First Day Response

Austin Baker 

What is your response to Ken Robinson’s challenge to revolutionize education and how does our work in developing a PBL mindset for Spartanburg District Six students promote/support that paradigm shift? 

I think that PBL does promote the paradigm shift Robinson is talking about. He talks about how our current educational model is inorganic. It's like fast food; one size fits all, and that's not right for education. 

Go back to the very basics of learning. Kids learn from their parents. Every child has parents (or not) who are different, so each child learns in a different way. Even when there are movements to raise children a certain way (a book comes out, some celebrity or other famous person espouses a certain method), only a few people actually get on board with that (compared to the number of people who don't).  

D6's motto is "children first," which, if we follow Robinson's logic, should include PBL, because if implemented correctly, allows for organic learning, as opposed to "manufactured," one-size-fits-all learning that has been the paradigm in education for years.  

What does Ken Robinson’s challenge mean for you personally and specifically for your teaching practice?  

I feel that my instruction is already geared very heavily towards PBL (and has been for years), but I do still subscribe to a "linear" methodology as Robinson puts it. I've found it easier to to attempt to teach a topic that is both art and science by breaking it down into sections, but a student can take a great picture the first time they pick up a camera, without having gone through the lessons I have laid down for them in an organized (and regrettably) linear fashion.  

Describe your vision of a PBL classroom?  

I'm a strong believer in lifelong learning, and in the old adage about "teaching a man to fish." Historically, many great photographers have been self-taught, learning through personal research and practice. This is not to knock education, Lord knows I wish I had learned a lot of the very things I teach in my classes much sooner in my career, but I feel it is of the utmost importance to teach children how to learn for themselves than it is to throw information at them. A PBL based class should get their feet wet in the subject, get them interested and excited, but ultimately the learning should be on them. You're there to guide, but they have to want to learn. A successful PBL based class would incite that type of learning.  

What practices will you continue to foster? 

I try to create all of my PBL based lessons with differentiation in mind. I provide (and assess) concepts and techniques at a baseline level, but I provide lots of room for expansion. And, since the work is, to a certain extent, self-paced, the classes allow for students who need more time and practice to do so, while allowing the "high flyers" to tackle more advanced concepts and techniques.  

What is your greatest challenge in implementing PBL in the upcoming school year? 

Breaking the linear mold. I'm not sure that I'll completely abandon the model I've created (especially as the semester is 2 weeks out), but I would like to work to create a more organic style of learning (it's one of the reasons I restructured my curriculum between last year and this year, as I saw issues with the direction I was pushing them early on and realized that it wasn't working (in terms of introducing artificial lighting too soon while they still didn't completely have a grasp on exposure as a whole).