PBL/Maker Education

Grass Valley Elementary has embarked on a culture shift. This movement is away from direct instruction and whole class, lock step teaching and towards small group, differentiated instruction and personalized learning based on students' interests and needs.

Facilitated by our Teacher on Special Assignment, Paula Mitchell, all classrooms, K-5 both special and general education, are engaging in Project Based Learning and Maker Education.

What is Project Based Learning and Maker Education?

Project Based Learning is a method which engages students in learning through sustained focus on a project and usually brings together many different subject areas.

Maker Education focused on bringing together Science, Math, Technology, Engineering, and Art (S.T.E.A.M.) in a student-centered creative way. Making combines new technologies with old-school arts and crafts, and vocational education.

Why Project Based Learning and Maker Education at Grass Valley?

The goal is to increase student:

• engagement through hands on learning with a real world focus
• ownership of learning
• creativity, flexibility, adaptability
• ability to think deeply, critically, and over long periods of time to solve complex problems
• awareness of the ability to be agents of change in their communities
• knowledge that they are producers, not just consumers

​To help promote hands-on education, Grass Valley now has its very own makerspace, the Wonder Workshop, which is a place for the school community to create, make, and learn.