Here is an edited email he sent to me today March 1, 2014
I actually went to Davidson High School on Friday and observed what Mr. Finnigahn was doing there. I was surprised that the kids in his class where all excited about what they were doing and loved the class. In the class the students had a project to develop a product for the ACME company to help save them from going bankrupt. The end objective was to teach problem solving, critical thinking, and group skills. I have never seen a class room where students were so excited about learning together. The students in this class came up with their own ideas and I was shocked at how advanced some of them were. Every student I talked to said that they would prefer every class to be like this one. I was skeptical about PBL at first because of the freedom that students would have. This experience has shown me that when you give students freedom to develop their own projects and express their ideas to learn they will shock you. My views of PBL have been changed because of this experience. I was also invited back next week to judge their presentations.
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Was he invited to the classroom, schedule the visit or have a connection to the teacher? I'd like to see this in action, too... maybe in an elementary classroom.
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