June 26, 2017
Course 1 Blog Post: In reflecting on the first day of our PBL journey, thoughts turn to Sir Ken Robinson and his TED talks which often call for a “revolution in education.” His contention that “schools kill creativity” is often followed by a reminder to “treat softly on our children’s dreams.” Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity. He calls for educators to “Encourage children to investigate their ideas and run with them. Do not stifle them with a mandated belief system off education that is limiting.”
Your first assignment is to watch this TED Talk and reflect on Robinson’s words as it impacts the PBL vision for public education. http://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html
Sir Ken Robinson challenges educators today to acknowledge that what worked in the past, what was necessary to learn in the past, what was enjoyed in the past is vastly different from what works, is necessary to learn, and is enjoyed today. He doesn't directly address PBL, but he does state we need to encourage passion and flexibility in the classroom. We can't always plan ahead of time for those moments that will excite the students, but we need to embrace them and nourish the students' passion in order to motivate them them to pursue their interests. I believe District 6 is encouraging the teachers to step away from traditional learning opportunities (that often lose students' interest) and embrace PBL's unique, and sometimes organic, learning opportunities that result in learning opportunities students remember long after the assignment is done. I will not say that PBL is fully embraced on all levels, nor do I believe it will ever be fully accepted; however, I believe we are moving in the direction Robinson recommended. Seeds are being planted, and perhaps we will reap a substantial harvest.
Robinson's inclusion of Abraham Lincoln's quote resonates with me: "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country." I have often found myself falling into the same routine year in and year out in order to avoid having to constantly reinvent the wheel. However, if someone hadn't continued to reinvent the wheel, we would be rolling around on bumpy stone wheels using our feet for brakes. The students I teach in my classroom are not the students who sat next to me when I was in ninth grade, nor are they the same students who sat in my classroom fourteen years ago when I first began teaching. These students enjoy a different outlook on life and strive for goals once unimaginable. I need to embrace these changes and grow with my students in the classroom. Project based learning encourages the students to explore their interests and discover their creative talents--aspects of learning often stifled by traditional lessons in my classroom. My vision of a PBL classroom is one where students and teacher work together to identify a need and pursue ways to fill the need. I think of Mr. Bigweld's (from Robots) motto: "See a need; fill a need." As the teacher, my role would to be to provide them with some parameters and encourage them to use their talents to create a final product; along the way, I provide them with guidance and instruction in ways to reach that final product. Unfortunately, from experience, I sometimes don't provide enough scaffolding with some of the skills necessary to create the final products. Or I don't leave enough time and must sacrifice creativity in order to cover the skills. I need to remind myself that even through the struggles of creating a unit, sometimes the end result is completely worth it.
June 27, 2017
Course 1 Blog Post: Read the article, The Main Course, Not Dessert located in the blendspace and in itslearning under the Day 2 folder. As you read, consider the following:
- How does a “main course” project compare with the PBL Essential Elements?
- How will you ensure that your classroom is one where Project-Based Learning is the main course and not just the dessert?
- What supports will you need in order to make PBL a main course in your classroom?
- How will you respond to colleagues and school leadership when they ask about your PBL intentions?
A “main course” project aligns with the PBL Essential Elements perfectly. At the core of the “main course” project are the content standards. Students learn these standards through a series of lessons and tasks that are inquiry-driven and smaller pieces of a large picture. Critical thinking, problem solving, communication and other 21st century skills are taught in the moment instead of as isolated lessons. The “main course” project creates an opportunity for a “need to know” the information as opposed to front-loading the information without a reason other than know it for the test. PBLs, “main course” projects, create a nutritious educational meal that address choice, voice, need, reflection, revision, and interpersonal skills.
In the past, I have found myself caught up in the final product and completely forgetting to teach the content standards. Or I will create a fantastic project, but I neglect to address the students’ need-to-knows in order to help them accomplish the project. Or the project will be an after-thought to highlight the students’ talents but not really teach them anything. From now on, when I come up with an idea, I need to spend some time to plan it out and ensure I’m not missing essential elements of PBLs.
I will need assistance with creating a set of resources to consult--people to ask to visit the classroom, websites to visit with videos or articles for my students to explore, etc.
Yes, the first few projects will likely result in trial and error and require a lot of flexibility and hard work on my part; however, the end result will be so rewarding. My goal with teaching--whether with the Odyssey Amusement Park, I Have a Dream Speech class montage, participating in the Medieval/Shakespeare Festival, or any other project I’ve asked my students to do--has always been to create those memorable organic learning moments. I want my students to remember more than creating that really cool roller coaster that shot through the Cyclops’ eye or a medieval dance (because that is what they’ve remembered when I’ve asked). The final product is cool, but it’s the process that needs to stick with them and help them be successful in years to come. Successfully implement PBLs naturally allow for that.
June 28, 2017
Course 1 Blog Post: Choose two of the following videos to view and respond according to the directions given below. Post responses to our blog.
Video Choice #1:
Group Contracts for Collaborative Work https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/group-contracts-ntn
As you watch, consider the following questions:
Structured Groups: Making Group-Work https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/structured-groups
As you watch, consider the following questions:
Video Choice #1: Group Contracts for Collaborative Work
In any kind of collaboration setting, students will face a variety of problems, but those problems are compounded when the collaboration occurs over an extended period of time. Based on personal experience with my classes, I've observed issues of numerous absences by a member resulting in missing chunks of the assignment or the other students having to pick up the slack; broken-down communication lines due to students who are more introverted or more extroverted than the rest of the group; and misunderstood expectations because the students dove right into creating the product instead of stepping back to create a plan.
Group contracts provide the students with an opportunity to contribute to the expectations and plan for the group. The members of the group must pause and create a plan, both in how the project is to be accomplished and what the consequences are if the steps aren't completed as planned. Students come to class with a clear understanding of roles and expectations from the students, not the teacher, creating a sense of ownership and personal accountability.
Group contracts must have checks and balances in place or it becomes just another piece of paper cluttering a student's notebook. Every student must be held accountable in a consistent fashion. The teacher needs to make regular, anonymous pulse-checks (especially at first, in my opinion) to ensure everyone believes the contracts are being upheld 100% of the time.
Students know that contracts are a part of the real world, but as young people, they've possibly never seen one, created one, or been held accountable by one. Creating a group contract for collaborative work provides students with a less intimidating first experience before signing a contract for a job outside of school. Creating a group contract ensures the work completed by each student is equitable. Students learn the benefit of multiple brains working equally as hard as opposed to one brain pulling all the weight, especially if they feel the sting of being fired because they violated the contract too many times.
Video Choice #2: Structured Groups: Making Group-Work Work
Assessing how students perform their group roles is valuable because they will grow after learning their strengths and weaknesses in a particular role.
Mr. Jupp provides feedback and guidance by modeling the behaviors for them, showing them how things should be done, and then explaining what the students will learn from the process.
Students gain ownership of learning through peer assessment because it forces them to begin looking for evidence of their classmates understanding of certain skills and concepts instead of just listening passively to a presentation. In order to properly assess someone's work, a student must understand the concepts.
According to the Profile of a South Carolina Graduate, graduates should demonstrate the ability to work as a team. A team of four cannot have four leaders, or who is going to come up with the ideas, do the research, or artistically design the project? Taking on various roles in group projects provides students with the opportunity to problem solve, be innovative, develop a work ethic they would not necessarily experience without the structured roles or group opportunities.
June 29, 2017
Course 1 Blog Post: Reflection on Gallery Walk and Critical Friends protocols
Protocols like "critical friends" allow teachers to assess interest level and aspects of tasks and units that others like which will likely reflect, to gather ideas outside of comfort zones, to make connections to other subject areas, and to identify additional resources. Students, just as teachers, can gather new ideas in the planning stage and while practicing presentations; classmates could assist in troubleshooting areas of concern for the student or encourage the student if less confident about the work. In order to accomplish this in any setting, the teacher must establish an environment of respect and support. This isn't meant to be undermining, and I can see it heading that direction in a classroom where the teacher doesn't foster that environment.
I plan to include the Gallery Walk and Critical Friends protocols during the planning and almost-completed phase of the multimedia display portion of my unit. Our students come to the class with varying levels of technology expertise, and adding these two protocols here may help students identify the best ways to present and confidence in those areas of pride for them. I also plan to incorporate the Silent Debate protocol earlier in the unit as we are developing our interview questions. I believe working with other students to come up with questions will spark ideas for additional questions to ask during interviews.
June 30, 2017
Course 1 Blog Post: What I Used to Think/But Now I Know; reflection on the creation of a true PBL unit.
What I Used to Think/But Now I Know
I have a confession to make: I was very skeptical about Project-Based Learning (PBL) at first. I have been part of a PBL committee for the past two years and researched it a little bit on my own, but I never really understood what it was. Sure, I knew how to create intriguing projects, and I did on a regular basis (Odyssey Amusement Parks, Dream Montages, Shakespeare Festival Stations), but I never really understood everything that went into implementing a PBL. I thought that if I introduced the project at the beginning of the unit, reminded my students to be working on it throughout, reviewed it a few times along the way, and then had them present, I was doing a PBL. I spent hours searching the internet for ideas on how to implement PBL in my classroom, but I never understood what I was looking at and couldn’t figure out how to use it. The closest unit I found was an I-Search unit that was inquiry-based; I tweaked the unit (it was initially a lower-middle school unit) to use in my classroom. Even doing that, despite providing multiple opportunities for feedback, sustained inquiry, and reflection, the unit wasn’t quite PBL because I wasn’t providing opportunities for choice or collaboration. I was told it wasn’t PBL, and my frustration with PBL turned to disdain for PBL. When this course was offered, I reluctantly accepted because no one else in my department was available for the week.
After learning more about PBL, creating a full PBL unit, and receiving feedback and validation from my colleagues, I’m sold. Students and teachers can both benefit from implementing PBL in the classroom. According to the Buck Institute’s Gold Standard Project Based Learning, a PBL unit will provide students with the opportunity for choice and voice during the learning process of a unit. Standards and skills are embedded into lessons that directly impact the outcome of a project as opposed to being a part of isolated traditional lessons. Students collaborate with each other to solve problems, think critically, provide feedback, and create projects. Even though collaboration is a key element of PBL, the project does not need to be a group project (this was an initial concern of mine that was assuaged as the week progressed). Because students are working together to solve real world problems or as real world roles, they are taking their learning to a different level that provides them with the skills they need to be successful in the world well beyond my classroom. With PBL, I am providing them with opportunities to think outside of the box and challenging them to reflect and to grow as a result of the learning process.
I am very excited about my Learning from the Past PBL unit. I’ve taken a project I’ve completed only once before and tweaked it to fit the Gold Standard PBL. I’m adding an elevator pitch and entry event (hopefully a visit from a veteran) instead of just handing them a project sheet and jumping right in. My students will be collaborating to create interview questions instead of coming up with the questions on their own. Students will practice giving interviews with each other in order to receive “I think...I wonder…” feedback from each other. Inquiry is sustained throughout with numerous opportunities to generate questions and conduct research and interviews to find the answers. I’m hoping to partner with the art department to create cover pages for each of the booklets. The final booklet will be a public product that is presented to the interviewee as a gift. Students will create a digital showcase to highlight what they’ve learned and present it to the community. By becoming an interviewer and historian, students gain a sense of authenticity in the product, and by sharing the final product with those who helped them along the way, students gain a sense of urgency and desire to do well.
This course provided me with an opportunity to see PBL in action. As early as the first day, we were thinking critically about the previous units we’ve done with our students and the ways different protocols and student choice could be added to PBL to engage the students in the learning process. We collaborated with each other, providing feedback and useful suggestions for individual units during the Gallery Walk and Critical Friends Protocols. We talked (even when we shouldn’t have) about our projects, bouncing ideas off of each other in the hopes that we could build each other up and create successful PBL units. The class was organized chaos at times, and I loved it.
I am so glad that I took this course. I’m sold on PBL, and I can’t wait to advocate and promote it more at DFC.
Group Contracts for Collaborative Work https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/group-contracts-ntn
As you watch, consider the following questions:
- What are some of the problems students might encounter when working in groups on extended, complex projects?
- How can contracts be designed to mitigate these problems?
- What checks and balances need to be in place for contracts to be effective?
Structured Groups: Making Group-Work https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/structured-groups
As you watch, consider the following questions:
- What is the value of assessing how students perform their group roles?
- How does the teacher, Mr. Jupp give feedback and guidance specific to each group?
- How does peer assessment give ownership of the learning to students?
Video Choice #1: Group Contracts for Collaborative Work
In any kind of collaboration setting, students will face a variety of problems, but those problems are compounded when the collaboration occurs over an extended period of time. Based on personal experience with my classes, I've observed issues of numerous absences by a member resulting in missing chunks of the assignment or the other students having to pick up the slack; broken-down communication lines due to students who are more introverted or more extroverted than the rest of the group; and misunderstood expectations because the students dove right into creating the product instead of stepping back to create a plan.
Group contracts provide the students with an opportunity to contribute to the expectations and plan for the group. The members of the group must pause and create a plan, both in how the project is to be accomplished and what the consequences are if the steps aren't completed as planned. Students come to class with a clear understanding of roles and expectations from the students, not the teacher, creating a sense of ownership and personal accountability.
Group contracts must have checks and balances in place or it becomes just another piece of paper cluttering a student's notebook. Every student must be held accountable in a consistent fashion. The teacher needs to make regular, anonymous pulse-checks (especially at first, in my opinion) to ensure everyone believes the contracts are being upheld 100% of the time.
Students know that contracts are a part of the real world, but as young people, they've possibly never seen one, created one, or been held accountable by one. Creating a group contract for collaborative work provides students with a less intimidating first experience before signing a contract for a job outside of school. Creating a group contract ensures the work completed by each student is equitable. Students learn the benefit of multiple brains working equally as hard as opposed to one brain pulling all the weight, especially if they feel the sting of being fired because they violated the contract too many times.
Video Choice #2: Structured Groups: Making Group-Work Work
Assessing how students perform their group roles is valuable because they will grow after learning their strengths and weaknesses in a particular role.
Mr. Jupp provides feedback and guidance by modeling the behaviors for them, showing them how things should be done, and then explaining what the students will learn from the process.
Students gain ownership of learning through peer assessment because it forces them to begin looking for evidence of their classmates understanding of certain skills and concepts instead of just listening passively to a presentation. In order to properly assess someone's work, a student must understand the concepts.
According to the Profile of a South Carolina Graduate, graduates should demonstrate the ability to work as a team. A team of four cannot have four leaders, or who is going to come up with the ideas, do the research, or artistically design the project? Taking on various roles in group projects provides students with the opportunity to problem solve, be innovative, develop a work ethic they would not necessarily experience without the structured roles or group opportunities.
June 29, 2017
Course 1 Blog Post: Reflection on Gallery Walk and Critical Friends protocols
Protocols like "critical friends" allow teachers to assess interest level and aspects of tasks and units that others like which will likely reflect, to gather ideas outside of comfort zones, to make connections to other subject areas, and to identify additional resources. Students, just as teachers, can gather new ideas in the planning stage and while practicing presentations; classmates could assist in troubleshooting areas of concern for the student or encourage the student if less confident about the work. In order to accomplish this in any setting, the teacher must establish an environment of respect and support. This isn't meant to be undermining, and I can see it heading that direction in a classroom where the teacher doesn't foster that environment.
I plan to include the Gallery Walk and Critical Friends protocols during the planning and almost-completed phase of the multimedia display portion of my unit. Our students come to the class with varying levels of technology expertise, and adding these two protocols here may help students identify the best ways to present and confidence in those areas of pride for them. I also plan to incorporate the Silent Debate protocol earlier in the unit as we are developing our interview questions. I believe working with other students to come up with questions will spark ideas for additional questions to ask during interviews.
June 30, 2017
Course 1 Blog Post: What I Used to Think/But Now I Know; reflection on the creation of a true PBL unit.
What I Used to Think/But Now I Know
I have a confession to make: I was very skeptical about Project-Based Learning (PBL) at first. I have been part of a PBL committee for the past two years and researched it a little bit on my own, but I never really understood what it was. Sure, I knew how to create intriguing projects, and I did on a regular basis (Odyssey Amusement Parks, Dream Montages, Shakespeare Festival Stations), but I never really understood everything that went into implementing a PBL. I thought that if I introduced the project at the beginning of the unit, reminded my students to be working on it throughout, reviewed it a few times along the way, and then had them present, I was doing a PBL. I spent hours searching the internet for ideas on how to implement PBL in my classroom, but I never understood what I was looking at and couldn’t figure out how to use it. The closest unit I found was an I-Search unit that was inquiry-based; I tweaked the unit (it was initially a lower-middle school unit) to use in my classroom. Even doing that, despite providing multiple opportunities for feedback, sustained inquiry, and reflection, the unit wasn’t quite PBL because I wasn’t providing opportunities for choice or collaboration. I was told it wasn’t PBL, and my frustration with PBL turned to disdain for PBL. When this course was offered, I reluctantly accepted because no one else in my department was available for the week.
After learning more about PBL, creating a full PBL unit, and receiving feedback and validation from my colleagues, I’m sold. Students and teachers can both benefit from implementing PBL in the classroom. According to the Buck Institute’s Gold Standard Project Based Learning, a PBL unit will provide students with the opportunity for choice and voice during the learning process of a unit. Standards and skills are embedded into lessons that directly impact the outcome of a project as opposed to being a part of isolated traditional lessons. Students collaborate with each other to solve problems, think critically, provide feedback, and create projects. Even though collaboration is a key element of PBL, the project does not need to be a group project (this was an initial concern of mine that was assuaged as the week progressed). Because students are working together to solve real world problems or as real world roles, they are taking their learning to a different level that provides them with the skills they need to be successful in the world well beyond my classroom. With PBL, I am providing them with opportunities to think outside of the box and challenging them to reflect and to grow as a result of the learning process.
I am very excited about my Learning from the Past PBL unit. I’ve taken a project I’ve completed only once before and tweaked it to fit the Gold Standard PBL. I’m adding an elevator pitch and entry event (hopefully a visit from a veteran) instead of just handing them a project sheet and jumping right in. My students will be collaborating to create interview questions instead of coming up with the questions on their own. Students will practice giving interviews with each other in order to receive “I think...I wonder…” feedback from each other. Inquiry is sustained throughout with numerous opportunities to generate questions and conduct research and interviews to find the answers. I’m hoping to partner with the art department to create cover pages for each of the booklets. The final booklet will be a public product that is presented to the interviewee as a gift. Students will create a digital showcase to highlight what they’ve learned and present it to the community. By becoming an interviewer and historian, students gain a sense of authenticity in the product, and by sharing the final product with those who helped them along the way, students gain a sense of urgency and desire to do well.
This course provided me with an opportunity to see PBL in action. As early as the first day, we were thinking critically about the previous units we’ve done with our students and the ways different protocols and student choice could be added to PBL to engage the students in the learning process. We collaborated with each other, providing feedback and useful suggestions for individual units during the Gallery Walk and Critical Friends Protocols. We talked (even when we shouldn’t have) about our projects, bouncing ideas off of each other in the hopes that we could build each other up and create successful PBL units. The class was organized chaos at times, and I loved it.
I am so glad that I took this course. I’m sold on PBL, and I can’t wait to advocate and promote it more at DFC.
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