by Jessica Heim
As I entered the Zoom classroom at 9 a.m. on a Friday morning in November, 2020, I was surprised by the nearly 40 smiling, Roosevelt Elementary 4th graders that greeted me through my computer screen. Not one camera was turned off and by the looks on their faces, every student seemed highly engaged and ready to learn. Their teacher, Ms. Georgia Singleton, greeted her students warmly. What she said next had me intrigued and wishing I was in the 4th grade again.
“Class,” she exclaimed, “we have a message from our City’s Avatars! We are in the dark! You have learned about different types of energy. Please help! We need to decide together what kind of energy to have in our City so our Avatars can survive!”
The students had been assuming leadership roles as Avatars for the small, 3-D City of the Future that they were collaboratively imagining and building online as the yearlong context for the subject matter they were being taught. For the past week, during Ms. Singleton’s Guided Lessons, the class had learned about clean energy through various textbook readings, research, and videos on the different forms of clean energy, including wind, solar, hydroelectricity, geothermal, biomass, and tidal energy. (Instead of assigning quizzes or worksheets to assess student learning, Ms. Singleton connected learning back to the 3-D City of the Future to promote higher-level thinking skills, creativity, collaboration, and communication, while still teaching the required grade level content area standards.)
Now the class was learning how to run a government for their City. By using a government structure for the student-built City, Ms. Singleton was having her students role play governance to promote social responsibility and teach concepts related to social justice and civics, while also employing classroom management strategies and the division of labor among students.
“Now that we’ve learned about clean energy, we are going to meet in our Council Districts,” Ms. Singleton said, “to determine what the best energy source for our City is and to prepare for a Town Meeting.”
Ms. Singleton instructed the students to go to Breakout Rooms representing each Council District, choose a leader, a recorder, and a timekeeper, discuss their research, then decide on their District’s clean energy choice. Listening to the teacher ask if there were any questions, I saw that the students’ interest and excitement were palpable. I was struck by how efficiently the 9- and 10-year-olds moved to their online Breakout Rooms and once there, were able to manage their time and stay on task. The student leaders immediately called on their Council District members to share their ideas while a recorder wrote down each response. The timekeeper made sure that each student’s voice was heard. I was impressed by the high level of communication among the students as they listened to one another, asked meaningful questions, and justified their reasoning with facts and findings.
After about ten minutes in the Breakout Rooms, the whole class came back together and the Mayor called the Town Meeting to order. The Council District leaders took turns sharing their choices for the best energy source, citing their research. After every Council District made its presentation, a vote was taken and solar energy was the winning energy source for the City.
When I asked students what they liked about meeting in Council Districts to discuss ideas and make decisions about their City, one student shared that she “felt happy because her voice was being heard.” Another student stated that she felt “comfortable sharing.” One student shouted out, “I’ve never felt better!”
When I asked students what they liked about Design-Based Learning, one student said, “I love using my imagination. It is so fun.”