Post-Project Reflection

In order to provide for post-project reflection, students will participate in a self-evaluation of their contributions to the project and learning experiences during the PBL unit. You can view the self-evaluation form below. This form will not only serve to support students' reflecting on their relationship with the project and their group, it will also provide for a rich classroom discussion that will serve to bring closure to our PBL unit while directing our focus for future PBL experiences.

Week 6 Learning Log

Project-based Learning calls for a requisite shift in the role of teachers and students alike. With regards to myself as a classroom teacher, my role will fundamentally change. I have often heard it described as moving from being the "sage on the stage" to being a "guide on the side." In other words, rather than being the dispensary of information and wisdom, I will become a facilitator of learning, supporting my students as they explore content and engage in the inquiry process within a constructivist learning environment.

To become that facilitator, development of new skills is necessary. Skills which presuppose effective facilitation include, but are not limited to, asking intriguing open-ended questions; supporting risk-taking and exploration of new ideas; providing ample opportunities for discussion and reflection; listening to others and prompting their thinking; and designing the learning environment to allow for student-driven construction of knowledge.

As mentioned before, the roles of students will fundamentally change along with that of the teacher. Rather than simply mastering academic content at the lower levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, students in a PBL environment will be tasked with developing 21st century competencies as well. As the emphasis is transferred from getting the right answers to teacher-provided questions to finding solutions to student-identified problems, the room and expectations will be created for such skills to develop.

With regards to the changes that I will need to make in order to become an effective faciliator in my own PBL unit, I will need to discipline myself to plan more thoroughly ahead of time. Rather than proceeding lesson by lesson, I will need to take the time to capture a comprehensive view of the unit as a whole. Additionally, I will need to let go of the pride that often causes teachers to hold on to their role as a "sage on the stage" in order to make room for student-directed learning a meaning-making.

Designing Integrated Curriculum

Including other disciplines in a shared project is a great way to create authenticity and meaning for learners. Not only will it help students make transfers of learning. It will also open up the opportunity for deeper engagement and higher order thinking about project-related content and issues.

However, the benefits of cross-disciplinary PBL projects is not felt by students alone, but instructional staff as well. By collaborating on PBL designs, colleagues gain a deeper understanding of their own content areas due to being required to teach others about the big ideas and connections to their subject matter. Similarly, they begin connecting the dots between their own expertise and the curricular content in the departments down the hall.

Naturally, there are challenges to creating such an all-encompassing support system. The first that comes to mind is time. How can teachers from different grade levels or departments carve out adequate time to meet and plan with one another. Likewise, how can they creatively make time to ensure that students are end-of-year assessment ready while still teaching in a PBL framework. Additionally, communicating during the PBL process, once the Entry Event has kicked off the learning experience, and finding time to make sense of formative assessment data and what that means for each discipline seems to present a logistical challenge as well.

Nevertheless, to overcome such challenges and make interdisciplinary PBL a reality in my school, time and energy need to be invested in created a shared vision for Professional Learning Communities where cross disciplinary and vertical alignment becomes second nature. While the subordinate tasks required to create this type of communication and planning network are vast, being serious about making collaboration a top priority in my school is as valuable as in-class instructional time, because teachers are learners too. Their learning and how it is supported simply enhances the learning of students as a result.

Week 4: Key Principles of Effective Assessment

The assessments that I have included in my assessment plan have been designed and incorporated specifically to support student learning and growth. In other words, the assessments are for the students, which is a key principle of assessment. To illustrate, one assessment tool I have created for my PBL project is a social media evaluation tool, in the form of a Google Form. Aside from serving as evidence of learning to me, this assessment tool helps students to focus their research and thinking while also providing a record of their insights for later use during the composition phase of their public presentation. 

Another key principle of assessment met is that the assessment is faithful to the work students actually do. To illustrate this key point, students will video record a practice presentation which they will then review with a self-assessment checklist in preparation for their public presentation. This assessment opportunity enables students to honestly evaluate their presentation with regards to effective public speaking skills in conjunction with the final rubric for their eventual public presentation.

As students present their findings in the form of a public presentation proposing a strategic plan for the school district, assessment of their final products will be public, another key principle of assessment. Though I, the teacher, will assess students' presentations with a project-specific rubric, students will also be informally assessed by the sustained attention, interactions, and responses of their public audience.

Together, the assessments that I have designed for this PBL unit promote ongoing self-relfection and critical inquiry, the final key principle of assessment. Rather than being structured to deliver a grade to students, the objective of each assessment is to assist students in the process of attaining good work through an iterative process of reflection and revision.

Week Two Reflection

I am very excited about the PBL content that I have been exposed to in this unit. As with last week's work, this week's has continued to broaden my understanding of project based learning as a pedagogy and also as a process.

I gained a lot of context to initiating my own PBL units from reading How did I start my very first project? by Alfred Solis on the BIE blog. From his own experiences as a first-year teacher at High Tech High, Solis encourages those who are starting with PBL to 1) Replicate an existing project, 2) Stick with what you know, 3) Customize the deliverables & requirements, 4) Document everything online, 5) Take students on field trips, and 6) Make the student work public.

Whether or not Solis knew this at the time, the lessons he learned in his first year teaching from the project based learning framework parallel the objectives of BIE's 8 Essential Elements of PBL. Those objectives, as I am coming to understand them, emphasize increasing personalization of learning, engagement, inquiry-based learning, and feedback and revision through publication and presentation.

The bie.org website offers a collection of planning forms to assist practitioners in their design, implementation, assessment, and revision of project based learning, which I look forward to using in my own PBL development this semester.

Week 2: Project Search

Upon engaging in my project search, I was impressed at how applicable project-based learning can be to numerous different subjects and content areas. Few of the examples I came across felt contrived. And many of them piqued my curiosity and interest in topics that I would have otherwise not cared to delve into.

Commonalities among the projects that I viewed were many. However, those that seemed to be most identifiable include unit descriptions, entry events, and assessment throughout the PBL process (pre-assessment, formative, and summative). Not to be taken for granted is the presence of the 8 Essential Elements of project-based learning as delineated by the Buck Institute for Education. Each of the project examples that I screened included these core aspects of meaningful PBL in their designs.

One PBL project that caught my attention can be found on the Ohio Resource Center. The PBL unit's title is Programming Theory: Teaching. And it focuses on responding to the driving question, "How would you learn a new programming language and develop a manual and training session about it?"

As a Technology Integration Specialist, getting teachers to incorporate coding and computer programming into their curricula is a goal of mine in order to prepare students for a world that highly esteems such skills. Unfortunately, one of the largest perceived barriers to coding in the classroom is teacher attitude about learning how to code themselves. With all of the free coding tutorial programs available online, leveraging a PBL unit such as this one for teachers rather than students appeals to me as a valuable professional development experience. By posing the driving question to teachers and guiding them to discovering such resources as code.org, codecademy.com, and scratch.mit.edu, I believe that the barrier of what it takes to learn how to code will be put into a more appropriate perspective, opening up the possibility for introducing computer programming to their students as well.

Discussion Board: Week 1 -- Group 1

In addition to the required contents of my reflective journal, I am going to include my responses to discussion forum group questions as well. These will also be cross posted to the discussion forum, but are being included here as a learning resource for me.

Group 1: What is Project Based Learning?

Define Project Based Learning. Describe the difference between Project Based Learning and Problem Based Learning.

According to bie.org, "Project Based Learning is a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to a complex question, problem, or challenge." PBL engenders a number of Essential Elements as well, some of which include Significant Content, In-Depth Inquiry, Driving Question, Voice and Choice, and Public Audience. Viewed comprehensively, Project Based Learning is an active and iterative engagement with questions and content to derive new solutions and create some sort of meaningful project product to demonstrate learning.

While there are many similarities between Project Based Learning and Problem Based Learning, one of them being a focus on student-centered learning, differentiating between the two is important to understand the premises of both pedagogies in order to utilize each appropriately. In an article on Edutopia.org by John Larmer, Editor in Chief at the Buck Institute for Education, problem-based learning is said to be a "subset of project-based learning -- that is, one of the ways a teacher could frame a project is 'to solve a problem.'" Though Larmer goes on to say that project-based learning "does have its own history and set of typically-followed procedures," the difference between the two pedagogies seems to be largely contextual.

Why should teachers consider incorporating PBL in their classroom?

PBL is a time consuming approach to engaging students with curricular content. But, so is reteaching concepts and ideas. Consideration of Project Based Learning in the classroom is advantageous because it not only deeply engages students with meaningful and relevant content, but it creates a depth of understanding, retention, and transfer of knowledge to various contexts inside and outside of the classroom.

One of the Essential Elements of PBL, found on bie.org, is Voice and Choice. This states that "Students are allowed to make some choices about the products to be created, how they work, and how they use their time." Voice and Choice, in other words, reframes the roles of teachers and students in the teaching and learning process to encourage student-centered learning through inquiry and self-directed demonstrations of mastery. Stated simply, PBL gives more ownership for learning to students, which naturally increases the quality of learning and content-creation.

In summary, Project Based Learning creates opportunities for students to learn content that is important and interesting to them within a framework where a knowledgable teacher is present to guide the PBL experience. The results of such a pedagogical approach include deeper learning, higher levels of engagement, and increased ownership of learning by students themselves.

What are the essential components of a PBL approach to instruction?

As mentioned previously, Project Based Learning is an active and iterative approach to learning. It is a systematic approach to discovery of information as well. In fact, the Buck Institute for Education identifies eight Essential Elements of PBL, which include:

• Significant Content
• 21st Century Competencies
• In-Depth Inquiry
• Driving Question
• Need to Know
• Voice and Choice
• Critique and Revision
• Public Audience

To expound on these Elements, PBL prescribes that students engage with "important knowledge and skills, derived from standards and key concepts" while developing the thinking, learning, and working skills required by 21st century problems. The PBL learning process is a prolonged and rigorous "process of asking questions, using resources, and developing answers," which diverges from more traditional classroom practices. However, by engaging with PBL, students are better able to "see the need to gain knowledge, understand concepts, and apply skills" in order to solve problems and answer driving questions, the findings of which are then presented to an audience consisting of individuals and groups "beyond their classmates and teacher."