The PAST Program-Based Learning Process sets up as a system that takes participants from initial discussions of school culture through brainstorming to backmapping and from aligning standards through sharing your project. In short, the PAST process takes you through the design process step by step.
In all instances, it is PAST’s intention to be hands-on providing examples and blank templates to work out your process. We use examples of how other educators have designed their programs and projects are presented to help you see the possibilities. Your project may address a common problem but the solution and look of your project or projects is uniquely yours. The common threads are the Approach, the Delivery System, and the Guiding Educational Standards or benchmarks. These common threads insure that students, regardless of age, learn valuable lessons and skills. Because Approach and Standards are the infrastructure of learning they do not affect the unique look of your program or projects.
Keeping problems and projects fresh is a sure way to keep students engaged as well as faculty in all learning environments. Teaching the same lesson year after year is mind numbing. Using the same approach but changing up the projects is invigorating. The problems of the world are in constant flux but the critical thinking and problem solving skills needed to successfully solve these ever-changing problems, remain the same. We like to call the approach and delivery system of the design process the ‘Kevlar threads’ of learning. These are the strongest part of the learning infrastructure.
The exciting aspect of this process is that learning teams finish the design process addressing one problem only to immediately see other adjoining or resulting problems and dive right back into the process with a new project. In the late 1960s C West Churchman, Horst Ritter and Melvin Webber introduced the concept of the ‘Wicked Problem,’ which relates to solutions that lead to new problems or only solve part of a problem. They cited moves in chess that solve an immediate dilemma but do not necessarily solve the entire game as an example of a wicked problem. Today the concept is widely used among software designers, city planners and engineers. Relating the concept of the wicked problem to the design process applied to education, we can see that the design principles, integral to all problem solving, is a perpetual process, suggesting solutions to one problem that often leads to the exploration of another collateral problem. With the wicked problem in mind, choosing capstone issues for a school, a community outreach program, technical apprenticeship or continuing education is like choosing a path that can take the programs and subject areas down many avenues of inquiry all relating back to the capstone.
By generating programs and projects from issues that touch the students and the community the involvement of partners is easier. Creating partnerships between education and the community is without doubt the most challenging part of the design process and often called the ‘fragile link’. The Program-based learning process is intended to demystify the practice and insure that everyone is comfortable with their role in the practice of partnering. Partnerships are intended to showcase strengths and model for students the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ of building coalitions that can solve problems.
Partnerships draw upon the combined pedagogical expertise of the teacher and the deep content knowledge of the community partner to deliver a more compelling project and more engaging learning environment. Partnerships are neither intended substitute the teacher nor overextend the community partner. Moreover, creating partnerships takes a team and is a very proactive process. Finally, all programs need the support of the entire community including the students, parents, guardians, businesses, industries, organizations and governmental agencies. Being able to succinctly describe a program or project is crucial to winning and sustaining needed support. This process can be wrapped into the design principles and conducted by the students.
For all the facets of designing and implementing a program or project the PAST team is there to assist in organizing and monitoring progress. It is our intention to help educators and community members form alliances that provide robust and exciting educational programs for students. By designing programs and projects that make adults smile and jump in can only result in more energetic learning for today’s youth. PAST invites you to use this book to design, construct and engage in education that links learning to life.
