millenniumWAVE technologies

Also See:

Quote of the Month

This Month's Quote

Education for today

Wouldn’t anyone like to be part of something exciting? Unique? Adventuresome? Wouldn’t being part of something big, something huge, give you a little motivation to go to work each day? Certainly. Now put yourself in a student’s seat…day in and day out having to do the same work, sitting in the same seat, staring at the same wall, “learning” the same boring, inconsequential, irrelevant material. Motivated? Hardly. Is this learning? Barely.

But what if we gave the student a part in a huge undertaking, a part in a learning adventure like no other, something that would make them want to come to school everyday. Wouldn’t that be motivating? Isn’t that was learning is all about? Shouldn’t that be what school is all about?

There is no learning without motivation. Period.

A teacher is somebody's enthusiastic motivator,
or else the teacher is a teacher of nobody.
M. Scott 1999

This brings us to project based learning. Instead of giving students questions 1 to 6 in Chapter 2, students are given an open-ended problem, an opportunity to use new knowledge and skills to solve a unique challenge, an opportunity to take ownership of their own thinking, an opportunity to think for themselves and display their talents. Now learning takes on a new meaning.

Now take this one step further. How about an impossible project? How about a challenge so difficult that it requires real guts to tackle it? How about a project that has a place for everyone, a project that without the input of every single team member it would be doomed? How about hanging your butt out the edge and do something that you know you are going to have to apologize to someone later?  How about waking up in the middle of the night with a little sweaty anxiety of “What have I done? What have I gotten myself into?”  YES!  Now we are talking about a WOW! project.

Education for the 21st Century

I started teaching high school in the “pre-Internet explosion” year of 1992-93. (I was always a radical from my own high school years of the early 70s, and I got into teaching because I felt I could make a difference in society).  It didn’t take me long to become disenchanted with the results I was getting from students.  While our style of education in technological studies (hands-on task oriented, open ended problem solving, generation relevant) was superior to the so-called “academic” model (Industrial age, sitting in rows and regurgitating facts like automatons), I became keenly aware that we were all missing the point of education.  It is all about motivation, about pride of ownership, about relevancy. 

The teacher's job is not to train students,
but to prepare students.
adapted from Jeremy Rifkin, School to Work 2000 Conference, Toronto

So I started dreaming up some fun projects, ones I called “enterprise wide” projects.  The idea was to focus our efforts on real world community based projects just like the “big boys” do.  Instead of making someone a poster, we would devise a whole marketing campaign.  Instead of building bookshelves for the library, we would design and pitch the idea of a research environment.  Instead of designing wall hangings for the chapel, we will design a “student grotto” environment to attract teenagers.  Instead of programming blinking lights, we would design tele-robotic systems and virtual reality simulations. Instead of hiding in our classroom everything we did would be part of a unique business enterprise.

We would learn as we went, we would learn from each other, we would learn together.  We would learn JIT (Just In Time…we will learn how to do that, when we needed to know how to do that).  Everyone would have a part to play to make the project happen.

If students are not trained to learn,
then we are creating performing seals in a circus
that's about to be demolished.
Dr. Bill Law, School to Work Conference 2000, Toronto

While I was coming up with this concept, and learning from some amazing teachers who were doing great projects, I read an article by Tom Peters, the uber-guru of the business world.  In this article, Tom Peters described his concept of the WOW! project and I was floored.  Here it is; he had hit the nail on the head.  He had come up with the practical idea of motivating people.  (Peters called it WOW!, I called it an “enterprise wide venture”. I guess this is why Tom Peters is rich and famous, and I am not!) 

It was an epiphany for me…everything gelled and snapped into place.  This is how to teach, because it is how human beings learn and innovate and get things done.

In the new economy, all work is project work.
You are your projects.
Tom Peters, Fast Company magazine, May 1999

For me, WOW! became time to throw the books out the window, rip up the lesson plans, get out of the classroom.  See what I can do for the community, see what I could do to prepare my students for the wild career rides they were going to embark on.  My students will develop their own identity, their own brand.  It is business.  Marks don’t count, results do.  Today is the first day.  “Starting from now on, we will be beginning an adventure, something so profound you will remember this the rest of your life…”

To the moon

Throughout my life I was always interested in space, the “final frontier”.  I followed the adventures of manned space flight and planetary robotic research ever since the days of Mercury and the race to the moon.  In the summer of 1997 I hit upon the idea of designing and fabricating a simulation of the International Space Station, one of the most adventurous and largest engineering project ever devised.  While others before me had created space simulations, mostly simulating the space shuttle, this would be unique in that we would take a realistic look at the design problems inherent in living and working in the space environment.  It would cover everything: electronics, industrial design, architecture, biotechnology, robotics, earth science, computer programming, and communications…you name it.  It was going to be impossible. There were no funds.  Every technology class would have a role to play.  It was going to last 10 years, and be multilevel from Grade 7 to OAC (13).  It would be the ultimate WOW! project, it would be…well who knew what it would be?

I pitched the idea to all my students.  I told them it would be the most amazing thing they would ever do in school.  I told them they would be known worldwide.  I told them to forget everything else they came to school for, when they crossed the door into my lab they were in a different environment.  I told them I had no idea how we were going to do this and had no idea if we ever would get away with it.

It's lonely at the forefront.
M. Scott 1996

The result was the Canadian Student Space Station Simulator, or CS4 for short.  The results were wonderful, amazing.  I just stood back and watched the magic happen. (OK, so it took a lot of work in the background).  What fun!  What an adventure!  What learning!  And I didn’t have to teach, they were doing it themselves!

Examples of WOW!

While CS4 was my own WOW! project, there are WOW! projects in every area of interest.  It wouldn’t be hard to come up with WOW! projects in hospitality, manufacturing, science, the languages, etc.  It might not radically change the projects you do now, but it creates a focus, a reason to do what you do in the classroom.  This, I truly believe, is the secret to learning, the secret to teaching.

Here are some of my own examples. 

CS4

See the CS4 site for the description and pictures of this really fun project.  When I left the school, we were in the process of designing the Second Generation Habitat, a two-story simulator with a greenhouse, weather station and room for a crew of six. The highlight of our project was being featured worldwide on the Discovery Channel's LifeSpace series. I miss the classroom!

Project Loudspeaker

This project was to build the ultimate “gym busting” speakers, a chest pounding set of loudspeakers like no other.  It was a multiyear endeavour of my electronics design class that culminated in our “Gym Busters”: a set of four 15” subwoofers, horn midranges and titanium bullet tweeters.  It was a real hit with the principal when we fired them up in the atrium.

Project Chapel

One of my first projects, in my first year of teaching. We were asked by the chaplain to come up with some wall designs for the new, but empty school chapel.  I turned it in to a total design of the environment as the students came up with ideas to develop it into an active, functional place to hang out.  Ultimately never implemented, perhaps the altar that doubled as a billiard table was too much.

V Team

We were asked in 1994 to come up with some posters for room divider panels that Laidlaw Transportation (school bus company) had from Laidlaw Waste Disposal Inc.  They wanted to advertise their school bus safety.  We turned it into an entire safety awareness marketing campaign that even included Karry, the Safety Kangeroo mascot.  Very well received by the company. (Unfortunately the company went through management changes and economic woes and didn’t implement the program as we hoped, but it was one of the main projects that resulted in the school winning the 1997 OCRI Partnership Award.

From this project we developed the “V-Team”, a multimedia production company to develop marketing and advertising products for the community.  We did produce a video (Grandpa Goes Fishing) to encourage senior citizens to use ATM machines for the Bank of Montreal, among hundreds of other projects.

ISRS

Our ventures into programming virtual reality simulations resulted in first: the IS3:VR (International Student Space Simulators: Virtual Reality) company to model space systems such as the ISS with the goal of creating a 3D interactive chat environment; secondly: with ISRS (International Student Reality Simulators) with the intent of providing virtual reality simulations and animations to clients.  Some of my students went on to co-op placements at the National Research Council (NRC) or into post secondary programs in animation.  I know they are out there doing great stuff.

Edge of Space

Never got to implement this one because I went on to a Board consultant position, but my next endeavor was going to be reaching the edge of space, (90,000 feet) with an instrumented weather balloon.  I was intrigued by the ventures of several groups in the states (like the Kansas City folks) who were doing this.  We had most of the electronics, had no money and no experience, but man, would it be cool or what?

Two of my teachers at St. Peter also had some great projects of their own:

Jean Magne’s Nursing Home Planters

A local nursing home approached Jean with the idea of building some planters for their clients who couldn’t reach down to the ground easily.  Jean and his students took the task and turned it into a full design project, and presented new ideas in planter design to the nursery home management.  The management were wowed, they were awarded the contract, and built and installed the planters.  They have received more contracts to build nursing stations, etc. for the home because of their excellent work.  Jean’s team also won a 1999 award from Youth and Child Friendly Ottawa, which is based on excellence in community work by youth.

Pius Gratwohl’s Vehicle Refurbishing

Pius Gratwol, the transportation teacher at St. Peter, took on the task of refurbishing cars for families that cannot afford them in a program for the St. Vincent de Paul organization.  The organization supplies the materials and cars, Pius’s students have a real world learning experience, and families in the community get the benefit of a much-needed resource.  Pius also adds a 15% surcharge on all their repair work to sponsor needy third world children.  Can you say: “Win, win, win?”  An excellent example of community based projects.

© 2003 millenniumWAVE technologies
Please acknowledge author in use of any original material