Challenge Based Learning Pilot
In the fall of 2008, Apple, Inc . decided to put challenge-based learning to the test, in a pilot study that could not only inform practice, but also be replicable across a wide variety of school settings . Six schools from across the country, all schools with one-to-one laptop initiatives in place, were chosen to participate.
- Moreau Catholic High School, Hayward, CA
- Punahou High School, Honolulu, HI
- Manor New Tech High, Austin, TX
- Mooresville High School, Moorseville, NC
- Pratt High School, Pratt, Kansas
- O’Neill High School, O’Neill, Nebraska
Twenty-nine teachers and seven professional staff, and 321 students agreed to help conduct the first major test of challenge-based learning and for their experiences to be exhaustively chronicled and researched. The students, primarily 9th and 10th graders, were chosen based on the desire to represent not only a variety of urban, suburban, and rural settings, but also private, public, and magnet schools, richly diverse schools and relatively homogeneous schools, and both affluent and low socio-economic status schools.
Seventeen disciplines were represented among the teachers, who universally expressed excitement about the opportunity to put these new ideas into practice. Students were excited, as well, both for the chance to do something related to a genuine issue, but also to be part of educational innovation at work. To prepare for the pilot, the teachers and staff attended a two day workshop at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, where working in school-based teams, they selected one or more “big ideas” as the focus of the projects that would take place on their campuses, identified a local challenge related to those “big ideas,” and planned how the projects would play out at their schools.
Both teachers and students found challenge-based learning effective and engaging. Fully 97% of the 321 students involved found the experience worthwhile. More so, when the data are disaggregated by teacher, 73% of the faculty were able to engage every single student in their classes; the data for those classes shows student satisfaction rates of a remarkable 100%. Teachers unequivocally also rated the experience as positive, with every one of the 29 pilot faculty reporting that work of the students exceeded their expectations. All but one faculty member reported that the kids embraced the topic eagerly and worked well together and almost three-quarters noted positive changes in student attitude and behaviors. Students self-reported that they were learning and refining skills that closely matched those identified by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.
For a full description of the pilot and results download the New Media Consortium research report.
