PBL as an AI Antidote

AI can't do the work, but it can make semi-convincing picture of the work being done. Gemini-generated.

The way students engage with learning has already changed, but the system hasn’t fully noticed yet. My colleague Evan Weinberg highlights many of the big challenges that Ezra Klein’s conversation with Rebecca Winthrop addresses.  For me the big takeaway from this conversation is the path forward. On one hand we can move back to a tech-free education, pen and paper assessments, which has a lot of merit. But another path is experiential learning. Getting students to engage with real problems, tracking their process, talking with community members. Doing the very things that make us human. This is what I continue to be excited about. 

My team (Evan Weinberg Kim Sajan David Gran) has been having this conversation over and over this year. It’s become impossible to separate AI work from student work, which necessitates a whole rethink of how we build knowledge. But the thing we can’t fake or shortcut is working with real people to make real change. At the end of class on Friday, I wandered around checking in on groups and students were in the final stages of  projects that: 

 - Filmed documentaries to tell the stories of street performers (with one performer saying she’d used their mini-doc to get a new job)

 - Created emotional connection between kids in a orphanage by building a board game library

 - Addressed a lack of global issue knowledge by creating a student-run news show

- Worked to educate migrant communities in Chile about immunization

- Built a marketing campaign for an organization that works with adults with intellectual disabilities

There’s immense power in this. Many of these projects will wrap up at the end of the semester. But many will continue into clubs, IB CAS projects and even outside-of-school personal projects. Education has to shift and community-centered PBL is an exciting path forward!