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.