Six Steps for Planning a Successful Project
Use these guiding principles to pull together projects with the time and resources you have.
Sure, King Middle School has some amazing projects, but the Portland school has been refining its expeditionary learning projects for nearly two decades. David Grant, who guides the school's technology integration and curriculum development, has put together a six-step rubric for designing a project. He says Fading Footprints, which became a model for King and Expeditionary Learning Schools, doesn't take an entire school, or even a team of twelve, to plan and carry out; one or two teachers can tailor this one to fit their time and resources.
Six Steps to Planning a Project
The Fading Footsteps project is a twelve-week interdisciplinary ecology unit centered around the guiding question: How does diversity strengthen an ecosystem? Using this project as an example, see how King Middle School creates an action plan around each step.
Step 1: Develop a compelling topic that covers state standards, has an authentic connection to the local community, and provides opportunities for every student to do meaningful, independent research.
Step 3: Involve professional organizations and professionals from the community to connect the academic study with the real world, and have students assume these professional roles during the expedition so they get a sense of what it would mean to be professionally engaged in meaningful work.
Step 4: Identify and organize the major learning resources for the expedition, and make sure they're available. (This one is critical and is often left out by schools).
Step 5: Coordinate calendars. (This may be the hardest piece of all.) Expeditions are interdisciplinary and require a lot of planning to ensure that each piece flows smoothly from one to the next. They require enough time for each component to be done well, for students to get time in the field, for experts to come in at the appropriate place, and for the final product to be high quality.
Step 6: Plan a final experience or culminating event. Showcase student work to the public or outside of school.
Adapted from an article in SEED Packet: Spreading Educator to Educator Developments, by King Middle School teacher David Grant, based on King's six-step rubric.
(For more information on the Fading Footprints project, check out our article, "Laptops on Expedition: Embracing Expeditionary Learning.")
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