Making Lemonade from Lemons: Using Project-Based Learning to Create Real World Classroom Experiences

Thursday, January 28, 2021 | 1:00 PM (PT) / 4:00 PM (ET)

Register Today!

About

As a tool in your Experiential Education toolbox, project-based learning is a proven way to engage students in collaborative real-world problem solving. Projects are organized around a driving question and students work in teams as they create unique paths through a scaffolded series of experiences. Along the way, teams engage outside experts on real world problems, demonstrate their learning, and take action. In short, student teams engage in work that matters both to them and to the world. In this 2-hour workshop, World Leadership School Director of Professional Learning, Jessica Catoggio, walks teachers through the process of using the WLS Project Planner to redesign existing programs or curriculum through the lens of project-based learning. Working in breakout rooms, teachers move through the steps to redesign an existing classroom unit off-campus experience, or travel program with the help of WLS coaches and staff. Along the way, teachers explore how to design units with voice and choice, deep reflection, demonstrations of learning, and both formative and summative assessments for remote, in-person, and hybrid environments. Jessica will offer a complementary 30-minute coaching session to any teacher who attends the full webinar and wants to develop an idea further.

Facilitators:Jessica Catoggio

Jessica Catoggio has deep experience coaching teachers around project-based learning. She is passionate about building communities and aims to connect with others through differences and similarities. She values inquiry, curiosity, and in-depth questioning and helps teachers create dynamic classroom communities in which all students thrive. Jessica is a veteran teacher with 20 years experience in both public and independent schools, including the last 13 years as a lower school teacher at Collegiate School in Richmond, VA. While at Collegiate, Jessica evolved her project-based approach after taking multiple PBL trainings and receiving her coaching certificate from the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education. She earned her Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia and went on to receive a Masters of Arts in Teaching from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Jessica co-facilitated the inaugural Lower School cohort of ISEEN's Summer Institute in 2019 and looks forward to returning in 2021! In her free time, she enjoys reading, baking, traveling, and paddling Richmond’s beautiful James River with her husband and two children. She can’t leave home without her Sheepadoodle puppy, Rally!