Solving Tomorrow’s Problems: A year-long project learning proposal with goals of building innovation, teamwork, and global community interaction. 

This proposal stems from two definitive moments in the last year of my life.  One is the the winning of third place in the PBS Innovation Awards and my driving goal to win first place next year to gain the opportunity to meet the top innovators of our nation at the Henry Ford Innovation conference of 2014.  I cannot sit back and pretend it is not part of the driving force behind this project as my goals are not only for my students but for the opportunity to share my vision of education with larger communities and bring the factory system to its knees. The second moment is the opening of the text, 21st Century Skills, which tends to not only support many of the ideas I use to design my own classroom, but also introduces much more for me to build upon as I move forward.  Many other texts will make themselves known through this process and will not be limited to print media by any means.  I look forward to comments and offers of expertise along the way.  I am but one man.   

I propose to create a year-long assignment opportunity for students to identify, analyze, collaborate on, and propose an evidence-based innovative solution to a current or foreseeable energy problem facing the global community.  Not only must they propose a solution, but they must have created a model (experiment) testing their proposal on a scaled setting.  This project yearns to connect with not only the core subject areas of the students involved by incorporating the experimental design through the scientific method, the computation of data through mathematics, the social ramifications of energy production and consumption throughout history and what those lessons mean to the planning of proposals now, the dissemination of all data, analysis, and conclusions through digital means of publication in clear and concise language which both captivates and informs the target audience as well as the general public; but it also desires to include as many of our students’ elective classes as possible through hands on manipulation of materials, media presentation, and the use of arts as media tools and vehicles for mass communication of proposed ideas.  In short, this project will be run as a serious attempt to propose a solution to a problem on a mass level. 

After reading the prologue, the introduction, and chapter one of Tilling and Fadel’s book, I feel there are a number of areas that help drive the idea of this project forward as well as some moments that speak to the reason more teachers do not take innovative risks in their classrooms.  On page xvi of the forward to the paperback edition, the authorial team treats us to the known and understandable statement that, “transforming education systems is very hard work, demanding consistent, long-term commitments to changing learning approaches-a consistency that must survive shifts in politics and administrations” (Fadel  xvi).  This rings true in theory, but what if those political shifts focus much of their attention on where they think education should be?  We have witnessed in the last two decades, movement in a completely opposite direction in education from where Trilling and Fadel, as well as other brilliant minds in education and the future economy such as Sir Ken Robinson in his speeches and writings on education in its current form, not limited to the following: http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms.html as well as: http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html.  Both of these moments highlight the text’s point of leaving the industrial age and moving into the age of creativity and trade in knowledge, yet the political machine fueled by global competition for data regurgitation and the lobby of testing companies continues to act as the driving force behind education policy.  Just as the idea of a factory-based economy in the United States is no longer conceivable or effective, training our students in mundane, repetitive tasks at specific ages seems not only ridiculous, but borderline insane. 

So we now boldly enter a new era as instructors with the knowledge that our students will not only need to understand basic concepts such as mathematics and communication, but that they will also need to understand how to solve new problems whether species survival related or how to market products in an ever-changing media market.  This concept is nothing new, although each generations feels they are encountering history’s greatest hurdles during their own time.  Problem solving has always been the root of learning.  How do we make our lives easier so that we can accomplish more in our short time on the planet?  From the moment flint struck the first man-made flame to the now developing medical equipment based on the TriCorder of Star Trek, a force stronger than mere collecting of data allows humanity to constantly strive and build upon already attained knowledge.  Our students will not need to figure out or even consciously understand the coded workings of cloud computing when they enter the job market, they will simply need to know how to use it rather than how it works.  This opens the discussion that we must shift our teaching focus onto the ability to solve future problems using the knowledge we have and in that create new levels of knowing and understanding.  This inevitably leads us into motivators.  

Our world faces dilemmas, if not major obstacles, when it comes to our energy future.  While some nations revel in their access to inexpensive energy, some are just now realizing the power of cheap and available energy, and others are still stagnant in both economic and world political arenas.  As students enter my pod next year, they will be randomly placed into groups of six.  Each group will have one week to choose from a list of energy challenges either currently faced by a society on Earth or a problem easily seen in the near future.  Research and meetings have begun in order to generate the list and provide the support that groups will need on the project.  As these assignments come in, the development will reveal itself.  The purpose of handing students real-world problems with no concrete solutions at this time works in relation to Daniel Pink’s statements on human motivation.  Pink States, “Most of us believe that the best way to motivate ourselves and others is with external rewards like money. [Or maybe grades Ed.] That’s a mistake. . . The secret to performance and satisfaction — at work, at school, and at home — is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world” (Drive).  Problems of this magnitude will allow students to attack real and substantial material and whether they figure out a fix to a problem or not, they will get the satisfaction of working on a level most have not given them a chance to work on before.