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Imagine innovation as a three-legged stool. Many schools have changed the environment leg, but not the other two legs: the behaviors and beliefs of the teachers, administrators, and students.

Lately, I have heard teachers and school leaders express a common frustration: "We are _______ years into a _______ initiative, and nothing seems to have changed." Despite redesigning learning spaces, adding technology, or even flipping instruction, they still struggle to innovate or positively change the classroom experience. Imagine innovation as a three-legged stool. Many schools have changed the environment leg, but not the other two legs: the behaviors and beliefs of the teachers, administrators, and students.

If we look at the science of improvement, systematic change occurs between the contexts of justification (what we know) and discovery (the process of innovation).

Have in mind what materials and resources will be accessible to the students. Next, students will need assistance in managing their time -- a definite life skill. Finally, have multiple means for assessing your students' completion of the project: Did the students master the content? Were they able to apply their new knowledge and skills? Many educators involve their students in developing these rubrics

Here are steps for implementing PBL, which are detailed below: Start with the Essential Question Design a Plan for the Project Create a Schedule Monitor the Students and the Progress of the Project Assess the Outcome Evaluate the Experience

Involve the students in planning; they will feel ownership of the project when they are actively involved in decision making.

The Turtle Art project, and the concept of “doing” or “making” before any explicit instruction has been given, is part of the school’s attempt to shake up its teaching. Lighthouse Community Charter has to cover the same standard curriculum as district schools, so teachers have to choose carefully the times when they’ll spend a little more time and creativity on a difficult subject.

“The concept of the coaching is that if we help someone with one or two projects, they may do more on their own.”

“I would much rather push for this kind of curriculum in schools serving low-income communities than in other schools because I think it will help students to gain their own voice, and a lot of the kind of character-building aspects that are intrinsic in this, but also to be exposed to new possibilities for the future,” Vanderwerff said.

STEAM projects, like all good inquiry learning, need to be driven by excellent, open ended questions.

Questions that require the learner to think like a scientist as they interpret the world, make observations and conduct experiments. Where the relationships between numbers, quantities and shapes are explored with the mindset of a mathematician. Questions in which an artistic response demands more thought than ‘what colour shall I paint the wheels’ and where the intersection of engineering and technology brings new ways of doing things. Good STEAM projects will demand learning contexts that generate novel solutions made possible only through the collaboration of each discipline and whenever possible should be driven by the questions students discover.

Engineering is also the field least present in traditional school models and as such may be that field which brings the others together as it has less to lose and most to gain in such a recombination of disciplines.