At the core of everything we do at the Workshop is project work. Projects must address a problem that is important to both the student and to society, and they must result in work that can be evaluated using real-world standards. While in the lower grades (9-10) teachers play a more prominent role in designing projects, by the time they reach the upper grades students largely design them on their own. When proposing projects, students must include a brief summary of the project, the problem it aims to solve, the core concepts they will need to learn in order to execute the project, the products or deliverables that will result from the work, and the academic standards and skill areas the project will address.

Read this profile of the Workshop School from Next Generation Learning Challenges, Teaching (and Learning) Humanity at Philadelphia’s Workshop School. Also check out this article on student agency from the Workshop School.