Arrowtown School – Project based learning
This resource provides an example of a project based learning approach used with year 7 and 8 students at Arrowtown Primary School.
About this resource
This resource explains, in detail, the approach Arrowtown School’s year 7 and 8 teaching teams took when engaging their learners in a project-based learning task. Discover the theory behind the team's actions as you witness their teaching and learning from start to finish.
Arrowtown School – Project based learning
Year 7 and 8 students from Arrowtown Primary School designed and created illuminated ski suits for a competition run by the school in collaboration with NZ Ski. This authentic, hands-on project:
- provided rich and engaging learning opportunities across learning areas, especially science
- required students to practice the school's GOLD learner qualities, which link to the key competencies
- enabled the development of learning-focused relationships with the wider community.
Grant Hammond and Joe Bailey, year 7 and 8 team leaders, explain their journey in implementing "Illuminate" – a project that lit up the minds of their senior students and the slopes of Coronet Peak.
Grant (left) and Joe (right) with the year 7 and 8 teaching team from Arrowtown School (Karen Neill, Katie Keane, Alan Forsyth, and Kelly Scoles).
Setting up the project
We dreamed up the idea of making illuminated ski suits during a project-based learning (PBL) course we attended with John Santos from High Tech High. Our school was part of the New Pedagogies for Deep Learning programme and we were looking for ways to raise achievement through student engagement. The PBL course encouraged us to frame a meaningful challenge for our students based on their interests and passions.
Making illuminated ski suits was a good fit for our school context. With mountain ranges on our doorstep, skiing is a key part of our PE curriculum. We also knew that we wanted to incorporate science into our project learning this term.
The course with John Santos gave us key principles to follow as we implemented PBL.
Authentic PBL should:
- address real challenges
- connect with students’ interests and passions
- use a real-world context
- allow for student voice and choice
- involve regular reflection
- enable students to share their project work with people beyond the classroom.
A key ingredient to the project’s success was the relationship we established with NZ Ski. They were excited to collaborate and proposed that we work with them to support their marketing campaign for night skiing.
We decided to run a competition that challenged our students to create an illuminated "safety" ski suit or an illuminated "ambient" ski suit. We planned an evening event called “Illuminate” where the students presented their suits for judging on the slopes of Coronet Peak. Students, whānau, teachers, and the wider community were invited.
Designing and making the light suits
Launch
Nigel from NZ Ski launched the Illuminate project with our students by explaining the PBL challenge and the criteria for the ambient suit and the safety suit. Our teaching team wrote the criteria for the two competition categories to clearly describe to students what their work would be judged on. The project required students to practice all five key competencies and develop understandings in a range of learning areas including science, technology, English, and the arts.
Research and inquiry
Students explored topics such as wearable art, ski jackets, LED lighting, prototyping, brochure writing, and Matariki. They researched their wonderings and questions. Our year 7 and 8 teachers each ran a lesson based on the science of light. This allowed learners to build their scientific knowledge for the project.
The year 7 and 8 teaching teams were clear about the scientific knowledge and skills that they wanted students to develop through the Illuminate project. They planned a series of lessons to ensure students had time and opportunity to engage with, practice, and transfer new scientific understandings.
Design
Students used pencil sketches and digital platforms such as Tinkercad, Pixlr Editor, and Google Draw to draw up initial designs for their light suits. Several students from each class attended a workshop with Fifi Colston, a wearable arts designer. Fifi shared her expertise, advising the students to incorporate a story into their suit designs, and emphasising the importance of working with others to achieve high standards.
Prototyping
In this phase, students got their design ideas out of their heads and into a visual form. Students found that cardboard was a great material for prototyping and spent several days experimenting with cardboard to create a design base. Then they introduced other materials to bring their ideas to life.
“It was really fun when we got to use cardboard for prototyping because I personally like designing and creating and using the cardboard really gave us the freedom to create what we thought about in our minds.”
“I enjoyed prototyping because I could be really creative and free when we were doing it. The teachers trusted us to do whatever we liked which was really cool.”
Presentations
Students presented their ski suit prototypes to their class. Each class could only enter two suits into the competition (one safety suit and one ambient suit) so students had to sell their designs to each other to choose two to for final judging. They used a PMI tool to provide meaningful feedback on each prototype before working collaboratively to combine the strengths of the popular suits for their two competition entries.
Making the suits
Each class split into two project teams – one team responsible for making the safety suit and the other for making the ambient suit. Each group built their light suit, created a brochure that detailed the design process, and prepared a speech about the suit to share at the Illuminate event. Some students chose to choreograph their route down the mountain to showcase the suit.
To help ensure the success of the project, each student took on a role such as project leader, designer, craftsperson, brochure creator, speech maker, lighting technician, or performance manager. The idea was to place students in a position that matched their strengths and interests.
“I found that working in a team with defined roles was a very good idea as it enabled people to delve into the parts of the suit they were most passionate about. I was very lucky and got the perfect job for me which I was excited for (brochure). I got on amazingly in this job and went all in, I tried to make the brochure look as professional as I could.”
“I was given the role of project manager. The project manager takes meetings for the group to make sure everyone knows what they’re doing, and that they always have something to do. I enjoyed this role because I got to do a little bit of everything.”
“I enjoyed working in a team. My role was craftsmanship. I helped build and craft the suit and brought some ideas to the table. Everyone in the team was working well together. There were good leaders of the team.”
Illuminate
The Illuminate event took place on the Shirt Front Trail of Coronet Peak on the evening of 26 June 2019. Our year 7 and 8 students stayed on the mountain after a day of skiing to prepare for the event. Parents and members of the public arrived from 5.30 p.m. to watch the presentation of the light suits.
The safety suits were showcased first followed by the ambient suits. Student models paraded each suit by skiing down a dark Shirt Front Trail leading to the base where the judges were. Student speechmakers described the design details of each suit over the sound system.
View the video on Facebook: Illuminate at Coronet Peak with Arrowtown School
Impact
The Illuminate project exceeded our expectations in terms of the outcomes achieved. We did not expect the journey to open up so many possibilities, particularly around student agency and the relationships for learning built with NZ Ski and our whānau.
Our students had complete agency over the project from start to finish. They made decisions about:
- how to manage their time
- where they wanted to work
- who they wanted to work with
- what design elements to incorporate into their ski suits
- what materials to use
- what speciality role they could fill.
At times we had to guide the learning but most of the decision-making around design, suit construction, and project management was left to the students.
The agentic nature of the project allowed our learners to practice and reflect on our school’s GOLD learner qualities, which describe our collective vision for learning and link to the key competencies in The New Zealand Curriculum. The students recorded their progress against each GOLD category (Guardianship, Opportunity, Learning, and Determination) on a co-constructed rubric. Some students found self-management difficult, others excelled at collaboration. Reflecting on the GOLD learner qualities enabled our students to know their strengths and identify areas for future development.
Four cartoon characters with eyes and mouths. They form the shapes of letters to spell the word "gold". They have coloured sneakers with letters on them that corresponds with their shape. There is a coloured arrow shaped text box underneath each character pointing upwards.
From left to right:
Letter g - yellow character, yellow text box. Text - Guardianship. Care for self, others and the environment. Protect the past, present and future.
Letter o - red character, red text box. Text - Opportunity. Have skills, knowledge and a 'can do' attitude to pursue or create opportunities.
Letter l - green character, green text box. Text - Know how to learn: reflect, question, think, wonder, be self-aware, connect.
Letter d - blue character, blue text box. Text - Determination. Have perseverance and resilience.
The project allowed students to practice the 6Cs, the deep learning competencies recognised by NPDL. We focused on the creativity competency for self-assessment and our students filled out a creativity competency rubric to identify their strengths and next steps.
We think the resilience and confidence students developed through Illuminate spilled over into other learning areas with the majority of our senior students tracking well in reading, writing, and maths. They transferred their positive mind-sets and enthusiasm from Illuminate into other areas of school life.
Working collaboratively with NZ Ski brought authenticity and meaning to our project. Our students had a real life client who wanted their help to promote night-time skiing. This gave them a purpose for their learning and a taste of what it might be like to work in design, marketing, and project management careers. NZ Ski visited our school to film the students at work which added a whole new layer of excitement and engagement. NZ Ski want to work with us again, which is a great sign!
Jill Tester, from NZ Ski, comments on the benefits that collaboration brought to their business and brand:
"I can say on behalf of the marketing department, it was an amazing opportunity to work with you guys. The exposure was great with TVNZ getting on board. It aligned with the vision and values of Coronet Peak as a brand and showcased this to the community."
Illuminate allowed us to work in close partnership with our parents. It felt like they were on this learning journey with us. They’ve discussed ski suit designs with their children, and come into school to help us source materials, sew the suits, and build contraptions. It was fantastic to have parents and whānau join us at Illuminate so that they could celebrate their children’s achievements with us.
Advice to others
Communication is key
Open lines of communication were paramount to the success of this project. Communication channels had to be effective between teachers, between students and teachers, and between the students themselves. Because there were so many sub-teams, we needed constant updates. Design changes to the light suits affected everyone. We held regular meetings and wrote updated notes on project boards to ensure everyone was in the same waka.
Trust your students
Trusting our students and relinquishing control was essential to the success of Illuminate. We wanted students to be active participants in their learning and have the power to act and make decisions. This meant that we didn’t always know what direction the learning would take. Sometimes it got chaotic. We had to trust our learners and continually revisit our project criteria to keep things on track. In the end, the students stepped up, dealt with problems as they arose, and met their deadlines. They did an incredible job!
Teacher’s role
The teacher’s mindset and role is absolutely critical to project based learning. As a PBL teacher, you lead and guide, but you must also be prepared to be led and guided in turn. The teaching team embraced this mentality. We stayed open, we stepped back, and we let the students run the project. It’s not an easy thing to do but the depth and breadth of learning and the level of agency that has occurred is something we are all proud of.