The “Most Likely to Succeed” film highlights the benefits of project-based learning on student leadership skills. For the program at High Tech High, teachers were encouraged to take a step back and give the students more freedom to make decisions and use strategies that work best for them. It was interesting to observe how students handled this responsibility differently. As shown in the film, some student groups had difficulty communicating and making group decisions. However, they had to work through it as a team instead of seeking teacher intervention. Similar to real-life situations, this did not work for all the groups and some students were not able to finish their projects on time.
Seeing as the students were given so much responsibility, they were more accountable for their participation in the project than they would have been in a typical class project because they did not have consistent teacher prompting. It was intriguing to watch how the teacher dealt with the student who did not have a project to show on presentation day. Instead of assigning a poor grade and having a one-on-one talk with the teacher, the student had to stand in front of the class, as if he was presenting his project, to acknowledge what he had done to impede the progress of his group as well as what he could improve on. The group then gave their opinion, and the teacher offered some suggestions that might help to improve their cooperation next time. The discussion offered a thorough reflection on the outcome of the project as well as some constructive feedback that, I think, resonated a lot more with the student than a bad grade would have.
