Brief Hiatus

As the semester draws to a close, I will be  taking a brief hiatus from blogging to focus on end-of-year duties. I may begin blogging again during the summer as I begin preparing for next year, or I may wait until the fall. I have concluded the PBL Endorsement courses and will be pursuing my Ph.D. in literacy beginning this fall. My posts will likely begin spinning in that direction as I consider how to use PBL and the strategies I learn during this program to help my students become stronger readers.

Thank you so much for reading my blog! As always, comments are welcomed.

PBL Endorsement Course Presentation

I created a Google Slide presentation to showcase the units created for the Furman's PBL Endorsement program. Please let me know if you have any questions.

PBL Overview

Article Reflection--"Closing in on Close Reading" by Nancy Boyles

During the past 15 years, I have taught all levels of English to ninth grade students, from remedial reading classes to Honors English II. Going deeper with a text is always a problem, no matter the level or student. Even my English II students who read regularly or on an 11th grade reading level sometimes fail to interact with the text on more than just a superficial level. "This reminds me of 'so-and-so'" as we are reading about the roaring '20s in The Great Gatsby, or "I once pulled a prank on my family" as we are reading "The Open Window." Making personal connections is great as we often retain information better when we can attach those details to something familiar; however, if we want our students to become better thinkers, speakers, and learners, we need to teach them to be more than "metacognitive readers," as Nancy Boyles calls them in "Closing in on Close Readers." In order to become those deeper thinkers, Boyles advises us to use shorter passages, aim for independence, and focus on observing and analyzing. The length of a text can be intimidating, both from the teaching standpoint and from the reading standpoint.

By using short texts, we can reiterate a close-reading skill numerous times in a short span of time, as opposed to hitting on it once or twice during a longer novel or work. I love teaching novels, but I often find that we aren't going as deep as I would like because I worry the novel will drag on and on ifI slow down. I believe it could be possible to still teach the longer novel and engage in some shorter close-reading activities within each chapter; my only concern would be that I wouldn't focus on the same skills each time and would want to hit on something different each day. This isn't, especially with the reluctant readers, going to strengthen the skills to the degree that I would like, though.

My ultimate goal as a teacher is to create independent learners; I want them to put me out of a job (sort of). As independent readers, students would not need me to point out where to stop and ask important questions. I often tell my honors students to ask the "What is this telling me about (character/conflict/etc.)?" "Why is (author) including this detail?" and "How is (author) showing us (personality trait/motivation) about (character)?" questions to go deeper into the text. I try to avoid too many guiding questions and push them to look for places to pause and ask questions. Both of these steps are crucial in nurturing those close reading skills our students need. I believe many students are uncomfortable with this, though, because the answers aren't always as concrete as they would like; many times the answers are based on personal interpretation of details connected with other details. Evidently, text-to-reader connections and close reading analysis must work in harmony.

Boyles includes a chart at the end of her article called "Craft Techniques and Related Questions for Close Reading" that I think could be useful to share with the students as a bookmark or a poster on the wall. This chart provides basic questions to encourage the students to go deeper, helping them make the connection between an author's craft and the text's meaning. Eventually, as the students continue to strengthen their close reading skills, they will create these questions on their own and become more aware of the deeper meanings of what they read.

As my Honors English II students wrap up their reading of The Great Gatsby and my English I CP students begin their nonfiction unit, I'm looking to take them deeper into the texts, pushing them to ask the tough questions that don't always have concrete answers.


Boyles, Nancy. "Closing in on Close Reading." Educational Leadership, ASCD, www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/dec12/vol70/num04/Closing-in-on-Reading.aspx.

Kristyn Kamp's "5 Strategies for Making Project Work Time More Productive"--Article Review

As I mentioned in my previous post, group projects are a struggle for me--some students don’t want to work with others, some students want others to do all the work, some students don’t get along with the other students, some students will be off-task the whole time. However, in the real world, we work as groups on a regular basis, and our students need to be taught how to work with others successfully. In her blog post “5 Strategies for Making Project Work Time More Productive,” Kristyn Kamps discusses how to motivate students and provide purpose to group activities. I have attempted these strategies to varying degrees with varying success:

1. Prepare students for working in teams. Kamps recommends providing numerous low-risk opportunities at the beginning of the semester to help prepare students for group tasks such as discussions, debates, and negotiations. She engages her students in a variety of skill-building activities in the forms of role selection and homework review. I also attempted some of these activities, but I believe I need to plan for more explicit practicing than what I’ve been doing. I often forget the purpose for the activity because of the fun nature of the activity or the final product of the activity.
2. Use team leaders as liaisons. Many years ago during one of my first PBL units (I did not realize then that it was), I structured my students’ groups to have a liaison. My classes were tasked with creating an amusement park from Odysseus’s adventures in The Odyssey. Each group had a different land which had to have a restaurant, three rides, and a show. Every day would begin with team meetings, and then the liaisons would come to a planning meeting with me. We’d share our ideas, give each other suggestions, work through problems, and then the liaisons would return to their groups. That year was probably the most successful of all my years doing that project. The students knew their concerns were being heard, and I knew everything that was going on without standing over the groups.
3. Train team leaders. In the back of my head, I have always known I need to train my students to be leaders, but I’ve never been explicit about it. Some students naturally want to be leaders in the group. I can see asking my students at the beginning of the semester what roles are most interesting to them and training them to fulfill those roles. Leaders aren’t the only roles for which they must be trained.
4. Structure team meetings with agendas. I kept saying my students needed to create agendas during the Invisibility Project. We even learned how to create an agenda at the beginning of one class period. However, I failed my students by not following up with it and encouraging them to continue. Because of that, I have a feeling some students floundered and were unsure of their daily goals. I tried to put too much on my students too soon; I needed to hold their hands a little bit longer.
5. Plan frequent opportunities for feedback. Kamps recommends providing multiple opportunities for self- and peer-feedback along the way, as opposed to at the end of the project. This is something I attempted to do on a daily basis, if not every other day. I wanted the students to recognize how their individual products would mesh with other students’ projects and encourage them to rise to the challenge of blending their ideas and writing with students of various writing abilities. I found most students receptive to this; however, I know that some of my students will need to be taught how to reflect and provide feedback. This isn’t always an innate skill.

Kamps’s blog post has provided me an opportunity to reflect on recent successes and struggles with my PBL units, and I can definitely see how I can use her strategies to my students’ benefit. I strongly recommend reading her post to gain more personal insight for your classroom’s PBL units.

Kamps, Kristyn. “5 Strategies for Making Project Work Time More Productive.” Blog | Project Based

     Learning | BIE, BIE, 

     www.bie.org/blog/5_strategies_for_making_project_work_time_more_productive.

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.

Brief explanation of my absence from the blog

For the past four years, she has fought hard against stage 4 lung cancer, outliving every statistic written about her type of lung cancer. I'm so proud of her for not giving up and happy that we were able to make so many memories in those four years. In the past six months, my mother's health has declined, with the most drastic decline occurring in the past two to three months when she decided to stop all treatments. She passed away the Tuesday of Spring Break. We knew it was coming, but that hasn't made it any easier. I'm just now getting back into the swing of things and returning to this blog. I hope to be more consistent with the blog in the coming months and years as I believe it is an important tool for my learning, and I hope it will one day provide useful to others who are beginning and continuing their PBL journey.

Thank you for your patience.

March 12--(In)Visibility Project--First Week Progress

March 12--(In)Visibility Project

A few weeks ago, my professor visited my classroom to co-teach a collaboration mini-PBL and guide my students through the creation of a contract. We were still in the middle of our Learning from the Past PBL, which required little interaction with other students at the project level. They enjoyed sharing their findings with each other, but they didn’t need to work together to create a final product. I knew that was coming, and I wanted to prepare them for that with a few different activities. The Torn Paper Art challenge was what I’d hoped would be one of a few different group challenges during the next few weeks leading up to the (In)Visibility Project, but I discovered my students needed more time in class to complete the Learning from the Past booklets, and collaboration mini-lessons moved to the back burner.

Fast-forward to March 6th. Time to move on. We’ve spent almost every day in class working on the booklets, and I feel like we’re spinning our wheels going nowhere. I’m becoming frustrated. That’s a reflection for a different blog post; I digress. My students are tired of working by themselves and want to work with other students, which really is a good bit of PBL--working with other students to accomplish a common goal.


TEAM CONTRACTS

The (In)Visibility Project will give them the opportunity to collaborate with other students, research a majority-voted topic (student choice), and create technology-based product for for an authentic audience (their fellow classmates with an extension to the entire school community). We began discussing those aspects of the project from the very beginning, and for the most part, they seem to be joining me on the journey so far.

We revisited the team contract concept again this past Thursday. This time, the contract would be sticking with them much longer than 45 minutes, and they could quickly find themselves kicked out of a group for not following through with the expectations laid out by the group. I liked the original contract my students completed during the mini-PBL (page 3 of this lesson plan), I wanted something heftier and more in-depth that allowed my students to fully grasp the gravity of signing the contract and the expectations their groupmates and I had for them during this process. I really liked the New Tech contracts I saw at J.L. Mann, but I couldn’t find any examples of those online (probably copyrighted), so I sought other examples online and found a college project contract to tweak for my students.

We spent almost the entire class period Thursday working on the group contracts with varied success. We popcorned a few good answers now and then; I made some suggestions now and then to guide them towards some expectations that would hopefully lead to success. Mostly, they worked diligently and successfully to create a team contract they could agree upon. Were the contracts perfect? No, but it was their first time with such an in-depth contract and second time creating a contract at all. Did they seem to appreciate the contract process? For the most part, yes. Some of them balked at providing their contact information. Others had no clue how to contribute because they seemed to have limited group work experience. Could the process have gone better? Yes. We were continuously refocusing attention away from a student who really didn’t want to be there that day (long story that is hopefully turning into a happy ending), and we didn’t get to where I wanted us to be (story of this class, it seems like). Was it better than the first time? Yes! I noticed very few un-answered questions when I reviewed the contract, and I worked with that particular group to fix those issues before they signed the contract. They appear to grasp the importance of the contracts, and I expect the importance will continue to be realized as the roles they selected are utilized in coming tasks.

One decision every group made was to have no peer evaluation at the conclusion of the unit; all students would receive the same grade on the assignment, no matter what. I fully explained to them that this meant if one student didn’t pull his weight, all students would be penalized. Even after meeting with every group individually and discussing this, they all chose no peer evaluation. Perhaps it is because of my experience to always have so much of the project to do that I would never choose no peer evaluation. I’m hoping they don’t regret this.


PROJECT PROPOSALS--COACHING OBSERVATION

• Project Proposal Lesson Outline
• Project Proposal Student Document

Now that teams have signed their group contracts and selected their topics, they need to focus their research and determine initial research tasks. In order to accomplish this, as well as give the students the opportunity to begin practicing peer feedback. I have discovered I am somewhat unrealistic with the amount of time I expect a task to take. Our initial “Breaking Down the Topic” brainstorming, discussion, and sharing took almost 40 minutes, and the students needed to be re-instructed on multiple occasions to help them accomplish what I wanted them to do. Looking back, it’s possible these issues could stem from confusing instructions, distracted students (they are facing each other, as opposed to straight forward), or student apathy (which was the case for at least two of the students, especially by the end of the class period).

I hoped “Considering the Audience” would allow us to pick up the pace some, but they struggled with grasping how the issues of bullying, social media, school safety, and depression could impact groups differently.

By the end of the class period, the students, for the most part, completed their proposals. One group stopped working on it, but I believe that was because I was going too fast for them, and they became frustrated. We barely had time for the daily journals, though, and we definitely didn’t have time to present the proposals for feedback. I believe that will need to happen at the beginning of class tomorrow before we begin learning how to find the answers to our research questions.

One thing I really like about the students working in groups: Instead of monitoring the progress of 14 different students in this class, I am monitoring the progress of 4 different groups. At times, my students will be working on different tasks, but they will be able to ask their peers for assistance, and I will be able to work with those students who are really struggling. While the assistance isn’t necessarily one-on-one, it’s more focused than the whole-class instruction and less time-consuming than individual instruction. I found myself able to sit down and talk to all the students about their research questions multiple times, and I know that would not have been the case had the students been completing individual assignments. My hope is that they are gaining the same, if not more, knowledge about research from this group project. Only time will tell...hopefully I can gauge that timing correctly.

Learning from the Past Wrap-Up #1

March 12

I’m trying not to be discouraged. I’m trying not to back down. I’m hoping to teach my students responsibility. I’m afraid it’s not working.

The last day I gave students to work on their Learning from the Past booklets in class was March 2. At that point, the students had been working on the project for four weeks with numerous opportunities for assistance and feedback during class. I asked my students to submit their Learning from the Past booklets by March 7 to receive full credit; they are required to come see me, giving me the opportunity to go over the formatting of the booklet. Our school has a small 25-minute study hall built into the normal school day for just that purpose--extra assistance with a teacher. Each day after the 7th results in a deduction of 5 points. So as not to shock anyone when report cards came out, I entered 0s in when no one submitted booklets by March 7th. I entered 0s for 12 of 13 students. Only one student came to me on the 7th to review his booklet; he wasn’t finished yet. Today is the 12th. I’ve met with 5 of 13 students. None have submitted books yet as they needed to go in and finish certain parts or tweak what they had. Two are close, though.

Am I expecting too much? Should I back down and be easier on them? I don’t believe I required to much of these students or gave them work too hard:

• Interview
• Interview summary
• Research
• 3 research paragraphs
• 5 side-by-side comparisons
• Works Cited page
• Acknowledgment page
• Cover sheet

Each of those tasks were given anywhere from one to four full class periods except for the last two tasks, which were to be completed when they had the chance. I gave whole-class instruction, small group instruction, and one-on-one instruction; I’m not sure I could have explained it any clearer beyond doing it for them. I’d hoped the public audience--giving the booklets to the person they interviewed--would motivate the students to complete the work, but it doesn’t seem the case.

We’ve moved on to the next PBL--(In)Visibility Project--which is a group PBL. Hopefully this results in work that is more complete and better demonstrates what I know these students are capable of creating. Only time will tell, though.

New Tech at J.L. Mann--an Innovative Instruction Model

I recently had the privilege of visiting another school implementing PBL in the classrooms; however, this visit provided a different look at PBL as the school has implemented the New Tech Innovative School Model, ultimately creating a school-within-a-school at J.L. Mann in Greenville, South Carolina. I am impressed at the level of agency, student voice, participation, and productivity at the school. I witnessed students (freshman, even!!!) creating group contracts using respectful discussion and collaboration. I saw evidence of other amazing projects previously completed, such as a renaissance fair put on by the students for the students. I learned about and observed co-teaching with other subject areas to bring more cohesiveness to the subject areas, primarily English in conjunction with history (blurbs from other subject areas later). I sat amazed at the self-awareness of freshmen students delivering their advisory presentations to Dr. Cindy Alsip, the director of New Tech Mann. And I remain amazed and encouraged by the passion these teachers have for PBL and the success of their students.

New Tech at Mann began in 2014 in an effort to provide students with “project-based learning, student-led culture, and one-on-one technology.” Students earn core credit classes, often in cross-disciplinary courses, which means science and math courses and history and English classes are paired. In order to take the courses, students must apply to the program, but according to Dr. Alsip, students have not been turned away yet. Students are assessed on their progress in five areas--knowledge and thinking, written communication/presentation, oral communication/presentation, collaboration, and agency. At some point in the second semester, students present their progress in those five areas to Dr. Alsip in an advisory presentation, preparing them to advocate for themselves as they apply to college and for jobs. The focus of this program is to reach those middle-of-the-road students who often fall through the cracks because they aren’t high fliers or struggling. Students access daily agendas via ECHO, which appears to be a New Tech learning management system, and now benefit from a facility built with PBL in mind--classrooms with numerous dry-erase surfaces, including windows, walls, and boards attached to desks; extra-large rooms for the cross-disciplinary courses; and common areas to encourage brainstorming and workshopping.

The most impressive aspect of today’s visit were the advisory presentations given by three freshmen students. Each student had prepared a PowerPoint exploring their journey this year, explaining where they had started and how far they had grown during their experiences with New Tech. My students rarely articulate to me what they have learned from week to week, but these students have been given instructions on how to and encouraged to reflect on their own learning in a way that they see that growth and their individual needs when it comes to continuing that growth. One freshman continually emphasized his ease of communication because of his extrovertedness has sometimes limited his success in group settings because he monopolizes the conversation, but he is working toward listening more than communicating. Another freshman demonstrated agency by exploring other means to learn what she needed (through a club called Toastmasters) to become a better speaker, and has transferred that knowledge to her classroom learning. A third freshman showed increasing confidence in public speaking, evident by Dr. Alsip’s response to his presentation to her. New Tech and PBL are working for these students, preparing them to be self-advocates for college and career.

A couple of the classrooms I visited today were engaged in some form of group contract dialogue--establishing group norms in the English II class and writing the full contract in the English III class. The English II class was more vocal in the process, and I was amazed at the mature dialogue I overheard as I walked around the classroom, including one young man who noted a norm should read “‘listen’ to all ideas” instead of “‘accept’ all ideas” and students recognizing the important of group selection (one student commented he would have been the only student in a group had he been with his friends who were going on a JROTC field trip the next day). After discussing the norms and recording them on their contracts, the teacher led them to share their best norms with the class, and others needed to add what they liked. The very last group had an important norm all groups needed to add: when finished, students should check with the other group members to determine what else needed to be completed. I loved that the students were able to share out their great ideas and the teacher emphasized an extremely important responsibility of students during group work. He wrapped up the sharing with a statement I’m sure he’s reiterated constantly--Row the boat (#RtB)...if the student isn’t rowing, throw them overboard. Group contracts also include warnings and punishments; when students don’t behave according to the group’s established norms, students can receive two warnings before being kicked out of the group, which requires them to start the project over and complete the grade entirely on their own. I am very impressed with the New Tech model for group contracts as it encourages the students to become explicitly aware of their roles and responsibilities in the group and have a portion of control of the outcome when someone isn’t performing as expected.

I could easily go on and on about some of the exciting projects the students are completing and the amazing facilities of J.L. Mann, but I don’t want to detract from the excitement of the process and outcomes of the PBL innovative school model. These students are demonstrating growth in both maturity and knowledge as they complete the projects at J.L. Mann. One thing is clear, though, the abundant success of these students and projects comes from the consistency they experience by participating in New Tech at Mann.

What Do You Do With a Problem? Torn Art Collaboration/Conflict Resolution Activity

What Do You Do With a Problem? Torn Art Collaboration/Conflict Resolution Activity

My lesson for today: Sometimes the intended outcome isn’t what comes to fruition, but the realized outcome is far superior.

The third semester of the PBL Endorsement consists, partially, of a series of coaching sessions with our professor, Dawn Mitchell, that could result in co-teaching on or both of two half-class-period sessions. My original plan was for Dawn to help co-teach a feedback and collaboration session with my CP students because I expected them to be at a point with their Learning from the Past final products to share them with their classmates to receive feedback. Timing doesn’t always go the way I expect, and my students are nowhere near ready to share. (They haven’t even begun to synthesize the information yet!) When Dawn came for our planning session on Friday, I shared with her the bad news. I’d already pushed the second coaching session to a later date; I didn’t want to do that to the first session. I wanted to move forward because I wanted some help and wanted her input on how things were going in my classroom in regards to PBL.

Over the course of our conversation, we kept coming back around to my students’ need for collaborative experiences to help them succeed in upcoming PBLs. Note...upcoming PBLs. Not the current PBL. This one they are doing on their own with interactions from an outside source. Almost every PBL from here to the end of the semester will require some form of collaboration. I have 15 students in my CP class (I know I’m blessed. I’m very thankful for this; however, I sometimes want more for reasons I will explain later.); from small group and partner activities, in addition to daily interactions, I have learned my students struggle to work successfully with students outside of their own comfort zone (and sometimes within their own comfort zone) and have a hard time resolving conflict.

Back to the conversation with Dawn--we kept coming back around to my students’ need for collaborative experiences. She recommended we focus on that in a short, isolated PBL-like activity. I recalled an article I read recently (which, for the life of me, I can’t find now...comment below if you know to which article I’m referring) which tasked students with creating an image from torn paper to represent a scene from a book about an ocean. Students had to collaborate because they were given only one color to contribute to the picture; they could not touch any other colors. Dawn recommended Kobi Yamada’s What Would You Do With a Problem? to use for the task as it focused on facing problems head-on and making something positive, which was exactly what we were asking the students to do. I loved it, and today’s lesson was born… We incorporated group contracts, time constraints, technology interaction. Students were going to be placed in real-world situations (working with a team, with contracts, with deadlines) to create a product (torn paper art) to share with the public (their classmates, us, and displayed in the hallway) and reflect on using Padlet. All this was intended to be completed in 45 minutes.

Let me repeat that. 45 minutes. I was supposed to introduce the task, my professor was going to lead them through the concept of group contracts, I was going to read the book and give them the task instructions, they were going to complete the task, we were going to debrief verbally, and then they were going to debrief using technology in 45 minutes. I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry. How could this be successful in any way?

So what do you do with a problem? If you go with my reactions I just mentioned, you have two ways people handle problems--by laughing or crying. Our students also would add that they get angry, shut down, run the other way, ignore it. With this activity, they had a problem they had to face and overcome, and I ask my question again: How could this be successful in any way?

It wasn’t. Well, not in the way I expected it to be. The activity started out well--some students were responding, most of the students weren’t acting up, all of the students were paying attention. Win! We discussed the types of problems we face and how we handle them, although we didn’t go as deep as I would have loved to. I only had two to three minutes before we began working on the contract if we wanted to stay on schedule. Dawn then spoke with them about the purpose of contracts and asked them to work as a group to create a contract highlighting their expectations for participation, how to handle conflict, who would talk, etc. Being the first time they had probably ever created a contract, they struggled. As we watched them struggle, we decided to abbreviate the contract and ask them to focus on participation and conflict. One group established a leader who would guide the group to success, another group discovered nobody wanted to talk but knew they would need to in order to succeed, and the third group had two dominant personalities that wanted to be vocal the whole time. Overall, the contract process took eleven minutes. I would have liked for the students to have completed the whole contract, but they gained some initial perspective and experience with the contract, so I will take that as another win. After reminding them of their task, I read Yamada’s book refraining from showing them the pictures. I wanted them to focus on listening for images and the message to help them with the coming task.

Finally, it’s time to create a picture...in twelve minutes. I distributed the materials and stood back to let them get started. These groups could not have been more different! One group got right to work, tearing their own colors as they discussed what they were going to create. The young man who said he was going to lead had the idea, and they ran with it and successfully created an image of a broom sweeping away “problems” (complete with problem written on all the torn pieces of paper). SUCCESS! The other two groups weren’t as successful in completing the project. The second group quickly established an idea--a student sitting at a desk frustrated over a problem--but they couldn’t get anywhere because they wanted to use primarily the colors from only one student, and he became frustrated because he thought he was going to have to do all the work. I decided this required a little intervention to help them overcome the conflict and stepped in asking them questions about what was frustrating (“I’m doing all the work; why can’t they help me”) and being misunderstood (“His paper is what we need down first, so we need him to start tearing it”). The students obviously brought prior bad experiences to the activity and that was shaping their interactions with each other, but we were able to talk about the differences and solve some of the conflict. While they didn’t make their art, I believe had they been given more time, they would have achieved success on that end. The third group couldn’t decide what to do, but they also weren’t talking to each other very much--three of the four students are typically quiet students. One student became the leader by default because he was the most vocal of the group, and he tried pulling ideas from the other students with varying success--one student opened up and provided input and ideas, another started working, but the last student shut down and turned away any time he was directly addressed. They recognized their struggles revolved around their tendency to be introverted in group settings, so they came to the understanding that sometimes they have to come out of their shell for the success of the group.

I stuck to the time limit and stopped them at 12 minutes. They weren’t done, and a number of the more grade-conscientious students were worried about this, but our discussion focused on the process and the ideas and not completely on the end product. We didn’t even have as much time to complete the reflection Padlet as we would have liked, but our discussion was so much more beneficial to me.

Isn’t that what PBL is about? We want our students to learn the how-tos and life skills instead of focusing solely on the “assessment” at the end or the content-area standards. What did they learn along the way? My students can now talk about resolving conflicts in small groups, a little bit, so that when we work on our first group-based PBL in a few weeks, they will have common experiences--”oh yeah, sometimes we misunderstand each other and need to ask questions about the process before blowing up” and “sometimes I need to speak up if we are going to successfully finish what Mrs. Lux asks us to do.” So in the end, did I have three torn paper art pieces to display? No, but the best laid plans rarely go as expected, and shifting my perspective can help me understand the needs of my students and goals of PBL.

I’m excited to see what these students can do, as frustrating as it can be at times to prod them along on this journey. They are almost finished with their Learning from the Past books and ready to move in to their first group-based PBL--the (In)Visibility Project. Let’s see what they’ve learned!

Link to the Lesson

Week of February 16 Planless PBL Update

Week of February 16 Planless PBL Update

Our “Hardships Faced by Early American Settlers” planless PBL wrapped up this week. We began the week with a final push for information. I surveyed the students to determine where they still needed assistance--some students were struggling to locate enough information on their topic and others were struggling to come up with an interactive final product. Each group then met with me to discuss their topics and how they will integrate what they’ve learned about the Early Americans’ hardships. I’d love to say every student in my class learned a tremendous amount on their topic; however, evidently some students may have needed more focused research questions or more instruction on how to find information because they weren’t able to tell me very much. I’m hoping they learned more and will be able to tell me more when we share our products next Monday.

What I’ve learned this week:

• Be flexible! Unfortunately, this has been another week of unexpected hiccups, but we overcame the obstacles, and my students adjusted with aplomb. (Vocab word!) Instead of being able to go in to the library on Thursday and Friday, we needed to back up the first day to Wednesday, which meant one less day of planning/research with a day of technology instruction for their interactive component and resource list. We also discovered that two days in the MakerSpace was just not enough time. Instead of requiring the final product to be due by the end of class on Friday, I’ve allowed the students to complete the work at home to share with the rest of the class on Monday.
• Going “planless” truly requires a plan. The students don’t have to know you have a plan, but if you don’t have an end goal in mind and a timeline to follow, even the teacher will flounder in the water. While going planless allows students to choose their own topics to research and products to create, many still need structure to help them maintain focus and some need guidance to find those topics and decide on their products. Every day, I needed to go in with an idea of what was going to be accomplished, providing the structure, and I needed to hold my students accountable for meeting those goals. 

Was I successful? Not 100%. A few of my students still are not meeting my expectations despite speaking with them on numerous occasions redirecting them and refocusing them. I believe I gave them a false impression of low expectations early on, and they’ve grasped on to that hoping I will back down. I’m hoping they will surprise me, though.


My CP English I students dove deeper into their “Learning from the Past” project this week. Interviews were due Monday; only half were done. A few more were done by Tuesday, but five students still didn’t have them done, so I called home (only to discover one student had told his mom the interview was due almost an entire week after it’s true due date!). Communication with parents, especially during a unit such as this, is crucial. I believe that is my best piece of advice--get parents involved from the beginning. Next time I begin this project, I plan to contact all the parents ahead of time to make them aware of the assignment’s due dates. In order to motivate my students who were dragging their feet, I explained the consequence for not having the interview done would be a zero in the gradebook each day the interview was incomplete, with no chance of earning back those points. I truly dislike doing that because I want to give my students numerous opportunities to succeed, and a zero limits that. I’m considering giving them an opportunity to earn those points back by adding optional tasks to the final product.

Of my fifteen students, twelve currently have the initial interviews completed and typed, but those three have been absent numerous days during the unit. We moved forward to research on Thursday using www.thepeoplehistory.com and Friday using books I’d pulled from the library because we would not be able to get in due to testing. I know The People History isn’t 100% academic, but it will open the door for a good discussion on what makes a solid academic source; plus, the information was clearly organized, concise, and available for all of my students’ years. Nothing else I found did that. While researching, we played music from the years they were researching, much to the chagrin of my students. They were surprised when they knew a song from the 80s or early 90s and enjoyed hearing the music their parents, cousins, grandparents, and teachers listened to as freshman. Students enjoyed learning about typewriters and shoulder pads and the everlasting popularity of Whitney Houston (I seemed to find her songs in almost every year we were researching). We talked about plagiarism and how to avoid it, how to find information about our years in the books we are using, how to decide on topics to research and break those topics down into subtopics, and what to write down about those topics and subtopics. I modeled these behaviors for them, walked them through it, and then left them to work through it themselves while dancing around (this music is from my own youth, after all) and helping them when they hit a road block.

Was everyone successful? No. Some concerns I need to address as we move forward--the student who doesn’t want to write anything down, the student who wants to sleep instead of work, the students who want to talk about everything they find instead of writing it down, and the student who wants me to find everything for him. We’ll get past those by looking at what we accomplished on Friday and setting realistic daily research goals on Monday. I’m hoping to complete the research, both internet- and book-based, by the end of class on Wednesday.

After the initial interview hiccups, my students have grown excited about this process and learning about the experiences of their family and community members. I can’t wait to see their final products in a few weeks! I believe they will once again rise to the occasion.

Week of February 9--starting the planless PBL and other updates

Week of February 9--starting the planless PBL and other updates

Grades, rain, rehearsals, science fair projects, and lots and lots of PBL. This week has been extremely busy, and I haven’t had a free moment to truly sit down and reflect upon the beginning of my daft plan to ask my 9th grade honors students to create their own PBL. They turned in their first major essays last Friday, and I needed to get those graded before today to send home on their interim reports. This was also the end of my first PBL with my CP English I class, so I spent a good deal of time looking over, tweaking, and grading those websites. My daughter also began her first week of rehearsals for our school district’s production of Wizard of Oz and submitted her project for the science fair. Any spare moment I had quickly disappeared this week. But I can’t go a week without reflecting because I want to ensure things go better in the future.

Don’t get me wrong. This week’s PBL lessons went well. As I mentioned, my CP students finished their website pages, and we published them for administration and other classmates to see. The students wrote personal narratives, a short opinion essay, and an I Am poem. They created hand-drawn Wordles and recorded an interview with a classmate. Then they loaded all of that and some personal pictures into a new Google Site I created for the class. I made the site ahead of time and added individual pages for each of them and me (to model the process along the way). I didn’t want to overwhelm them too much with the technical side, although Google is so user-friendly, most of them picked up the how-tos in a hot minute. One student who isn’t usually a talker or socializer quickly finished his, complete with backgrounds or each section, and then offered pointers to the other students. The final product may not be perfect, but that’s not what’s important to me. My students gained these important skills during this project:

• Basic technology skills--Students worked in Google to create a project folder, type documents, copy and paste material into a Google Site, upload videos and images to the website, and format the webpage as they desired. Students also recorded and submitted videos of their interviews using the recording feature in our school district’s learning management system.
• Basic word processing skills--Students typed and shared their documents, changing the font and size as they desired.
• Communication and interpersonal skills--Students interviewed each other to practice their interviewing skills, learning how to ask more questions when they don’t receive enough information from a question.

I also taught them how to give feedback and participate in writing conferences. I have to step back and list these skills they learned because I sometimes lose focus after a project is completed. I look at the end product and wonder if I didn’t teach them enough. The formatting isn’t perfect or the grammar and capitalization errors are noticeable (to me) or one of the required elements of the website is missing. What doesn’t show are the small victories--the student I feared wouldn’t even participate in the classmate interviews willingly completed the assignment multiple times due to technical difficulties outside of his control; most of the students who were absent during the process made up the work and completed every part of the website; I only tacked on two extra days to complete the unit instead of an entire week, as I feared I would. WIN!

We’ve now moved on to our second PBL unit—Learning from the Past—which requires students to record an interview with a friend or family member at least twice their age about their freshman year in high school and research that year. The interview and research becomes a booklet we print and bind for both the student and interviewee to keep. I’ve completed a slightly more tedious version of this unit before with varied success, and I’m hoping by cutting out some of the less meaningful tasks, I will see more completion of the booklets. My original hope was to have the final product completed by Valentine’s Day; that obviously isn’t happening. I introduced the project briefly on Wednesday after we looked at the website. We then jumped in on Thursday with the hook, previews of books created in the past (with the understanding this would be different) and partner brainstorming of interview questions. I typed and printed the questions for them to use during the interview. I could tell some were reluctant to complete this assignment. (“Ms. Lux, ain’t nobody gonna sit down me and talk to me about themselves for 45 minutes.” I told them they’d be surprised, and I hope I’m right.) Their only experience with interviews was with each other, and those lasted less than five minutes, so I decided we needed to watch some interviews to learn about interview behavior, questions, and follow-up questions to address this particular Need-to-Know. We watched excerpts from two interviews—with Louis Zamperini and Katherine Johnson—and noticed the posture, hand gestures, facial expressions, comments, and eye contact of the interviewers. My students also discovered an interviewer is going to use prior knowledge and knowledge learned during the interview to shape later questions. When they left class Friday, eight students appeared excited, four students seemed reluctant, and one student showed no reaction. Students should arrive on Monday with completed interviews. I plan to call home during lunch and after school to the parents of the students who haven’t completed the interviews. We really can’t move forward until those are done.

My English II Honors class’s planless PBL hasn’t quite gone as expected, which is strange to say because I didn’t have much of a plan to begin with. I knew I wanted them to research the hardships of early American settlers and colonists. I knew I wanted them to have the option to work individually or in groups of up to four students. I knew I wanted them to use primary sources to conduct the research. I knew I wanted them to create a product that would teach other 9th graders about their topics. Beyond that, the project was open-ended. Perhaps that was a little too many parameters, or perhaps it was too few. Some of my students have been successful. Others have struggled.

We began the unit on Monday, exploring the boundaries of our country through time and discussing the course’s essential questions: 1) What makes American literature American? 2) What is the relationship between literature and place? and How does literature shape or reflect society? I divided students into groups, gave them some large paper with the questions, and asked them to engage in the consensus protocol. After they drew their conclusions about each question as groups, we discussed them as a whole class. With a fifteen minutes left in class, I broached the idea of our project and asked for some feedback and suggestions from them in the form of an exit slip. Their feedback allowed me to address their concerns as I structured the unit a bit more. Many asked about how the groups would form (I let them choose), if the grade would be as a group (it would not), if they could work alone (not a problem with me), and if they could get extra time (my initial response is no). We began picking topics on Tuesday after I showed them their online note-taking document (a chart with columns for sources, summaries, and usable quotes). Most students found a group (of friends) and decided on a topic by the end of class on Tuesday, but that’s as far as the smooth sailing went.

Students began looking for new topics on Wednesday as they struggled to find primary sources on their topics. I guided them to sources and/or brainstormed new topics with them on Wednesday and Thursday and thought we were good until I looked at their individual documents. Many were still struggling to find information, and I’d hoped they would be able to meet with classmates outside their groups for a quick critical friends protocol during class on Friday. That would have to wait. We (I?) need to step back and examine this process again:

• Behavior—for the most part, not an issue. I’ve addressed two phone issues during the week and refocused two groups on a few separate occasions. They are on task and working. It’s not always silent in my room, but they are often talking about what they are reading. 
• Need to Knows—They know what constitutes a primary source, so no issue there. Do they know how to find a primary source on their topic? Maybe not. Perhaps I need to conduct a quick mini-lesson on that on Monday. Do they know what kind of information to look for? Maybe not. I think a mini-lesson on focused research is also in store. 
• Final product—Are my open-ended parameters too much for them? Or should I focus them in to one type of product? Perhaps a game? A website? This is something I need to discuss with them. 

I’m not as intimidated by this process as I used to be, and I’m not as overwhelmed doing two separate PBLs as I anticipated. That may change, but I’m excited to see what my students produce. I hope you’ll continue to follow this journey with me!

Blogs (hopefully) to come next weeks:

• Review of Buck Institute’s “Out of the Gate” PBL resource website
• Reflection on the concept of personalized learning
• Weekly PBL update

Until next time!

January 31, 2018--Emerald High School visit

January 31, 2018

Our PBL endorsement cohort had the opportunity to visit Emerald High School in Greenwood, SC, to observe a few PBL units in action. I’ll be honest--this wasn’t something I was overly excited about initially because it was taking me away from my students at the tail end of their first unit because the recent snow days threw a hitch in our schedule. However, I cannot say enough how beneficial this field trip was for me; I only wish it had come sooner. Observing PBL classrooms will build your own confidence and give you some great ideas on what to do with your students. I want more opportunities to do this.

Emerald High School has been implementing PBL in their classrooms on some level for at least three years, and their level of expertise showed from the classroom teachers up through the district office administration. Each person we spoke to, including the students,spoke highly of the PBL process and explained clearly the advantages of the PBL units that had been completed before. Our cohort was split into four smaller groups, and we visited four separate subject areas--chemistry, English, history, and computer science.

My group first observed an English classroom researching mass hysteria as a response to reading/viewing Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Students were grouped diversely based on their results from the True Colors Personality Test and researching examples of mass hysteria throughout history. Students were actively involved in group discussions and recording research based on the reading of various online documents. Their final product, which will be posted outside the classroom, will be a newsletter for a timeline and include interactive components such as QR codes, short URLs to visit, and surveys for other students to complete. This unit was created by a student teacher! Major props to Rebecca Snelgrove! I really love how this unit utilizes student personalities to create well-rounded groups. As I walked around the room, I noticed each group consisted of diverse personality types, and the project lent itself to this diversity with suggestions on the assignment sheet explaining how each person’s abilities could be utilized. (I will explore the True Colors test in a later blog post after I begin using it in my classroom. I began using Thrively, which focuses on personal interests, in my CP classroom earlier this semester; I’ll include a reflection on that in that blog post, too.) I also really liked the project board, which included the essential question, the project question, the day’s objectives, and the specific PBL skills focused on in this PBL. These students were well-informed, and that led to a productive day. I observed the students for about 20 minutes, and the teacher’s primary role was as a facilitator, assisting when and where needed.

We observed a chemistry class next. I immediately noticed how engaged the students were. They were participating in a silent debate on group role responsibilities using 2’ x 2’ white boards and dry erase markers (love the sustainability of this!), and every student participated! Was everyone silent? No, but they were definitely not off task. After the silent debate (5 minutes), the teacher led the students in a whole class discussion about the roles. Students were contributing and listening and building on each other’s ideas. They were able to explain the project and its purpose (making slime kits as an artisan product that could be sold). In the 20 minutes I observed this class, the teacher’s primary role was to facilitate discussion and elicit answers and ideas from the students instead of giving them the information.

Our third observation took use to a history class. The students were in the beginning phase of a new PBL unit on the Renaissance Man, and they were exploring and discussing group roles based on a computer document each student had pulled up. I really liked the explicit guidance on role responsibilities and believe that will play a positive role in the success of the project. This teacher had completed a unit similar to this with his honors students on numerous occasions; he was now trying it out with his CP students

We concluded our observations in an AP Computer Science class. Each student worked on an independent project of his or her own choosing, and their ideas were mind-blowing! One student wrote code to evaluate the frequency a character was used in a text, another student wrote code for an inflation calculator, another student wrote code to determine slope intercept. I was beyond impressed. These students were considering real world issues that had been rolling around in their brains and writing a code to address those issues. While the students were working on projects independently, they were still helping those near them solve issues they were encountering, which brought in the collaboration and peer feedback components of PBL. Very exciting.

After our observations, we returned to the library for a question/answer session with the administration and teachers. As mentioned before, the entire school is working to implement at least one PBL unit a semester in each classroom. Because of this push, students are engaging in PBL on a regular basis, learning the components of PBL, and reaping the benefits of collaborating with peers and presenting to real-world stakeholders. Each PBL focuses on soft skills, other PBL standards, and subject area standards, so the students are strengthening in areas beyond the classroom.

Here are a few additional take-aways from that discussion:

• It’s okay to start small. PBLs do not have to be lengthy units every single time. That’s exhausting, and intimidating, both for you and for your students.
• This is a process--it takes time to figure out how everything is going to work. Your first PBL won’t be perfect. Don’t let that stop you from trying again.
• It’s okay to make mistakes. This is a good mantra to have no matter the task. We learn from our mistakes. Take the time to reflect and consider what can be changed in the future. (Honestly, that’s why I started this blog.)
• The frontloading can be time-consuming. Once again, you’ll be exhausted; however, after you’ve frontloaded, you’re there as a facilitator helping them become exhausted, but it will be a good exhausted.
• Look for ways to involve the stakeholders, even if just during the presentation. Emerald High School has brought in engineers, school board members and members of the district office, and other members of the community who have a direct connection to what is being presented. Students see the impact their research has on the community and the community gets inspiration from the youth.
• Involve members of the district office and school board. Encourage them to witness the accomplishments of your students instead of just viewing them as a test score.
• Encourage the students to present, but it’s not the end of the world if they don’t. The more opportunities they have, the more likely they will improve. (Unfortunately, as I teach at a school with only 9th graders, I don’t necessarily see this growth.)
• Look for the individual wins with the students. Has the student’s attendance improved? WIN! Has the student’s ability to present publicly improved? WIN! Has the student actually submitted work? WIN! That final grade isn’t always the goal.
• Create projects that have long-term impacts. Cynthia Wells’ students researched Free Trade coffee and modern slavery after reading Olaudah Equiano’s narrative and excerpts from Frederick Douglass’s works, created flyers to educate their classmates about modern day slavery, and then distributed those flyers during Friday coffee house sessions; these sessions have continued long beyond the weeks of preparation in the classroom. Another class researched energy efficiency in public areas of the high school and district and presented their findings to the district office and school board; the number and type of light bulbs used has since been changed to increase efficiency and lower costs.
• Create projects that bring students together. Collaboration, teamwork, peer feedback, soft skills. The advantages of bringing students together are endless.
• Network. Talk to other teachers who do PBL in their classroom, and they don’t have to be teaching the same subject as you. Bounce ideas off them. Brainstorm together. Work together. Find ways to communicate in your busy days, even if it’s just on a GoogleDoc that can keep track of all of the ideas easier than an email. 
• Don’t be afraid to allow others to visit your classroom. Allow teachers who are nervous about PBL visit your classroom. Will your children always be on their best behavior when someone else is in the classroom? No. That’s life. Those teachers aren’t going to judge you. What they will see is the engagement and excitement of your students, and if it didn’t work out that way, engage in dialogue with your visitor to see what went wrong. Maybe an outside eye can help you adapt your lesson for the future. (If I’m being honest, this is one bit of advice that is hard for me, but I’m going to work harder to do. I want more teachers to visit to see what PBL is about.)

Our visit to Emerald High School invigorated me. I’m ready to jump in even deeper and explore the endless possibilities with my students. I know that I have a long way to go on my PBL journey, and I’m glad that you’ve chosen to join me. I look forward to your feedback and suggestions. Until next time, keep considering yourself daft...so many times that’s when the best ideas evolve.

January 29, 2018--Have I Lost My Mind?

January 29, 2018
I recently decided to begin a unit with my English II class that relinquished control of almost every aspect of the unit-designing-phase to my students. I wanted to take Matt Bertasso’s advice and teach my students how to fish as opposed to giving them the fish. So I set out to deconstruct my unit planning, determine what I absolutely must have control over, and identify a pitch or my students. Much easier said than done. Within the first few hours of making this decision, I was already planning the unit I wanted to see done instead of focusing on the problem/project question; I was looking for the literature I wanted them to use instead of focusing on just the literature I knew couldn’t be left out. I was struggling to give up control. I believe teachers must have this innate desire to have control over every aspect of their classrooms. We struggle to let go and leave the students to their own devices, many times out of fear that the students won’t accomplish what we set out for them to do. I admit, this is something I have struggled with and will continue to struggle with, but I need to look out for the best in my students. How best do I learn? Am I learning best in a canned situation with every step planned out for me? No. I learn best when I can jump in headfirst, sometimes not knowing exactly where I’m going, plan along the way, and see where my journey leads me. I want to provide my students with as many of those authentic opportunities as possible because I believe that is how they will remember what they’ve studied and be proud of what they’ve studied.

So what am I planning to do with my English II class? I’m not 100% certain, but I know that it will revolve around a research question, perhaps of my own creation or perhaps something they devise. I know I want them to use primary sources. I know I want them to address something about American Colonialism--its impact on Native Americans or American geography; gender roles during American Colonialism; struggles and hardships faced by American Colonists. I know they have a limited time to complete this--two weeks. I know that I need/want to teach Patrick Henry’s speech to the Virginia Convention and probably need to address the Declaration of Independence and Constitution; however, those are always so dry, and I don’t want to waste valuable classtime boring my students.

So many unknowns at this moment. I’m not sure where I’m going. I’m just hoping I don’t fall flat on my face.

January 27, 2018--Reflection on the beginning of the semester + Matt Bertasso's call to action

January 27, 2018
Course 3 Blog Post: Reflect on the beginning of your semester and any PBL units implemented; optional: In a recent blog post for New Tech, Matt Bertasso, Director of Compass Academy asks us as educators are we giving students fish or are we teaching students to fish for a lifetime? After reading his article below, reflect on your current unit of instruction and consider how you are structuring your content. Are you providing opportunities for students to discover through their own reading, writing, thinking, questioning essential understandings or are we providing it to them? What areas are strengths? Where can we grow and improve our practice?

https://newtechnetwork.org/resources/secrets-great-teaching/?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=newtechnetwork&utm_content=The%20Secrets%20to%20Great%20Teaching%20-%20New%20Tech%20Network
Bear with me...this is a long post (as mine tend to be...it's the writer in me). The first two paragraphs are an update, the next two paragraphs are my response to Matt Bertasso's article, but the last paragraph is the Call to Action for me--how I want to utilize what I gleaned from Bertasso's article. Skip to that if you'd like. I won't be offended.

Once again, we begin a semester with the weather throwing a curveball at us. Last semester it was total eclipses and hurricanes; this semester it’s fake ice storms and real snow storms (which I was reluctant to believe would come up until the second I looked out my window at a blanket of beautiful white snow covering the ground and rooftops). These curveballs have me scrambling to make sure I can get through each of the PBL units I’ve planned before the end of the school year. Their first nine weeks is packed full with nonfiction- and community-based PBL, and I want to get them to the second nine weeks fiction and media-based PBL units rolling around in my mind.

We jumped head-first into a getting-to-know-you PBL (unit title pending) with the students writing personal narratives and opinion essays, conducting classmate interviews, and designing a class website. Some students are more excited than others (mostly because we’re in the writing phase of the unit as opposed to the designing phase), but I’m hoping they will all come around the further along we get. My biggest obstacle so far has been student absences--one student has been absent all but one school day, another has missed the last four school days, a third has missed every other day this past week. Once these three students return, I will need to find numerous opportunities to catch them up to the rest of the class without keeping them from making up work in other classes.

I designed this unit to ease the students into the idea of using projects to learn various skills--creating websites, interviewing people, solving problems in the community; however, after reading Matt Bertasso’s “The Secrets to Great Teaching,” I’m wondering if I’m providing the fish too much as opposed to teaching them how to fish. I’ve located the sample personal narratives and opinion essays to read and examine for style, albeit mostly because the students cannot access Teen Ink on our network; I’ve stipulated the required elements for the website instead of letting them throw out ideas for what should be included. Granted, I’ve struggled to get them to answer my questions about what the writer is doing, but I wonder if I could eventually get them to answer more if I continue to expect it instead of settling back into the habit of giving them all the answers.

I also wonder if I’ll get better reactions if I give my students the rod instead of holding it myself. Bertasso says “When students have ownership over their learning, they aren’t learning for the teacher, the grade, or for their parents, they are learning for themselves and deeper learning happens. Students, at this point, are truly fishing.” I want them to fish for themselves. Every semester, my students receive a letter that describes my role in the classroom: “My goal is for you to emerge from this year as eager learners—always looking for the next big idea and indulging your curiosities. I am here to facilitate and monitor you on your educational journey.” I’m a facilitator--my job is to make the learning easier, but I’m not doing that by giving them the fish, answering the questions for them. They will never learn to catch fish on their own if my hands are always on the fishing rod or I’m always giving them the fish.

That brings me to my next thought, and it scares me: What if I involved them in the planning of the unit? Completely throw out every bit of my plan other than a chunk of time during the semester and let my students design the unit with my guidance? I’d give the students a problem, theme, or essential question and see what they create. At its core, this is Genius Hour but full-time. Can I give up that much control in my classroom? I might have to flesh out the unit to ensure it’s not fluff and my students are truly learning the standards, but part of me believes they will be fine. I’m not sure I’m ready to do that just yet with my CP students; perhaps I will after these first few units. However, I’m about to begin the first true unit of my English II American Literature class after we wrap up our summer reading writing unit next week. I’ve been toying with the idea of having them research life in Colonial America and creating a presentation to sell the idea to those still living in England at the times. What if I tossed them the question “What was it like to live in American during Colonial times?” Would that be too open-ended? Would I get high quality products? Would they access the primary sources I would like them to use or would they create a project that could be completed by simply doing a Google search? How do I fit in all the literature I don’t want to leave out--Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Bradford’s Plymouth Plantation, Henry’s speech to the Virginia Convention? I’m scared, but I want to give it a shot. Am I crazy? A quote from one of my favorite movies keeps running through brain: “You’re daft, lady!” I think I’d rather be daft like Jack, though, than play it safe and limit my students’ potentials.