Learning
Reinvented
Conference participants gathered at a reception in the outdoor courtyard at QVMS.
Quaker Valley School District brings international education conference Project Zero to Pittsburgh.
By Nicole Tafe / Photos courtesy of Angela Conigliaro
In May, educators from all over the world gathered at Quaker Valley School District and throughout the Pittsburgh area for the Project Zero Perspectives conference.
The conference theme was“ Making- Innovating-Learning,” and explored the attributes of effective learning environments with a special focus on creativity, the arts and the maker movement. The two-day event offered both large and small group settings in which educators were able to explore pedagogical tools, strategies and frameworks developed at Project Zero— each addressing one or more of the following strands: Encouraging Creativity and Maker Thinking in Children, Making Learning and Thinking Visible and Teaching for Understanding.
Quaker Valley became associated with Project Zero in an effort to rethink education.“ We had strong afterschool programs that were growing rapidly and informing us that school— how we think about it and how we
Students Georgia Williams, Zahra Udaipurwala, Stella Christensen, This Ferderbar and Ruby Hale.
Educators from all over gathered to make, innovate and create. go about it— could look very different,” says QV teacher Jeff Evancho who, while earning his doctoral degree from the University of Pittsburgh, focused specifically on afterschool programming.“ My colleagues( Heidi Ondek, Sean Aiken and Lynn Sopp) and I discovered Project Zero at a Harvard summer institute and we all had the most profound learning experience. We decided we had to begin the journey of bringing Project Zero research and ideas to QVSD.”
Their journey has lasted roughly five years, and this year QVSD is proud to host the international conference.“ We are beyond excited for the entire QVSD faculty to receive an experience similar to what we did at the Project Zero summer institute in Cambridge,” says Evancho.
The philosopher Nelson Goodman at the Harvard Graduate School of Education founded project Zero in 1967 as a means to study and improve education in the arts. Over the years, Project Zero has maintained a strong research agenda in the arts, while gradually expanding to include investigations into the nature of intelligence, understanding, thinking, creativity, ethics and cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural thinking. The organization has conducted dozens of major research initiatives, published more than 90 books as well as hundreds of articles and reports, and collaborated with countless partners. Project Zero’ s work takes place nationally and internationally in a variety of settings.
“ Our relationship and experience with Project Zero has helped us develop the skills and capacities to better meet the learning needs of all children,” says Evancho. Project
QVMS students helped participants create personalized buttons at the post-conference reception.
Zero at Harvard Graduate School of Education represents a national partnership that helps us at the local school level to develop professionally, which in turn has enormous positive implications for the children we serve. This same partnership has allowed us the opportunity to invite our neighboring colleagues into our collective learning and, by doing so, we are all learning from each other and enhancing a learning ecosystem unlike any other.”
Evancho, his colleagues and QVSD plan to continue the relationship with Project Zero following the international conference and hope to continue to be a hub for dissemination of research and ideas related to deeper learning for all.
“ In times of increasing complexity within the educational systems including budgets, learning pathways, state and federal mandates and more, it is important to think about concepts in new and different ways,” says Evancho.“ It is also important to develop healthy relationships with organizations that have the capacity to help us navigate the complexity of school in new ways. Project Zero allows for a partnership with a worldclass research institute that will help us learn about learning, and there are benefits to this, both for Quaker Valley and for Project Zero.”
For more information about Project Zero, visit pz. harvard. edu / who-we-are / about. For more information about the international conference that took place at QVSD, visit qvsd. org / page. cfm? p = 6189. n
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