What Is EMC2?

I answered these questions for a grant-application the coordinators recently filled out.

_____________________________________

Provide a high-level description of the current program and its overall impact on preparing students for the demands of the 21st century. (Limit: 500 words)

Our program, Exploring with Mindful Creativity and Curiosity (E=mc2), is an independent inquiry program where students are given the opportunity to research and investigate a topic of their choice for the year, with a librarian serving as their research coordinator.  Throughout the year, students regularly record their thoughts, questions, goals, and struggles with regards to their projects through a series of journals posted on their own websites.  Students also demonstrate the progress they’re making in their projects, from their first question to their final product, through monthly self-designed assignments.  In addition, students are required to conduct interviews with experts or professionals in their field of study, collaborate with and provide feedback to each other, and present their work and explain its importance in a TED-style speech at the end of each semester.

The goal of the program is to develop the students’ thinking and questioning skills.  The extremely low student-to-coordinator ratio (4:1) allows for a student-centered, conversation-based learning process that is focused not on the acquisition of knowledge, but the growth of critical faculties.  The curriculum, which is individualized for each student, is centered around the importance of questioning and an emphasis on our 5Cs: curiosity, creativity, communication, collaboration, and critical thinking.  The role of the coordinator is to push the students out of their comfort zones, assist in the development of the student’s project, and help keep the student accountable to his or her own goals.

This program was created to fill a perceived gap in the standard school curriculum, to change the focus for students from learning content to the learning process itself, and to provide greater opportunities for subject exploration and original contribution for students seeking such a challenge. Our goal was to provide an opportunity for students to explore and take risks while learning in the process. We believe this ability to apply one’s knowledge and thinking skills will prove vastly more useful than basic subject matter knowledge in our world of constant change.  It has become increasingly apparent that, in the 21st century, information is cheap.  What our students will need to succeed in the world of today and tomorrow is the ability to question the status quo, rapidly acquire and apply new knowledge, and adapt to change.  These skills are what our E=mc2 program seeks to give them.  

Explain how the program objectives and outcomes specifically address the following Challenge criteria: (Limit: 800 words)

• Critical thinking
• Communication
• Creativity
• Collaboration
• Between students
• Among educators
• In real-life engagement with the industry or your community

Critical Thinking: The E=mc2 program starts developing students’ questioning and critical thinking abilities on Day One.  At a summer “boot camp,” students are asked a series of ambiguous questions, such as “Who was the greatest president?”  The students start out by immediately formulating answers, but they quickly learn that the only way to answer these questions is to ask more questions, such as what is meant by “greatest” and “president.”  Through similar activities and regular individual feedback throughout the year, it is made clear to the students that the conclusions they come to through their project are arguments, truth-claims about the world that must be justified and defended with evidence and clear reasoning.  Students are also pressed to always keep in mind their “so what?” as a way of deciding what material is relevant, what steps need to be taken next, and why their work is important.  This focus on questioning, justifying, and reflecting is emphasized throughout the year, contributing greatly to the development of the students’ critical thinking skills.

Communication: Opportunities to develop students’ communication skills are built into not only the curriculum, but the very structure of the program.  The E=mc2 program is not a class that meets regularly; communication with one’s coordinator must happen outside of channels that students are accustomed to, either through email/phone or by setting up in-person meetings.  The primary responsibility for communicating is put on the student.  Furthermore, the students are required to show their thinking, record their questions, reflect upon their research, and share their conclusions through a series of journals throughout the year that are posted on each student’s website.  Monthly self-designed assignments, which are meant to demonstrate progress, show use of the 5Cs, and communicate the importance of the student’s project to his or her stakeholders are also posted on their website.  Finally, after each semester, students participate in a symposium where they display their work to a wider audience and provoke thinking in the community.  

Creativity: In the E=mc2 program, creativity is synonymous with originality.  The program is designed to give students the freedom and flexibility to experiment with assignments, and this freedom has, over the life of the program, yielded many manifestations of creative originality.  We’ve had students experiment with digital design, paint on sheets of glass, construct a telescope, embody mathematical equations in music, write/draw picture books, write stand-up comedy, build robots, and manipulate gene sequences in worms.  By stressing the importance of originality and giving students the flexibility to find it, the structure of this program elicits greater variety of artistic expression and thought than any specific assignment could ever produce.

Collaboration: a) We often find that this can be the most difficult of our 5Cs for the students to appreciate.  They start out the year by thinking of their work as an “independent” research project.  However, inevitably, a point in the year is reached where the students start to come together.  As their analyses of their various topics go deeper, they begin to see the connections between their projects and naturally begin to reach out to each other for aid.  To encourage this process, coordinators create assignments that are designed to get the students looking at and questioning each other’s work, require that one self-designed assignment be done with a partner, and provide an environment where students can work together.

b) We often remark that “we’re building the plane while we’re flying it.”  The E=mc2 program is constantly evolving to meet the needs of the students, shedding assignments and plans that don’t work, adding assignments and plans that are more purposeful, and allowing more flexibility and individuality for those who want it.  This process requires constant collaboration between the coordinators as we experiment with the curriculum and communicate to each other the different methods we’re trying and the results we’re getting.  Each coordinator has their respective strengths, and often we meet together to discuss and give feedback on specific aspects of each student’s work.

c) The students are taught to connect with others and view outside experts and professionals as resources that have the potential to significantly enhance their project.  The upper level of the program requires students to write a thesis over the course of the year, and, to that end, students must assemble thesis committees composed of community members (local attorneys, researchers, activists, and teachers) to help guide them in that process.  Our students use their community resources in other ways, too.  Currently, one student studying the role of computer science in our lives is teaching coding to elementary students, and another student studying neurological symptoms of Alzheimer's is working in a research lab at a local hospital.

Explain how your previous approach to teaching this information (identical or similar) was adapted to include 21st century skills. (Limit: 300 words)

The E=mc2 program began as a research-intensive information literacy class.  Emphasis was placed on identifying reliable sources of information and developing one’s research skills, especially crafting effective search queries, distilling relevant information, and assembling bibliographies of support.  The students were asked to create some sort of end product, in addition to their end-of-year speech, but these products were reminiscent of other school research projects: papers, displays, and simple presentations.

However, as the coordinators continued to study educational philosophy and came to more accurately understand the need this program was meant to fill, the structure and curriculum of the program changed.  Currently, the program’s goal is to help the students view their project’s claims as arguments requiring justification based on evidence and clear reasoning.  Research abilities are a necessary component of this justification process, but these skills are presented now as a purposeful step towards a more important end product.  In addition to research, we now stress the importance of the 5Cs: critical thinking in formulating and testing one’s conclusions, curiosity in being willing to explore related fields and consider alternative viewpoints, collaboration in finding new avenues for progress, creativity in exploring one’s topic and developing a novel approach to one’s central issue, and communication in presenting the results of one’s efforts to an audience of stakeholders.  

The program continues to change as the coordinators reflect on the efficacy of our current approach and elicit feedback from the students about their needs.  We expect the program to continue moving away from abstract research skills and more towards the utilization and questioning of the information they find.  Again, we believe that these 5Cs will more properly prepare our students to succeed in the 21st century, where information is easily accessible and yet ever-changing.