PowerUp B: Meaningful, Engaged Learning
How can learning in high school connect powerfully with students’ own experiences of and curiosity about the world? How can authentic, real-world, and rigorous learning prepare our students as thinkers, collaborators, and contributors?
In this PowerUp, we’ll explore those questions through excerpts from “The First Class,” a documentary that follows the founding class at Crosstown High, an XQ high school in Memphis, Tennessee. You’ll have a chance to look for evidence of how the Crosstown team is working to incorporate authentic, rigorous project-based learning across the school. Through two examples—the Life on Mars project and the Through the Eyes of Refugees project—you'll see both the excitement and the struggles teachers can face in challenging core assumptions about high school learning. You’ll also get an introduction to the XQ Competencies, which define the essential academic knowledge, cognitive skills, and social-emotional capacities students need.
A PowerUp is a concise, just-in-time learning module designed to address a specific topic or practical skill, typically lasting between 1-2 hours, and is offered individually or in bundles to support professional educators with immediate, actionable content.
| Designed For | Teachers and educators |
| Topics | Collaboration; Instructional planning and strategies; Learner-centered education; Project-based learning |
| Platform | Bluebird |
| Source | XQ |
Learning outcomes
- Develop understanding of what meaningful, engaged learning looks like and feels like in practice.
- Observe and unpack examples of what putting content in context looks like, how to personalize and make learning responsive, and what inspired teaching requires in terms of intentionality and preparation.
- Consider strategies for cross-curricular, competency-based project design, and for engaging young people and families in the process and outcomes of this learning.
