Reflecting on the Semester

PBL requires practice. And time. And energy. And planning. And patience. It’s hard work, but it’s doable. And sometimes, even when the students don’t realize they’ve learned something, you as the teacher realize they have. Even when they don’t successfully complete a task, such as the torn paper art challenge earlier this semester or the booklets they were supposed to make for their interviewee, they learned something.

This entire year has been stressful and strange and required flexibility from beginning to end for reasons both in and out of the classroom. I can honestly say that not a single unit was completed without issues or to the degree that I would have liked; however, I have found successes and areas of need as I reflect on what we did accomplish:

1. Group projects can, and must, be done in the CP classroom. I often shy away from group work and activities in the CP classroom because the students tend to be off task all the time (unless I’m standing directly next to them), one student completes all the work, and/or the students just don’t get along. During our most recent unit, “The Invisibility Project,” I assigned students to different groups based on their skills and interests I’d learned through a survey earlier in the semester. I wanted to make sure each group had a designer, each group had a leader, and each group had an organizer. I also wanted to make sure certain students were working in separate groups. The result was four groups of 3-4 students. Surprisingly, the smaller groups were more successful creating informative websites, even though they had to do the same amount of work as the groups of four; I have a feeling this was because one less student made it easier to agree on what to do. All four groups created a website, to varying degrees of completion, ultimately working together to complete the final touches after completing individual portions of the website on their own. I spent most of my time working with the two groups of four in an effort to help them overcome their differences and work well together. As the project progressed, the students’ minimal group project opportunities became more apparent. I understand; as I said, I’m hesitant to do group work in the CP classroom. However, I began the unit creating contracts establishing who would take notes, who would present to the class, how to contact each other when someone missed, and how the final product would be graded--one group grade as opposed to individual grades based on a peer evaluation. I held them to what they wrote in their contracts, and hopefully they learned to make those decisions more carefully as they began to regret their grading decision towards the end of the unit and realized some students hadn’t been pulling their weight as much as they would have liked. We discussed these decisions on multiple occasions and why it’s important to think over them carefully; however, I did stress that “group grades” is real world--very rarely will a group assignment be judged for individual participation. Students need to see the real world ramifications for their behaviors in low-risk situations, and I can’t think of a more applicable situation in my classroom than a group project. I should not shy away from group tasks in my classroom just because of lower success on the final product.
2. The final product is not the end-all-be-all...the process is. I’m certain I’ve said this before, and I know I’m not the only one to say this--the process is more important than the final product. Yes, the final product does showcase what the students have learned. Yes, pushing the students to have a successful final product demonstrates to the students the soft skill of finishing what one has started. However, sometimes a student isn’t to that point just yet; sometimes a student needs to see the small successes of smaller tasks before realizing he can accomplish a larger task. This is why I didn’t stress too much when some of my students didn’t complete all of the steps to fully complete the “Learning from the Past” unit. By the time we’d reached the end, they were done and didn’t want to go any further. Along the way, though, they had learned how to interview someone, how to write that interview into a summary, how to research using both online and print resources, and how to copy and paste from one Google doc to another to blend different tasks. I call that success because some of these students fought me every step of the way. One day they will be motivated to complete the final product, but I’m okay with them learning how to do it in order to be successful when that day comes.
3. Sometimes it’s just time to move on. I am still a student of PBL. Even after 15 years of teaching, I’m still a student of creating units for my classroom. So many times I will create what looks to be a great unit...on paper. Add students and everything hits the fan! Haha! Something I expect them to love--creating a website for classmates, researching a topic they choose, interviewing a family member--doesn’t pique their interest. Instead, I’m left with a class full of students who will do just as much as they want to in order to get by with a decent grade. I’ve learned this semester, as I’ve mentioned a few times before, that sometimes it’s okay not to completely finish the project because it’s the process, not the product, that’s most important. Of the three primary PBL units I completed with my CP students--a Getting to Know You class website, the Learning from the Past booklets, and the Invisibility Project websites--about 60% of the projects were completed to the end, with the booklets being the least completed. Two of fourteen students completed the booklets entirely; four more students almost completed it, but they never gave me a cover; however, the remaining students just were not interested in getting the assignment done. I contacted parents, I asked them to come during CAVS, I gave them extra time in class. There comes a point, though, that it’s evident nothing else will be done, and it’s time to move on. I stopped offering time in class, and moved the entire class on to a new unit; they still could come finish the assignment on their own time, but I wasn’t going to drag out the project just for 100% completion.
4. I wonder if completion of a project can be an option but not a requirement… Bear with me… Not all students care about getting As and Bs. Not all students care about completing projects. What if I worked through the process with them during class, teaching them how to complete the project, but they need to do the final product on their own. I’d offer assistance outside of class in some way, accommodating those students who really do want to finish the project; however, we wouldn’t be taking up valuable class time belaboring a task that some students aren’t interested in completing because they are okay with Cs. This isn’t to say that I wouldn’t encourage them to do more than what they complete in class; I’d grade the assignment as is, give them the rubric, and then give them the opportunity to bring up the grade if they would like. Some students will take me up on the offer, as was evident with the booklets this semester; others will be content with where they stand. My plan was to do just that with the Invisibility Project websites; however, circumstances outside of the classroom kept me from being around that week, and by the time I returned, we were so far removed from the project that there really was no point. We moved on. I graded the final product, and I’ve heard nothing from the students about wanting a higher grade.

I may not have taught my students how to successfully complete every single project, but I do know they learned a few things during the course of these units: 1) no two students will work the same way, and we must learn to work with the differences rather than force others to conform to our learning and working styles; 2) deadlines mean the work is due at that time, and if you want to receive full credit for the individual task, the whole task must be done then and not a day later; 3) even if you don’t finish the task on time, the task still needs to be completed because it’s only part of a larger assignment; 4) before signing a contract, make sure you understand and agree to all of it as you can’t change your mind after the fact.

I look forward to continuing to learn and grow alongside my students as we engage in more PBL in the years to come.