Why Challenge Based Learning?

What would your dream school look like?  If you could design your most perfect learning experience, what would it look, feel, and sound like?

These are the kinds of questions the North Rowan High School community pondered as we prepared for the implementation of our Restart transformation.  Restart, which gave NRHS flexibility around some NC State rules, allowed us to dream and create outside the confines of the traditional test-driven, bureaucracy-laden system.

When we explored  all the dreams of an ideal school, one essential component was clearly evident throughout: engagement in authentic learning.

In our dream school, students were engaged in the learning not because they were told to, or because they "had to" for a grade or test.  Rather, students were engaged because they wanted to know more, wanted to master more, wanted to experience more.  
 
Authentic learning aligns with our statement of purpose, which is to nurture and encourage students to develop their gifts and passions for academics, careers, and life.
 
In the Journal of Authentic Learning, Audrey Rule cites four characteristics common to authentic learning:
1. Real-world problems that engage learners in the work of professionals
2. Inquiry activities that practice thinking skills and metacognition
3. Discourse among a community of learners
4. Student empowerment through choice.

At NRHS we are leveraging challenge based learning (CBL) as an instructional tool for engaging students authentically in real-world problems.  Challenge-based learning, as outlined in the iBook Challenge Based Learning Guide by Digital Promise, "empowers learners (students, teachers, administrators and community members) to address local and global challenges while acquiring content knowledge."

We have established design classes (see a syllabus here) where lower school 9th and 10th grade students spend 3 hours daily for 15 day periods engaging in their CBL challenges.  Design classes rotate with the core content classes, providing opportunities for cross-curricular connections as challenges require students to utilize content knowledge as they learn about the “real world”. Additionally, core content and elective classes across the school have begun implementing their own mini-challenges. 
 
Here is just a sample of the CBL opportunities provided in August and September at NRHS this year:

• Interior Design students remodel a real beach house damaged by Hurricane Florence
• Tenth grade students address hunger by making a Little Free Pantry
• Entrepreneurship students establish and manage a school store to promote school-wide positive behavior 
• Students learn about employability skills by establishing and running a Cavalier Coffee cart for staff.

 
“Editorial: The Components of Authentic Learning” by Audrey Rule, Journal of Authentic Learning Volume 3, Number 1, August 2006, Pp. 1-10.

​Mark H. Nichols, Karen Cator & Marco Torres. “Challenge Based Learning Guide.” Digital Promise, 2016. iBooks. https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/challenge-based-learning-guide/id1145036840?mt=11