skill they most struggled with. They easily pointed out exactly what skill was easy and what skill they needed to work on. With each project, they continue to strengthen and build upon each skill to better prepare them to succeed in the future, to succeed in all projects in life.

How is PBL changing students’ perspective on learning?

As PBL starts to take root in our middle school, I’ve watched students come out of their academic shell. Students who don’t usually become excited about an assignment or slug back into their seat when asked to get to work, are now actively seeking extra time for projects, often outside of school. For many students, this is an opportunity to excel in academics when they had previously been labeled, or thought to be unable to reach high standards.

These struggling students are finding purpose in learning and gaining new skills such as the ability to weld, the desire to improve our school campus. They are actively engaging with students, community members, and staff who they wouldn’t otherwise have had the opportunity or interest to. Our self-motivated students are also thriving and challenged in new ways such as learning to collaborate with others and thinking beyond the traditional school model. Overall, each student is developing needed skills and gaining knowledge that will help them succeed in the 21st-century.

As Meadows Valley School continues down the path of mastery, we hope to find new ways that students can grow in our small rural setting. With the continued help of our local community, we hope to increase both student engagement and also the engagement of our community. Using a personalized approach to learning is allowing students, parents, and other stakeholders to see that there is more to learn than just what’s inside the four walls of our building.

Patrick Berg is Principal and Curriculum Director for the Meadows Valley K-12 School. He previously worked in the Nampa School District for 14 years as a teacher, coach, Athletic Director, Dean of Students and Vice Principal.