This post was inspired by a conversation on Twitter initiated by Dave Quinn and responded to by “DesignMakeTeach” about the value of taking time away from a project and then coming back to it:
Along the way Gary Stager added:
Coming back to learning after a period of time is a vital, powerful piece that is under emphasized, overlooked or time constrained out. I bet if you think back to some of your own experiences in life, you just might remember a time you were away from a project, problem or writing piece and upon coming back with “fresh eyes” made improvements, solved problems, perhaps started over or made any of an array other “edits” of the previous work.
Frustration, loss of motivation and vision, lack of processing time, tiredness and more, all stand in the way of our best products and learning. Having time away, at least overnight, diminishes, if not even overcomes many of those issues. The value of sticking with a project/problem over days and weeks (sometimes months), where many redesigns and iterations can be cycled through in a collaborative, communicative environment is best. Yes, that is hard to fit into our full plates, but students would benefit from learning this way at least several times a year.
Thankfully I’ve had experiences that led me to search out and emphasize sticking with and coming back to a project over time. Today I note many educators don’t value this messy learning approach. They haven’t experienced it firsthand so they haven’t developed an understanding or appreciation for it. Many schools make scheduling time for doing projects and messy learning pretty much impossible and educators assume (and unfortunately are too often right) that they don’t have “permission.” My last 2 years in the classroom I had to sneak projects into my days. I literally would keep my ears open to when our administrators wouldn’t be around and messy learning could happen (when they’d attend meetings or conferences for whole days was gold).
For some having a “Messy” room over a period of time with piles of materials, paint, glue and other spills … general messiness, along with using “sacrosanct” time usually required for language, math and remediation blocks is just not conceivable given their mandates. To me this is educational malpractice. Messy learning is just as or more important as your language arts or math program.
There’s lots of talk about allowing kids to fail, and I generally agree, but we also have to realize the importance of allowing students to persevere and succeed. Students that are less successful with, “research-based programs” and other forms of traditional schooling, often connect and shine and find avenues to learning, sometimes for the first or almost the first time in their lives when given access to messy learning.
When observing and mentoring in classrooms these days (I’m currently a teacher on special assignment) I see mostly projects that are either not really projects or projects that are recipes shoehorned into a specific time period that disregards time to progress through a design process. Often if some groups even get an initial prototype maybe “mostly finished”- time for evaluation, and even one redesign, much less multiple times, are left behind along with most of the learning. And it isn’t just the “making” learning that is lost, but the invaluable real connections / integrations to language, math, the arts, social studies and other curriculums.
Projects that take time also build the collaboration skills we keep hearing are important. Early each school year my students would role play how to deal with each other’s off track, “uncollaborative,” behaviors, and over time they found out how productive being collaborative and supportive are. Its amazing how time flies and the classroom is a happier place to be then. Visitors pick up on that vibe too.
I would add that having students take a project every once in a while to a “polished” conclusion is important. Attitudes about, “its about the process not the product,” are fine to a point, but that struggle to make a final product that works consistently, is stable and perhaps is beautiful is a worthwhile piece as well (not just held together by tape and string and good wishes – although that’s good too).
Learning is messy!
I like the idea of taking a teacher time out, using that time to clear your head so you can create a new plan that might work. Some times I feel that teachers are watched so closely and need to make sure that they are professionally handling themselves at all times. I do have some classroom experience and have had to take a step back or call for assistance. Are there any professional development classes that you could recommend to work on pose? Or does that come with experience and time?
I am so glad that I found your blog, it makes me feel better knowing that ‘Learning is messy.’
Hi Morgan – Yes, teachers and students (and really everyone) benefits from coming back to learning. Too often these days we fly through curriculum and don’t give students time to get past frustrations or just being done for right now and being able to come back with a fresh outlook. No PD on poise come to mind, although any class that provides experience in presenting is valuable. I did find that experience was the best teacher. So just keep plugging along … it gets better!
I agree with this post so much! I enjoy going on a school conference and networking with other teachers that are teaching my same content. Learning new things and coming back to work with a new fresh look, just gives you that spark to keep you going. Plus, its great to come back and share ideas with other coworkers. It’s so easy to feel burned out. When you’re a teacher your students need you 100% not less than that. I also like the idea for a project based assignments for students. I think that hands on learning and letting students be creative is priceless.
Thank you for sharing your “learning is Messy”
Erika
I know that if I start a project in advance and have time to reflect and make changes as needed the final product is always higher quality then when I start and finish something in the same day. With the fast pace rhythm of public education and the rigorous expectation of keeping students engaged, the idea of coming back to something seems unrealistic. After reading your article, I realized that if you plan out a unit well, you can introduce your end of unit demonstrations of learning at the beginning, move into the content, and circle back to the assessment, all while allowing for your ideas to evolve and become polished. Thanks for the insight.
I agree Jenny – We’ve gotten way too far away from taking time to ponder and polish and even start over. Thanks for your comment!
Hello!
I think that your post is very insightful and I do believe that learning can be a messy thing. Coming back to something that they’ve learned can clear the mess up though. As you’ve stated, coming back with “fresh eyes” gives the students the chance to find their own clarity and find answers to the questions they didn’t bring up. Imaginations will grow and new creativity will grow as well.
Great post! Thank you!
This post really made me think about what I consider a project and whether I am allowing my students time to fully develop their thoughts into pieces of work they will feel accomplished about. I feel I fall into the category of calling something a project that is really just a time-constrained recipe. As a Kindergarten teacher, work is often messy, but I have not yet taken the leap to allow for things to extend beyond the set amount of time given for the activity and am curious to plot out a more open-ended, or simply less time-constrained, project that would allow students time to struggle, think, create and organize. This is definitely something for me to put more thought into. Thank you!
Thanks Kira – I agree that too many projects are “recipes” and not real projects. Getting started doing “messy” projects is a bit intimidating and until you have experience facilitating them it is easy to give up in frustration. Thanks for the comment!
I have experienced the burden of choosing between “sticking to the curriculum map” and “allowing the students to explore at their own pace. When I choose one over the other, I end up with disappointment: if I side with my administrators, the students miss out on authentic learning opportunities that should not be rushed. If I side with the students, I get reprimanded and receive closer observation to ensure I don’t stray from the curriculum. Fortunately, I am now at a school where administrators don’t breathe down my neck, and I have the autonomy to give my students the learning space that they need to “get messy”, fail, persevere and succeed.
I’m in total agreement with this post. I try to do a project day and then a regular teaching day and then a project day so we can get some time in-between to think and research ideas
I really like your way of alternating project days with regular teaching days! So often we think that we have to do project days back to back in order for students to complete the project effectively, but giving them a break between project days is actually more beneficial to their learning.
I enjoyed reading your post. It made me pause and reflect on my teaching and reminded me it is okay to take a “teacher break.” Reflecting on the times, I have paused and taken a break has helped me come back with a fresh mind. This has allowed me to look at my work differently. When you talked about students failing, working through the process, and then succeeding, it made me think about teachers and failing. We do not like to fail, but when we fail, we work through the failure and come up with a plan that creates an even better lesson or activity. We all learn from our failures. We learn from our mistakes just as we learn from our successes.
Thanks for the comment Sarah – I think too much we do in our classrooms now doesn’t lend itself to going deep, including being able to go away and come back.
I agree that while letting kids fail is important, it is just as important to give them the opportunity to learn from their mistakes. That’s what life is about, and learning is the same. Simply failing at something just makes you feel embarrassed–it’s coming back to a similar situation and handling it better that helps you to learn.
Messy learning can sometimes produce the most effective learning. Brain research has shown that when we have positive emotional connections to material or experiences (like those gained in “messy learning”), we remember more for longer and can more easily apply the knowledge in new and different situations (Walden University, 2009). Furthermore, we can learn a lot from revisiting previous work with fresh eyes to either make corrections, or expand upon it. Sometimes it even takes more than one exposure to truly make sense of a new concept. Even though certain socio-economic statuses and ethnic groups are more prone to sleep deficits, research has shown knowledge retention increases when sleep improves (Ribeiro & Stickgold, 2014). Given time and sleep, looking back at past learning or messy projects increases understanding overall.
References
Ribeiro, S., & Stickgold, R. (2014). Sleep and school education. Trends in Neuroscience and Education, 3(1), pp. 18–23. https://doi.org./10.1016/j.tine.2014.02.004
Walden University. (2009). Activating reach, attitude, develop (RAD) in the classroom [Video]. In Teacher leadership for learning and teaching. Walden University Blackboard. https://class.waldenu.edu
The coming back process is greatly valued in the English world. I’ve had numerous writing classes where we’re instructed to write something in the first few weeks of the semester, then leave it to sit for a little bit, only to come back to it later. Every time I’ve come back to a piece I’ve written, I have new ideas and motivation to take it to the next level. This is applicable to all education content areas as well. I love your constant theme of letting learning be messy because it really is a messy process that requires adjusting, getting hands dirty, times out to rest, and polishing and has its fair share of road blocks too. Although it would somewhat go against the idea of messy learning, I’d be curious to see what a “messy” unit might look like if it was put on paper.