Colleen Hroncich
Colleen Hroncich
Project-based learning sounds great … until you realize you have to find or create the projects for your learners. That’s where Rock by Rock comes in. Jeff Imrich and Sung-Ae Yang, experienced teachers and school leaders, created Rock by Rock to increase access to project-based learning. “For a lot of kids, what we do traditionally for learning isn’t working for them,” says Jeff. “We know that one of the best ways to prepare kids for the future and develop all these critical thinking and other skills is through project-based learning.”
Jeff and Sung-Ae had collectively helped design and open seven different school models, and families kept asking how they could support their children’s education at home. They began thinking of ways to make high-impact project-based learning more equitably accessible, across the income spectrum and regardless of schooling model. “We started prototyping with homeschool families, and then the pandemic hit. Then we were working with some homeschool families, some microschools called pods, and some more traditional educators,” says Jeff.
Initially, Rock by Rock sent projects-in-a-box that included a mission—like save the elephants or help address traumatic brain injury—along with the supplies needed to complete the project as part of a four-to-six-hour experience. They got very positive feedback with parents reporting their kids were really engaged in the projects and they were having interesting conversations around the dinner table.
They also received a lot of tips on how to improve, such as: “Our kids love it, but I don’t need the scissors, the markers, and the glue—I have that in my magic homeschool cabinet.” “We don’t want just a four-to-six-hour experience; we want a deeper project-based experience.” “When you send us a project, it’s great. But we have to do the project you sent us. Can you make it a library so we can choose with our kids what we want to do and when we want to do it?”
Jeff and Sung-Ae took that input and created an online library of on-demand projects, » Read More
https://www.cato.org/blog/friday-feature-rock-rock