Early last year IFS’s CEO, Paul Chapman, took me aside and asked what my plans were for 2013 and the future. (Interestingly, I was Paul’s boss at the time). I knew about Paul’s wish to start a ‘Football School’ that would have two quite unique aspects, – a professionally organised football program run by high profile coaches, and an academic program using PBL (Project Based Learning). At that time I’d worked with Paul for just over three years and his commitment to, and care for, his students had impressed me no end, I knew him to be a man of initiative, a risk-taker, a go-getter, a person for whom the words: ‘can’t do’ and ‘that’s not possible’, didn’t exist. Once I’d heard who the team members were to be, I knew that it would be fabulous to be a part of the team. The concept of creating a balanced day for students, between academic learning and physical skills training, has always been of great importance to me, but I have to say that the real draw-card was the Project Based Learning.
I have been an educator for over thirty years, I’ve worked in German, New Zealand and Australian colleges; I’ve experienced what works, and what doesn’t. For me the real aims of education must be to promote and support a student’s self-esteem, and to help them become life-long-learners. – PBL addresses this very effectively. When I joined the IFS I thought that I was coming into this new approach to teaching/learning with little or no knowledge of what it is all about, however having recently carried out some research on this teaching method I now recognize that during my final six years of classroom teaching in New Zealand, (from 2002 to the end of 2007) the way I had chosen to work with my students was very much along the lines of PBL; it was an approach that had developed out of my own teaching and my experience was showing me that it worked. Shy and self-conscious students were becoming more confident; they were completing tasks more satisfactorily and they were constantly surprising me by their level of engagement, ownership and interest in what they were learning. My initial expectation of perhaps a 5 minute presentation at the end of a project, was soon blown out of the water with some students speaking for up to 30 minutes and using all manner of visual aids to present their topics. I’ve experienced it, PBL works!
So when Paul invited me to be a part of this exciting new college I was delighted to accept. I am very much looking forward to this coming year and the opportunity to really develop my own skills in working with PBL.
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