Grade 9 student Makenna Koroscil, disguised as a bespectacled mouse, is working on her business plan for Sapphire Sweets — the gluten-free bakery she will soon launch on social media.
“I just wanted to do something I loved and that could take me further in life,” she said of her venture.
Classmate and aviation fan Cole Groff is training to be a pilot, having used his time in Mr. Samuel’s class to fly a Boeing 737 in the super-accurate flight simulator XPlane 11, brush up on aerodynamics, and interview real pilots about their jobs. He said this is way better than his other classes, where you often get assignments that have nothing to do with your interests.
“Here, it’s giving you an opportunity to learn what you want to know.”
Koroscil and Groff are two of the roughly 34 Grade 8 and 9 students at W.D. Cuts enrolled in the new Pursuit Program, which launched this September. The program emphasizes student-directed, project-based learning to get students more engaged with schooling.
Kids already know how to learn, and schools want students to learn specific skills, said teacher Mark Samuel. The Pursuit Program lets students learn and apply those skills in the way that interests them.
“These kids are finding their passion, and finding things they’re interested in,” Samuel said.
Chasing education
Samuel said he started thinking about Pursuit a few years ago after he switched from teaching high school to junior high.
“I was asking, 'What is it for? What is the purpose of junior high?'”
Most people see junior high as preparation for high school, but Samuel said he found this “mini-high-school” approach produced bored students.
Last year, he and fellow teacher Ryan Polny proposed a student-led, project-focused approach they dubbed Pursuit, as it would let students pursue their passions.
Instead of having teachers teach, say, algebra, and then assign a bunch of math problems, Pursuit has teachers give specific lessons twice a week paired with open-ended, real-world challenges for students to solve.
Past challenges have seen students design net-zero schools, construct elevators, and simulate a parliamentary committee. Samuel said this approach shows students how their class skills apply to the real world and encourages them to teach each other about what they discover.
The other three days of the week are dedicated to long-term projects of direct interest to each student that require them to use curriculum-based skills such as literacy, science, or mathematics. That could mean building a lightsaber using a 3D printer, designing cars using foam bricks, or coding video games, Samuel said. Students must write regular updates on what they’ve learned and share their progress through monthly TED-Talk-like presentations.
Koroscil said she decided to start a gluten-free business for her project as she has celiac disease and a passion for baking. So far, she’s had to design her own logo, research and experiment with different recipes, and calculate per-unit costs and profit margins.
“You feel you’re engaged and you’re actually learning something,” she said.
“You’re doing something you’re able to remember and doing something that’s worth your time instead of doing a worksheet and handing it in.”
Lessons from Pursuit
Pursuit gives students more options on how to learn, said student Megan Mamczasz, who is designing their own website under the program — the teacher sets an end goal or lesson to reach, but the student decides how to get there.
“I feel like I can do more on my own and learn at the pace I can learn,” they said.
Samuel said Pursuit demands much more flexibility from a teacher than a regular class, as you must connect students with experts and information about everything from songwriting to engineering. It also requires plenty of discipline and responsibility from the students in it as it lacks the structure of other classes.
Samuel said students in Pursuit must seek out the knowledge they need for their passion projects instead of having a teacher spoon-feed it to them, which makes them enthusiastic learners. The best part about this part of Pursuit is seeing how eager students are to share what they have learned and done with others.
“They’re excited to come to school,” he said.
Samuel said he hopes to open Pursuit to Grade 7 students next year. If this year’s trial run succeeds, it should produce passionate learners and confident communicators who could meet real-life challenges.
Questions on Pursuit should go to W.D. Cuts Principal Cory Albrecht at 780-458-8585.
