ELKTON – When Jeff Schneider, who is now teaching in the Elkton School District, learned he would be attending a teaching workshop on transdisciplinary and problem-based learning in summer 2010, he was not thrilled. 

However, that workshop changed his way of teaching, and he’s using that knowledge to change the learning lives of seventh- through ninth-grade students.

“I didn’t expect to get anything useful out of it but it ended up changing my life,” said Schneider, who also is an instructor in the Department of Teaching, Learning and Leadership at South Dakota State University. “When they were able to get me to see what they were doing and understand what they were doing, it brought tears to my eyes and still does.

“I knew it was what kids needed and it was how kids thought. It was so different and so much deeper than the things I was doing before. I realized I had spent 14 years teaching kids in a way that wasn’t the best thing out there,” he continued. “I changed the way I teach, the classes I teach, everything since then has been problem-based and transdisciplinary.”

After teaching a class combining English and science and then one combining English, science and mathematics in other school districts, Schneider brought his teaching style to Elkton, where he teaches a science/English combination class with Kelsey Beckman. The classes are part of a transdisciplinary problem-based, innovation lab concept, which is in collaboration with South Dakota State.

“The transdisciplinary problem-based learning pilot in Elkton represents a true partnership between higher education, K12 education, and the wider community,” said Jill Thorngren, dean of SDSU’s College of Education and Human Sciences. “These kinds of partnerships have a positive impact on the whole system of education – from how we train teachers, to how students learn, to how the community participates in teaching and learning. This is a great learning experience for our faculty and teacher education students, and we appreciate Elkton School partnering with us.”

Established partnership

The SDSU/Elkton partnership has been in place for several years, and its previous successes helped start this program.

“As of now, this class is a pilot program,” said Elkton Superintendent Brian Jandahl. “It can be repeated, and we are open to other teachers joining this style of teaching in the future. While it’s not a new concept, it’s typically been done in the past as a stand-alone with one teacher doing project-based learning.”

This semester is Beckman’s first time with the problem-based, transdisciplinary concept.

“I had been looking at hands-on and problem-based learning on my own and to have the chance to do it with someone who had experience with it and with the university’s help coming in, it seemed to be too good to pass up,” she said. “It’s a completely different way to think about teaching. It’s no longer planning a lecture and coming up with worksheets and discussion questions. It’s about thinking up authentic problems they’re going to be interested in and giving them materials that can help solve those problems.”

Kelly Neill, Elkton’s principal, has seen the teaching style take effect.

“The shift our students have had to make in their thinking took a little awhile,” Neill said. “This project asks students to look beyond a textbook and into the real world. They look beyond just having to recall, but they are actually doing things. They are parts of teams and learning the value of being a good team member. It has been awesome to watch them work together and solve their way through problems.

“I have also enjoyed watching the future of teaching walk into this classroom,” she continued. “The student teachers from SDSU are being exposed to a process of learning and teaching that is foreign to them. It is one thing to read about it or hear a professor lecture about it. It is another thing to do it with real students, in a real school, with real demands placed on you.”

Student praise

Seventh-grader Travis Smith likes the hands-on approach.

“They really teach you a lot of stuff, and they go above and beyond to make sure you understand it,” he said. “I like how they’re not just giving us worksheets; they’re actually helping us understand how to do something and doing it in different ways to figure out what’s best for us.”

Classmates Tristan Basham and Emily Robbins agreed with Smith and added assignments have been more project-based than they expected but they still like doing them. They also like not having assigned seats in the class, which forces them to learn how to work with others.

That concept was also present in ninth-graders Hannah Krog, William Neill and Mason McBrien.

“We have learned to be more reliant on each other,” Krog said. “Normally in group projects, you’d have one person do one part and another do another part. Now we have to share tasks and have input. There are times when we agree to disagree on the same thing.

“It’s challenged us to think in a different way, not in a ninth-grade way,” she continued. “We have to think outside of our grade level and think of how it can help us out in the real world, not just how it impacts us in the classroom.”

“It makes you think differently on how you’re trying do something,” William Neill said. “For example, in math problems, you have to think of other ways how you’d figure it out; look at both sides of the equation before solving.”

Those answers are just what Andrew Stremmel, who heads SDSU’s Department of Teaching, Learning and Leadership, wants to hear.

“In life, students need to be able to solve problems, that’s one of the 21st Century skills – how to communicate, how to collaborate, how to solve real-world problems and how to think critically – needed in life and what industry partners want,” he said. “They want employees who can work together in teams and address the task at hand. The goal is to help students think, and develop that problem-solving mindset.”

Seeing that mindset in action has Beckman convinced the problem-based, transdisciplinary approach is a way to impact the classroom.

“Regardless of whether I continue teaching a hybrid science/English class or not, there are definitely pieces of it I’ll carry into other classes,” she said. “This approach gives students a meaningful purpose and reason and audience for what they do by approaching it from real-world problems. It’s not going to be about ‘do this lesson or read this book’ – that doesn’t have any immediate relevance to them. We need to find a way to make it relevant.”