Program Description: Service Learning via Passion Projects
"Service learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities"
Definition of Service Learning - Fayetteville State University
Why Service Learning?
Service Learning and Passion Projects are strategies for students to learn about how they fit into the community and how, through meaningful planning and interaction, they can enhance, better, and change their community. One person can make a difference. This assignment/program is an opportunity for students to see that they are powerful and they are a part of something bigger. Whether through creating and spreading awareness, researching a problem, collaborating to solve a community issue, or a mixture or all of those, students can impact the world in which they live.
What are the goals and objectives of The Passion Project?
The goal of The Passion Project is to help students connect to their best ideas. In doing so, we fulfill the following objectives:
- Utilizing the community in the education of our children
- Empowering our children to explore their passions in creative ways
- Emphasizing the connection between passion and learning
Is The Passion Project sustainable? How does The Passion Project collaborate with others to support, grow and sustain its efforts?
The Passion Project requires little in the way of 'hardware' to be successful. What it does require is a commitment from the community surrounding the Project. It requires human buy-in and an understanding that learning best occurs in community. For this reason, a strong understanding of what the assignment involves is necessary by the parents in order to support the student, and a high level of comprehension is required by each student so that he or she may act as a self-advocate when they need help with specific issues, if they need a mentor, and when seeking general assistance.
What are the cornerstone ideals of the Passion Project for students, educators, and parents?
- We believe in making school different.
- We know that The Passion Project will change the way we "do" education.
- We know that change is rocky, messy, painful and sometimes a little crazy - and that's okay.
- We have people with passion in our community.
- We believe that our kids can move mountains.
How does The Passion Project revolutionize the way we think and view learning?
When you start The Passion Project, you are buying into the idea that school can be different. The Passion Project challenges students to think for themselves, to create their own parameters for learning, to reflect on the areas of strength and areas in need of improvement, to devise a plan for their own learning, to learn in and outside of the classroom, to interact with their community and to look for ways to impact their community through their passions.
The Passion Project provides a context for learning that is significant, relevant and engaging. It empowers students as individuals and unites students in flexible learning communities. Learning occurs through The Passion Project. Students are challenged to write, read, think, inquire, explore, decipher, comprehend, analyze, evaluate and respond within the context of their passion. They are empowered to act and to connect with their community. They are encouraged to view 'school' as something that does not happen in isolation to 'life' but exists in harmony - with teachers and mentors to guide and support.
(*some information taken from http://sonyaterborg.wixsite.com/thepassionproject/program-description)
What are Passion Projects? What is Genius Hour?
"Passion projects inspire curiosity and interest while still meeting standards." by Vicki Davis (http://www.edutopia.org/blog/bringing-student-passions-to-learning)
"Genius hour is a movement that allows students to explore their own passions and encourages creativity in the classroom. It provides students a choice in what they learn during a set period of time during school. It’s not easy to determine where the idea was originally created, but there are at least two events that have impacted genius hour."
(*taken from http://www.geniushour.com/what-is-genius-hour/)
How did Genius Hour and Passion Projects get their start?
"The search-engine giant, Google, allows it’s engineers to spend 20% of their time to work on any pet project that they want. The idea is very simple. Allow people to work on something that interests them, and productivity will go up. Google’s policy has worked so well that it has been said that 50% of Google’s projects have been created during this creative time period. Ever heard of Gmail or Google News? These projects are creations by passionate developers that blossomed from their their 20-time projects."
(*taken from http://www.geniushour.com/what-is-genius-hour/)