“I learned that I am an idea generator in a group and that I tend
to facilitate conversation.”
“The most rewarding thing about CBL is that your solutions and ideas carry
real weight in the world and can help benefit other people and your community”
“The group started out really motivated and continued to be really
motivated until Spring Break. Following the return from holidays,
it was apparent that we were having a difficult time regaining our
stride. I believe that this was because our research phase was
dragging on for too long.”
“An awesome thing that happened that I didn’t originally think would happen is that
I learned much more about the people around me, how to work in a team dynamic,
how to effectively share information, how to make sacrifices, and the list goes on.”
“Collaborating through interviewing outside individuals and asking questions to experts in
the field really produced a sense of confidence.”
“Its a lot harder as a group but the outcome is better.”
“I learned that I can work well in groups if there are organized meetings
and assigned work. If it was all done online, I would have had
more trouble being interested in the project.”
“I liked how there was a goal and different steps instead of just a test at the end that
you have to study for.”
“You get that taste of real world work.”
“In our solution we really got that sense of maturity and responsibility because
we had to act in the role of teachers.”
“This process also showed me that working with a team for an extended period
of time is extremely hard and frustrating.”
“The only way to engage the public is to convince them to make your “cause”
a part of their lives something they interact with on an annual, monthly, weekly,
or even daily basis.”
“Senior year is typically extremely busy with tons of course work and grad and
prom and everything going on at once, and balancing all of that plus a course
that I was able to take at my own pace was kind of hard. I did manage, however,
to figure it out which makes me really proud of myself.”
“I learned a lot about the powers of persuasion and nagging. My group communicated
very well, but at times I found my role was mostly motivating my other team members.
I would definitely say each group needs a member to give everyone else an extra push.”
“CBL has opened me up to a different way of learning and has forced me
to become more independent in my learning process.”
“The biggest benefit of working in a group was that we all have different
skills and connections to different types of people.”
“If contacts are in another time zone it’s harder to plan a meeting but we found but they
were very accommodating and tried to help where they could.”
“The “Challenge Based Learning” project has taught me time management
and how to effectively work within a group dynamic”
“I learned colossal amounts of information about earthquakes and earthquake safety,
and how detrimentally unprepared we are as a society which I will admit is a little frightening.”
“The most challenging part with the team is keeping everyone focused
and working; if one person wants to get work done and the others
are tired or aren’t interested at the moment less work gets done.”
“Throughout high school, I’ve been constantly disappointment with the format of:
a) taking notes b) taking a quiz c) cramming for a test and d) taking the test, only
to forget all of the information immediately after. It created a pessimistic view on
standard teaching approaches”
“Being able to interact with all different kinds of people from different places around
the world was really helpful.”
“Eventually we were forced to accept that not everyone in life is engaged in everything
100% of the time, and it will never be like that no matter how much we wanted it to be.”
“I always knew that working in a group could reap great benefits, but I never thought that a
group project spanning over several months would be successful.”
“Something I leaned about myself during the process is that learning in a classroom
is not always the best way for me personally to learn and take in information. I had
always thought that I was the kind of student that learned best when I wrote down
all the notes and payed attention in class but CBL has really shown me that there are
just as good ways to learn that aren’t necessarily in a classroom.”
“The program was very interesting and fun; however I did have trouble staying
intrigued during the whole process due to balancing other courses and not having
set in stone deadlines.”
“When you are interviewing someone you really understand what they are trying
to say and it sticks in your head more rather than reading some random website.
Talking to someone also connects what you are learning to your community rather
than generally saying what you need to prepare.”
“I learned to accept and appreciate what everyone did contribute to the group, no matter how
small or no matter how much prompting it took for them to achieve the things they did.”
“It’s not to say that this whole experience was fine and dandy, because we
did encounter a fair amount of struggles along the way, but learning to overcome
them and keep moving along is what is really great to look back on.”
“I also found that with CBL I learnt a lot more skills such as using a blog and creating
videos which I never would have had to do without the program.”
“There are bonuses of working with a team, like the varied skills that each person brings
to the group.”
“At first, I chose to take CBL courses because I heard that there will be no quizzes
or tests, but as it progressed, I found the true value of CBL.”
“I am extremely happy that I chose the challenged based learning curriculum because I have
learnt a lot more about the subject and I was able to connect it to my community.”
“CBL is an amazing way to get kids motivated to steer away from learning things
just so that they can get into a good school.”
“This process is going to be as good as you make it, it can be really interesting
and educational but only if you put in the effort and work to make it fun!”
“CBL in any subject would be able to teach kids far more than just the subject information
itself – it will teach them the importance of teamwork and how hard it can be to even co-operate
with a team; it will teach them to interact with the real adult world and not just their bubble
in high school, and it will teach them to learn about things because they have taken an interest
– because ultimately with this type of learning you can modify the basis of it so that you are
directly learning about something that resonates with you.”
“CBL made me realize my potential and ability and I am very grateful.”