Project-Based Learning and Universal Design for Deep Learning Develop Critical Thinking and a Positive Culture

Dr. Davina Stringer is in her third year as principal at Lake Elementary School in Vista. She returned to her hometown of San Diego after spending years working in the Austin, Texas, school district and is clearly in the right place. 

“I'm from here, so I'm really happy to be home. In fact, I’ve never been happier, and I will never leave again!” she laughs.

Dr. Stringer joined Lake Elementary just as the Covid pandemic was subsiding. “Desks were still in rows and spaced apart,” she recalls. “There was definitely a shift of ‘we are out of the weeds of COVID now, so how do we get those best practices back into place?’” 

Project-Based Learning (PBL) and Universal Design for Deep Learning
Among the best practices was ensuring that a hands-on system of learning through collaborative structures was woven through all of the classes. “One of the things Lake is really passionate about is project-based learning (PBL). It’s a big part of our vision, so we calibrated our efforts around that.” Lake Elementary now offers Project-Based Learning Labs through collective commitments at every grade level.  

Lake also has an incredible music program, led by Jen Corso. Through collaboration with grade-level teams, content standards are integrated with performances as a meaningful and relevant component of our PBLs.

Another focus of the school is an emphasis on ‘Universal Design for Deep Learning’, says Dr. Stringer, which she defines as “learning that sticks”. VUSD’s district-wide commitment to deep learning is spearheaded by the Educational Excellence & Innovation (EE&I) department under Dr. Eric Chagala, the Director of School Transformation. 

The methodology is designed to help boost student engagement and content mastery while also developing the 6Cs that will help students succeed in their futures: creativity, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, citizenship, and character.

Lake has two deep learning instructional coaches, Catherine Worrell and Ronaele Muter, who work with teachers in all grades. “It is not just about opening math and reading resources like Benchmark or Eureka, or working on worksheets as the curriculum writers wrote it,” explains Dr. Stringer. 

“The coaches and teachers utilize those tools as resources. But while they are sometimes necessary, these tools may not be learning that sticks. 

“Once, for example, they found that Eureka contained two complete lessons that didn't support the deficit they saw with their students understanding fractions. Approaching fractions with a deep learning process helped the team develop a learning experience much richer than what the curriculum allowed to meet students' true abilities.   

“We’ve done a lot of work around changing our language and understanding of what curriculum is. And so as a school, we are kind of outliers.”

Identifying Students’ Strengths
The third main focus at Lake this year is the implementation of RIASEC for students. RIASEC stands for Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional, and is also known as ‘John Holland's Six Types of Personality’.

RIASEC has been used as a career assessment tool for adults for decades but has recently been introduced into schools. Dr. Stringer was already familiar with it, having taken the assessment as part of her VUSD interview process, but says this is the first year Dr. Chagala is introducing RIASEC for Lake students to experience. 

“We’ve been busy structuring it,” she reveals. “I had two brave souls - fourth and fifth grade team leads who started piloting it, and now we have a roll-out plan for 2nd through 5th grades. It's all about common career language and setting students up to be able to identify their interests and how that connects to content.”

The teams observed each other in action, and the success of the process led to other grades forming teams and implementing the tools. 

Students self-identify their top three interests through the process, and then teachers apply the results to their learning. “They can refer to a novel study a student is doing, for example, and with the character analysis ask ‘what traits do you think they have? How are they similar or different to yours?’” explains Dr. Stringer. “So the learning becomes very internalized and based on being known.” 

The process also enables teachers to see students through a different lens, says Dr. Stringer, “especially those students that sometimes find it hard to function in the classroom, so that's another beautiful part of it.” The goal is to have every grade level implement the RIASEC tools.

As for student feedback: “It's transformative and really something special,” says Dr. Stringer. “As Dr. Chagala tells our students, too often there are these things we could do in the world, but we don't really know what we're good at. I talk to high schoolers all the time, and they say they wish they had learned what their strengths and interests were at a much younger age.’ That is what deep learning helps accomplish.

“It's just this awesome unfolding of knowing and being known,” concludes Dr. Stringer. “Being known is the greatest gift a human being can have, and we get to give that gift to students.”