New research published in 2020 by Teachers College Press at Columbia University points to the future of education: online, student-centered, collaborative, participatory, community-based, project-based, and — until now — largely absent from the educational landscape. In their book, Student Research for Community Change, Drs. Valerie Feit and William Tobin present an analytical and ethical research method that works in content areas from STEM to the humanities to athletics and can also be used to address community challenges. The social science methods they teach have proven uniquely effective in the post-Covid, hybrid and remote-learning landscape. “I believe many parents and students in the country are questioning how to stay engaged with an outdated curricular model – and students clearly say they need experiences that deepens learning and are meaningful,” says Feit. “We want to help move that frontier forward, because ultimately, it is the future”.

Valerie Feit spent 10 years before the coronavirus school closings developing the Project-based Learning (PBL for grades 7 and 8) and Independent Learner Program (ILP for grades 9 through 12). The result is a program that highlights a basic truth; student learning in the context of their communities beyond the school walls is ultimately richer, deeper, and ultimately more fulfilling than simulated scenarios with text-based questions attached that are typical to most curricula in high school. That is because flexible environments and methods that use proactive approaches allow students to bring new knowledge to bear on relevant issues that focus on what is meaningful in the communities in which they and their families live and work. “Right now,” comments Feit, “we have an opportunity to employ the latest virtual technologies to unleash the thinking and doing we say we want for all our students.”

Feit lays out the steps in the social science research method so that students can learn ethical reasoning and analytical problem solving and integrate this thinking and doing into existing content or apply them to research projects. These methods already have been successfully used with students from every background including those in the Rye Neck School District (Mamaroneck, NY).

Feit says that students need dynamic curricular methods that capture their interest and transfer seamlessly from the classroom to the living room. “When schools shifted to remote learning in 2020, administrators, teachers, and students could immediately see that the teach-and-test model wasn’t good enough to sustain student engagement,” said Feit, “For us it was the reverse. Independent learning programs are structured to work in both the real and virtual world and we simply migrated online. “Our students work in flexible research teams and individually – they like the responsibility of working to find solutions that are relevant to them and valuable to their communities,” says Feit. As a result Feit’s programs have thrived. Since social science methods are ubiquitous and applicable to most problems, this program works equally well in experiential and inquiry-based learning such as project-based and service learning.

It works with and complements the curriculum that teachers are already using,” says Feit. This is evident in the many projects that students have created in her independent learning programs. For example, the development of a TEDx event was an outgrowth of Feit’s work mentoring students in real world research projects. “The student response has been tremendous. I am working with a group of high school students who simply won’t stop working on their community research project just because it is summer.” The student’s are clearly up for this, the question is: are the adults?