What does Authentic Learning Look Like?
Students at Salesian College, Sunbury explore their ideas for ethically produced skincare with community partner, Lush Cosmetics.
Using Community Partners and Project-Based Learning to Connect Students with Real-World Experiences
New Tech Network Australia works with schools across the country to rethink how units of work are delivered so that high quality explicit instruction is combined with student-centred learning that is meaningful to students. Whether students are presenting sustainable, thermodynamic animal homes to an animal shelter or creating their own ANZAC Day commemoration for the local RSL, we view external partners as an essential partner in curriculum design. While we, as teachers may be experts in our specific subject area’s content and skills, we rarely have the experience in the real world to know how that knowledge and skills are actually used by professionals. We support schools to identify local businesses and organisations to work with to see how the content or topic is replicated in the real world. Through PBL training and collaboration with these business and community leaders, teachers are then better equipped to design learning with is both meaningful and authentically linked to the world beyond the classroom.
Why do community partners matter?
Community partners are essential for great PBL because they bring a level of expertise about their business or organisation that classroom teachers cannot replicate. By connecting students with experts and resources from their community, students have the chance to gain meaningful knowledge and skills that are relevant beyond the classroom.
When what is being learned is personally relevant, students connect to why they are doing certain tasks, which in turn, contributes to intrinsic motivation and improved student learning outcomes. To consistently create these kinds of learning experiences requires developing and sparking curiosities and providing authentic and meaningful learning opportunities.
According to Kristin Reynolds, Year 8 English teacher, working with their business partners as they design projects leads to high levels of relevance. “To have the opportunity to partner with someone in a business doing what these students may want to do makes them feel more connected to the actual point of a project.
A key advantage of the close connections between businesses and classroom experiences is that it allows teachers to lean into their expertise while allowing their business partners to support project units with their deep contextual knowledge. Dawn Butt, an instructional coach working closely with teachers states, “Through a community partner and connection, teachers get to be experts in their content areas and the partners fill in the blanks.“ Teachers across these districts have been planning and designing projects in all content areas. Here are a few examples of pairings or projects planned for this school year:
A technology teacher matched with a bank to do a Shark Tank style project
A English teachers paired with a metal recycling plant to highlight skill-based professional writing
A science teacher working with a solar power company
A Spanish teacher working with professional soccer players at the local club
An art teacher and a local hospital
In the US, Connor Daniels and Kristin Reynolds, an 8th Grade Social Studies and English team, are exploring possibilities with a local radio station in Harrisburg, PA. Kristin shared the early thinking of a project idea. “We are in the middle of designing our first project ever. We met with them today which fleshed out the reality of creating a project like this and the daunting task of actually doing it as a job. Our goal is to get everyone to create a long-form and a short-form of social media.” Their students will create a podcast episode about a social issue that they found during the Reconstruction Era. They will also create a short-form, Instagram or TikTok reel, that promotes their long-form content. This is the marketing model that the radio station regularly uses to promote interviews with musicians.”
This graphic captures the difference between doing projects as a culminating “dessert” event of a traditionally taught unit and a PBL unit that starts with a complex and engaging challenge, but it also calls out the needed pauses in the process to reflect on what is being learned and how it is being learned.
Teachers keep their business partner’s connections in mind as they utilize NTN tools and resources to design projects. Connor Daniels, 8th grade Social Studies teacher shared, “This year the resources that we have received from NTN have allowed us to make a really strong high quality project. That is my biggest takeaway. Coming up with a project can be daunting but the resources we have received are plug and play which helps it all come together and that has been extremely helpful.”
A second cohort of teachers is working with NTN to focus on implementing NTN Practices Cards for the classroom as a way to deepen PBL instructional practices. Specific NTN Practices Cards, such as Bookend Lessons and Socratic Seminars, are activities teachers can incorporate so that they design more learner-centered approaches that prepare students to develop 21st century skills, necessary for both career and tertiary education. “There are so many forms of communication that are relevant and authentic to what they will see in their future. The tools we have, Practices Cards, are such simple ways to get students to communicate, collaborate, and move in a classroom setting like they will in their future. Rather than just sitting and writing or taking a test, it shows them that it is more and more about collaboration and teamwork”, states Kristin Reynolds, 8th grade English teacher.
While teachers learn, design and implement, NTN is also supporting district leaders, including instructional coaches, with training focused on how to create systems to sustain PBL across schools. Each leadership cohort spends time learning alongside teachers and then comes together to self-assess where they are in their instructional practices, develop and share the vision for the work in their school, and explore how they might provide better support and feedback to teachers. Leaders then convene virtually throughout the year to share best practices across the county and learn more about how other schools have successfully scaled this work to apply to their own context.
Looking to the future
New Tech Network Australia supports project and problem-based learning implementation through teacher professional development, leadership support, Train the Trainer and Instructional Coaching. With your leadership team, we can support your school to identify a network of local business partners and members of the wider school community to co-design meaningful learning experiences that are truly authentic and will be remembered long after graduation.