Several years ago, Challenge Based Learning was a buzzword in educational circles. The idea is a nice one. Allow students to use their knowledge to solve a problem. And if that is how we all used it, I would be an enthusiastic supporter. Sadly, many teachers implemented it with a different philosophy - students don't need knowledge because they can look it up. So we started presenting students with challenges they couldn't solve because they didn't have the prerequisite knowledge. Their cognitive load was reached quickly, and the results were disastrous.
I do believe, however, that teaching kids problem-solving skills is a good idea and that applying knowledge to a problem they are capable of analyzing is valuable. So, rather than throw out CBL altogether, I have tweaked and modified a project over the years to achieve those goals while still working within the way their brains work.
I've written about my Global Solutions project in previous posts (part 2), and the project gets tweaked every year to make it just a bit better. The gist is this. I assign groups of students an area of the world that has significant problems that can be addressed with a knowledge of physics and engineering (By the way, this is the last project of the year; so they should have a fair amount of knowledge acquired). They are then assigned to study the resources of the area and propose a solution that is feasible, sustainable within the context of the area, and doesn't require government intervention.
Back when I was using the "rules" of CBL, I was extremely vague. The whole idea was that I shouldn't know what they would do. It was their challenge to solve. The problem is that no one operates well that way. Imagine going into a meeting at work and being told "solve a problem" with no parameters, no understanding of the obstacles, and no understanding of what your boss expects. You would be understandably frustrated and complain about your boss or ask him a million questions in an attempt to figure out what you were meant to do.
Does that mean we should abandon the entire idea of challenged-based learning? No. It means we should not follow the weird parts of it - the parts that were developed with the idea that a teacher should only be a facilitator, having no expectations or input. We can still have kids solve a problem, but we can also teach them the prerequisite knowledge first, provide them with clear success criteria, and discuss the pros and cons of their proposals.
This year in physics, I have a class that really likes to riff on silly things. (I'm sure you have never had a class like this, but they exist.). These boys throw out something like "Well, there would be less food insecurity if we took the Thanos approach." I remind them that our head of school and principal usually attend this forum and ask them to picture presenting the idea of killing half the population to them. I call this time "getting the bad ideas out of the way first." It is all well and good for one brainstorming session; I even find it quite entertaining. For a while. Two weeks ago, I was listening as the kids were talking (and I couldn't respond because I had laryngitis), and they were still throwing around silly ideas when we are too far into the project for that to be a good idea. So this week, I said, "Okay guys, it's been funny, but I'm not giving up class time for this anymore. Now, it is time to buckle down and look for real answers; I think some of you need to take another look at the instructions. Here's what I want you to have accomplished by the end of the period. You are going to fill out an exit ticket at the end of class, so you should probably look at the questions now." It was amazing the difference that made. They worked for almost the entire period, and they came up with ideas that can be developed into great presentations. They decided who would have each responsibility in the group. They accomplished more in that 40 minutes than they had during the entire run of the project thus far.
Free exploration works when a kid is interested in an idea and going from link to link without a plan in mind because there isn't a standard he is trying to meet or a timeline on which to accomplish a task. He's just learning what he wants to. But that is not the reality of classes or jobs. When it comes to those, it is important that we provide some clear expectations and either provide or expect them to create a timeline for their work. We need to give guidance and expertise, or they will not arrive at the place we want them to be; they'll wander around in a field. We could call it Guided Challenge or something that communities that we need to put them on the right road with a map.
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