Tag Archives: education

New Article out in Middle Grades Review: Self-Directed Learning and Service Learning in Middle Grades

I’m excited to share that our new scholarly article has been published today in the academic journal the Middle Grades Review: Self-Directed Learning and Service Learning in Middle Grades: What are the Connections and Implications?

This one is a long time coming. I learned a great deal from Rachel Mark’s research on self direction, which inspired this article analyzing the connections between self-direction and service learning. Especially after the pandemic, and in the social media/attention economy, self direction in students is a challenge. After looking at the literature, it is clear that educators can build students’ self direction by engaging in intentional service learning that gives students independence, scaffolding, motivation, and communication skills to thrive. This article also shares a new framework that highlights the connections between these two concepts and approaches. I hope it is helpful to educators.

Let me know what you think!

June 2022

I look back at my last post, featuring a temp of -17, while sitting on my porch. The green surrounding me is radiating, ringing with bird songs. It is hard to believe, each season, that this miraculous, drastic change occurs, yet it does. Vermonters pour into the streets when spring finally comes. We say hi to everyone. We wear shorts when it is far too cold still. We buy flowers for the garden. We feel like me might just be okay. And our spring was long and cold and wet so it felt especially incredible (almost too hot, even) when we were graced with warmer temperatures.

And then we had another wave of Covid, but this time, whatever! Nobody cared. No mask mandates, policies where you don’t have to be negative to come to school, you can still come with symptoms. All the big events, unmasked. Anyone who hadn’t gotten sick did. So much for that spring feeling. It seems that living right now is the constant flow between joy, beauty, and illness, worry.

Then ongoing terror and horror and violence and the loss of sweet babies. The school shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas. This news took my legs out from me, it gutted and enraged me. It could be any of us, any of our kids. And these kids are OUR kids. There are no other people’s children. We cannot continue like this. We need to organize.

Join Moms Demand Action.

Call your representatives.

Demand action.

I have done all of these things and it is not enough.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Ask my friends in New Zealand and Australia, and most recently, Canada. I can’t say much more than this. I don’t have the words. I have a lot of thoughts about what society has asked of teachers during the Covid pandemic, and in the unending wake of gun violence. But right now, my thoughts are not yet organized. They will be.

For now, I am going to make it through the last week of school, celebrate my scholars and how far they have come. I’m going to keep looking at the leaves and the hummingbirds, keep my perch on the porch when I can.

Sending love and abundant June sunshine your way.

Start the School Year: Real and Relevant with Service and Project Based Learning

It’s almost time. Teachers are starting to have cold sweats and stress dreams, but also that seed of excitement and looking forward to seeing their students again. The new school year is upon us.

With everything happening in the world– it is clear to me that the path forward in education is to engage kids in meaningful, relevant, connected work that improves the community and  world, while growing empathy and self-efficacy in kids.

Research has told us that service learning has the capability to disrupt bias and fight stereotypes. We need this now more than ever. We can use project and service based learning as a tool to improve communities, school culture, and empower students to see other perspectives while helping to solve real problems.

I am heartened by all the progress in this regard. Schools across the country to moving toward personalizing learning for students, using tools such as service and project based learning across the curriculum.

In this spirit, I am launching Start the School Year #realandrelevant. My latest book, Real and Relevant: a guide for service and project-based learning,  came out in June, 2017, and is a guide for busy teachers who want to begin or deepen service and project based learning in their classrooms. It is the second edition of this book, and the new edition adds chapters on technology tools; a summary of my research on how service learning at the middle school level can contribute to personal growth; project based learning; and more examples from the field, including updated resources and examples.

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