Beth Box is a lifelong resident of Okeechobee, Florida. She's also a 7th grade civics teacher at Yearling Middle School. She describes herself as "always in love with the Okeechobee school system." That's not common, nor is it still the case. Standardized testing has limited the freedom Beth used to feel in the classroom. She didn't feel like students could learn at their own pace, and they stopped caring because of it. Some students didn't even care when they got an F.
Beth, facing a daunting civics test, took a big risk: She switched her instruction to mastery-based learning and made the whole class into a game. She calls it "Give Me Liberty." Her students have to find 35 documents—she teaches to 35 test standards—that were essential to the founding of the United States or else risk the whole country falling into a dystopian dictatorship. Tune in to see if they can save their country--and improve their scores.
This week on the podcast, we've got the news and the story of Beth Box.
P.S. Stay tuned for an upcoming EdSurge Extra about an 8-year-old who made her own coding board game.
