Mission of Project Able™

“To strengthen the Exponential Century Skills™ of students K-12 so they may succeed in a 21st century workforce.”

What is Project Able™?

Project Able™ is a long-term educational initiative organized and facilitated by The Madison Institute, LLC to promote authentic-based learning environments (“Ables™”) through which Exponential Century Skills™ are acquired, reinforced and continuously enhanced.

Project Able™ is designed as a collaborative effort by and between educators, corporations and governments: educators to facilitate Ables™ in the classroom; corporations to lend financial support and contribute industry content for authentic performance tasks; and governments to provide consistency and support of Project Able™.

Project Able™ will provide educators across all grade levels and content areas the tools and resources necessary to promote and provide effective Ables™. These tools and resources will include:

• Task Administration (TA) – 20-25% of students and teachers across grade categories K-2, 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12

 

• PD Roadshows - Ongoing Professional Development and Training – for educators participating in any Task Administration as well as those that are not

 

• Authentic Performance Tasks – a comprehensive library of inter-disciplinary tasks

 

• Web-enabled Assessment reporting and delivery mechanism – to support all aspects of Task Administrations (bulletins/assessment/student reports/analysis)

 

• Formative assessment

 

• Web-based “AblePortal” – communication, information sharing, library of tasks, articles/features/newsletter, sponsorship space

 

• Domestic and International Collaboration with Students and Educators - project-based learning, best practices, issues resolution and the like

 

• Global Education Forums

TMI has long believed in the positive attributes of authentic-based learning environments, as evidenced by our CO-5 Model™, A.I.M. Solution™, Aurora Professional Development Toolkit and contributions to the award-winning EduWave e-Learning platform.

Why is Project Able™ Important?

Values and beliefs harvest the vision.
Vision absent of action is simply imagination.
Visionary action will yield profound change.

The industrial-age model for teaching and learning still pervades our educational landscape. Rote learning and teacher-directed classrooms served the community exceptionally well in an agrarian- and industrial-aged society. However, the 21st century presents unprecedented challenges for today’s student - tomorrow’s workforce. Data and knowledge continue to grow exponentially. In fact, every two years data and knowledge grow at a rate exponentially faster than the prior cumulative history of mankind.

The acquisition of Exponential Century Skills™ by today’s student will be critical to the success of our workforce, and our economy, in the 21st century. Unfortunately, these skills are severely lacking in our students and our workforce’s ability to compete in the 21st century is and will continue to be negatively impacted.

In fact, a recent article written by the editors of e School News speaks to this fact directly: “A recent study, commissioned by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, found a majority of Americans don’t believe today’s children are adequately prepared to compete in a global economy. Eighty-eight percent of those surveyed (all registered voters) say schools need to incorporate more critical thinking and problem solving, communication and self-direction…” The article continues, saying that “…Project-based learning allows students to acquire 21st-century skills in the context of real-world scenarios…” The complete article can be found at http://www.eschoolnews.com/resources/creating-the-21st-century-classroom.

(Project-based learning is a component of authentic-based learning environments.)

What are Exponential Century Skills™?

Exponential Century Skills™ are described as “An individual’s ability to estimate outcomes and ask essential questions in advance of unpredictable and predictable problems, and to solve these problems by applying prior experience and knowledge, higher-order thinking, conceptual- and creative-thinking and effective problem-solving skills.” (Walsh, 2008).

What is an Authentic-based Learning Environment?

Regardless of age, human beings retain foundation information and learn best in environments that are engaging, collaborative and relevant, as opposed to environments which are rote and contained. Incorporating and applying the characteristics of human nature and the manner in which the human brain best learns, “Ables™” allow students to learn by “doing” through authentic performance tasks in relevant, real-world capsules, capsules which ask the student to solve for a problem. In the end, Ables™ provides opportunities for students to demonstrate a deeper understanding of big ideas.

What are the Attributes of Ables™?

There are critical attributes associated with Ables™. These attributes are broken down into two categories: Performance Task and Authentic Performance Task, as presented below:

Attributes of a Performance Task

• Open-ended questions
• Multiple solutions; no single right answer

Attributes of an Authentic Performance Task

• Connectivity (task must be relevant and real for the student)
• Role within a Task (e.g., member of task force, consultant to a company, investigative reporter)
• End of Task Audience (ideally live audience, logistics can cause it to be written)

The attributes of Ables™ differ greatly from the attributes of today’s rote learning model, as defined below:

• Memorization (focus on short-term and working memory for test preparation)
• Direct/leading questions with single response
• Two-dimensional