Transcriber: Brian Vuksanovich Reviewer: Elisabeth Buffard
Everyone thinks their own way.
Kids think their own way,
even adults think their own way.
You might not think this is true, but it is:
because people think differently, we learn differently.
Imagine a classroom
where you were told how to learn and how to think.
What fun is that?
Hello, I'm Robbie Patla
and I'm an 8th grader here at Mountain middle school
which is a project-based school where it is really fun.
Now of course probably most of you know what project-based learning is,
but for those that don't, listen up because I'm about to tell you.
Now many myths have been passed around
saying what a lot of people think project-based learning is,
some think it's all arts and crafts,
some think there's no structure to the learning,
some might even think it's a bunch of kids sitting in a circle singing Kumbaya.
(Laughter)
But for now I want you to forget about those things,
just flush them out of your brain because in my opinion,
there's nothing wrong with project-based learning.
In 2013, I joined Mountain middle school,
hoping to get a better learning experience than I did previously,
and boy did I get it.
After the first project, I felt like I was set for education,
and I knew this is how I wanted to learn,
and I know a lot of people who it would work for too.
Project-based learning to me is more than those three things I listed earlier,
even though I might have a lot of art in myself,
to me it's about two really important things:
one, it gives the students and educators
the ability to think their own way, of course;
it gives it so that the educators
are able to come up with these really fun, interactive hands-on lessons
on probably pretty boring topics.
Let's take math for example,
a lot of people don't like math,
even though some love it, it's not always fun for others.
I was one of those people.
When I attended a standard elementary school,
I didn't really enjoy math even though I wasn't bad at it,
I didn't always understand the concepts.
But now that I've been introduced to project-based learning,
I found math a lot of fun.
Project based learning gives me the ability
to take math, what I want it to look like in my head and use it.
And because of all these interactive lessons,
I've almost come to love math.
All right, moving on to the next one:
for a moment, I want you, as the audience,
to think on what this other topic could be.
I'm going to give you a little, a few seconds to think about it.
Ok,
now I'm going to call on a couple of you
and I'm going to ask you what you think it was
and you're going to tell it to me.
If you guys want to raise your hand, you can, too.
Sam?
No.
You in the back there, you had your hand raised?
[unclear]
Awesome.
Of course probably most of you weren't thinking what I was thinking,
but what I was thinking was teamwork.
That's right, teamwork.
Teamwork is a very important element to project-based learning.
Let's take that documentary "Most likely to succeed" for example:
in every shot of students in a classroom,
you'll never see them working alone,
you'll always see them working with a peer or multiple peers.
You'll have no idea what they're working on
until it is later revealed
as a massive spinning wooden wheel of art
that tells us all about history.
That's the beauty of teamwork.
You might have your differences, I know I did.
You might have different ideas,
and you might all think the outcome is going either be terrible
or different than what others in your group think.
But if you just go with it,
you too can have a massive spinning wheel or anything,
the possibilities are endless.
But some of you,
at this time some of you might be thinking,
"Well what's the point of all this?"
Once kids my age get older,
we're going to realize
life isn't about having fun or working or even chilling.
When we get older,
we're going to have to face the struggle that is working with others.
We're going to have to prepare resumes, own a house, have a job,
I would keep going on
but i'm afraid i'm going to run out of breath.
Project-based learning gives students
the freedom of creativity and learning,
when it comes to school or just education in general.
Adults have to go through this,
they have to collaborate and think outside the box.
And I know project-based kids will nail these things.
A couple weeks ago,
I personally looked up the success rate
of kids in project-based schools,
especially here in Durango.
Mountain middle school was the highest in middle school
under the standardized tests,
and just two spots down was Animus high school,
for those of you that do not know,
Animus is the project-based high school here in Durango.
There's your proof that project-based learning can make a difference,
if we just make this one little change to the mythical world of Education,
not only will we be able to think our own way,
but we'll have kids preparing for the future.
Thank you.
(Applause)