What Makes a 'Good' Project? with Gary Stager

Good projects aren't that tough to create.

But somehow we always seem to overcomplicate them. (Me included)

What if I told you that the best project prompts could fit on a single post-it note?

Project-Based experiences that have students staying in during lunch, working late hours in the evening, mastering curricular standards, and producing awe inspiring work that makes adult jaws drop.

These are the kind of project-based experiences Gary Stager has educators around the world designing through his Summer Institutes and brilliant book 'Invent to Learn' on a regular basis.

I sat down with Gary to discuss the book and how we as learning experience designers can:

• Design curricular rich project prompts that fit on a single post-it note
• Create learning environments that resemble more cocktail party than they do classroom
• Design projects that are 'sharable,' and live on well beyond their expiration date
• Release the shackles of subjects, specialists, timetables, curriculum standards and assessment that often stand in the way of deep and meaningful learning
• Act more as 'ethnographers' to capture and document student learning, rather than teachers who deliver instruction

Get Gary's Book 'Invent to Learn': https://inventtolearn.com/

Learn more about Gary: http://professorgarystager.com

Connect with Gary on Twitter: @garystager

Get the Free PBL Design Starter Kit: https://transformschool.com/pblstarterkit/

Gary's Bio:

In addition to being a popular keynote speaker at some of the world's most prestigious education conferences, Gary Stager is a journalist, teacher educator, consultant, professor, software developer, publisher, and school administrator. An elementary teacher by training, he has taught students from preschool through doctoral studies. In 1990, Dr. Stager led professional development in the world's first laptop schools and played a major role in the early days of online education. Gary is the founder of the Constructing Modern Knowledge summer institute for educators. Dr. Stager is co-author of Invent To Learn – Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom, called the "bible of the maker movement in schools," by Larry Magid of CBS and The San Jose Mercury News. Invent To Learn has been translated into nine languages. Dr. Stager's most recent book is Twenty Things to Do with a Computer Forward 50: Future Visions of Education Inspired by Seymour Papert and Cynthia Solomon's Seminal Work. When Jean Piaget wanted to better understand how children learn mathematics, he hired Seymour Papert. When Dr. Papert wanted to create a high-tech alternative learning environment for incarcerated at-risk teens, he hired Gary Stager. This work was the basis for Gary's doctoral dissertation and documented Papert's most-recent institutional research project. Dr. Stager's work has earned a Ph.D. in Science and Mathematics Education and he collaborated on a project that won a Grammy Award. Recently, Gary was invited by Fondazione Reggio Children to lead a public seminar on education in Reggio Emilia, Italy. Gary is also on the advisory board of the NSF-funded project, BJC4NYC: Bringing a Rigorous Computer Science Principles Course to the Largest School System in the US. Dr. Stager also maintains the world's largest archive of text and multimedia by Seymour Papert at The Daily Papert.