Place-Based Learning: Connecting Inquiry, Community, and Culture (Seven Place-Based Learning Design Principles to Promote Equity for All Students)

Understand the impact a sense of place has on education, culture, and community. The authors share seven place-based learning design principles to help educators implement projects smoothly, from start to finish. With their project-planning tools and community asset map, teachers, school coaches, and leaders will be equipped to empower students and promote equity for all.

Grades 4–12 teachers, instructional designers and school leaders will:

• Learn the seven place-based learning design principles and apply them
• Understand what role maps and countermapping have in establishing a sense of place and how to map community’s assets
• Build meaningful community partnerships with students using collaborative projects
• Empower students to confront inequitable societal structures
• Reflect on key takeaways and consider chapter-ending questions to further their place-based learning practice

Contents:
Foreword by Lisa Delpit
Introduction
Part One: Understand Place-Based Learning Design Principles
Chapter 1: Elevate Ways of Knowing
Chapter 2: Facilitate Purpose-Driven Inquiry
Chapter 3: Build Authentic Community Partnerships
Chapter 4: Empower Student Ownership
Chapter 5: Engage in Feedback, Revision, and Reflection
Chapter 6: Create an Authentic Community Product
Chapter 7: Embed Culture in Teaching and Learning
Part Two: Designing Place-Based Journeys
Chapter 8: Liberate Teaching Practices and Decolonize Curricula
Chapter 9: Unpack Biases and Assumptions and Uncover Community Assets
Chapter 10: Pathways to Liberatory and Decolonized Assessment Practices
Chapter 11: Plan Place-Based Learning Projects
Part 3: Supporting and Sustaining PBL Implementation With an Equity Lens
Chapter 12: Sustain Place-Based Learning Through the Practitioner’s Round
Chapter 13: Dismantle the Barriers to Place-Based Learning
Chapter 14: Monitor and Assess the Efficacy of Place-Based Learning and Build Capacity
Epilogue
Appendix
References and Resources
Index

Micki Evans is a writer and education consultant who focuses on transformative liberatory teaching practices. She is the cofounder of the learning organization and consultancy PBL Path. Micki provides quality professional development focused on place-based learning, project-based learning, culturally responsive teaching strategies, and supporting schools in forging authentic community partnerships.
Micki holds a bachelor of arts in education and psychology from the University of Washington and a K–12 teaching certificate and a masters of arts in educational systems design in curriculum and instruction from Antioch University Seattle. She currently lives north of Seattle, Washington.

Erin Sanchez has spent the past twenty-three years working as a high school and continuing education teacher, curriculum writer, video producer, and national project-based learning (PBL) consultant and coach. Erin has taught in both student-directed and teacher-directed PBL environments and knows firsthand that PBL is a spectrum, with each school community having a unique vision and journey. In addition to cofounding PBL Path, she has been a PBL coach for the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, the Washington State Department of Education (OSPI), EdVisions Schools (transforming and starting PBL schools), and a coach of coaches for the Technology Access Foundation.
Erin received her bachelor of arts in Native American studies from The Evergreen State College and a master’s in education from Antioch University, specializing in teaching Native American learners. Although always a Minnesota girl, she now calls Tacoma, Washington, her home.