“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”
~ Ben Franklin
The Independent Learning Center, affiliated with Big Picture Learning, is one of only a handful of ‘competency-based’ learning programs endorsed by the Washington State Board of Education to offer students an opportunity to develop and apply authentic, real-world skills and knowledge through a variety of projects and community-based internships.
Grant Lichtman, Senior Fellow with The Martin Institute for Teaching Excellence and author of the book titled, “Moving the Rock,” highlights the important work in front of schools to create student-centric, school and community-based learning laboratories. In a recent article, he stated, “Innovative learning practices that smear the boundary between ‘school’ and ‘world’ are increasingly the hallmark of deeper learning in the 21st century. They create scaffolds around which students learn critical content within the context of personal relevance and interest that generate intrinsic motivation, deeper understanding, and longer retention.”
He adds, “As I researched for my book, Moving the Rock, I looked for specific programs and practices that are fundamentally changing the outdated school operating system.”
One of the systems he Lichtman identifies is Big Picture Learning – a network of schools that has pioneered student internships with community partners, resulting in authentic, real-world learning, and in many cases, leading to future employment in an area of interest!
Thank you MVSD school board, ILC staff, and our many community-based mentors for their visionary leadership, tireless support, personalized approach to teaching and learning.