Most Likely to Succeed(?)

In my EdTech class the other day, we were asked to watch a documentary called “Most Likely to Succeed”. It tells the story of students and teachers attending High Tech High, an alternative school in which students explore curriculum through “project-based learning” rather than the traditional format of lectures, homework, and tests. Before continuing, I would encourage you to watch the film if possible, or at least watch the trailer to obtain some additional context.

Right off the bat, I think that whether you agree with a project-based learning approach or not, the film is super interesting. I consider myself lucky to have had a similar experience while I was in High School (just for Socials 11), in which the bulk of my final grade was made up of a project that we had worked on throughout the semester. Our project was aptly named “The Immigration Project” as we explored various First Nations and their experiences and movements around Canada as a result of European settlement. My partner and I specifically were studying the Sioux Peoples.  As a whole, I feel like the process was both enjoyable and meaningful to me as a student. However, I should make it clear that this project only replaced all homework, quizzes, and tests for us – we still were supplemented by traditional lectures and note-taking.

Some differences between The Immigration Project and projects I saw in the film:

• We could choose any modality to present our final project – film, skit, song, diorama (my groups choice), but it had to be supplemented by a written paper. As far as I could understand from the film, all students were locked into a predetermined project –  e.g. a class play, a wooden cog mechanism.
• My teacher was very hands-on and we had strict deadlines to hand in different parts of the project throughout the semester, while the students at the film seemed to have more of their own responsibility to stay on track.
• As stated in the paragraph above, we were supplemented by daily lectures and note-taking, while that did not seem to be a focus for students and teachers in the film*.

*I have to imagine that teachers did at least occasionally give information in a lecture based format, but it was not shown in the film (that I remember).

I think that the fact that we were able to choose how to present our own project was both a good and bad thing; in concept, it allows students to focus on their interests, but in practice many students just picked what they thought would be the easiest. In my class’ case, the supplementary paper helped develop a “baseline of effort needed” for the class. In High Tech High, they avoided this by just forcing everyone into the same project.

A problem I see with High Tech High’s Teachers’ hands off, student-driven approach is that I can see less motivated students being left behind. I do thinking learning to fail is an important skill to have, but it shouldn’t be the goal. Near the end of the film, I believe it was one of the teachers that admitted that the learning style doesn’t work for all students. It makes me wonder if it’s accurate to describe traditional learning as low risk, medium reward, and describe project-based learning as high risk, high reward.

At the end of the day, I’m happy that new methods of teaching are being tested, but I think a few more years of guinea pigs are in order before I would send my own kids (that is, if I had any) to a solely project-based learning school.