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.
Hi Dave,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this article too. I think the idea of completely switching gears is a scary one for most teachers, and Solis's suggestions certainly make it sound do-able. I also like what you wrote in the second part of your Week 2 reflection about how authentic and real most of the project examples are. Again, I agree - looking through them gets me excited about stuff I wouldn't normally be interested in either. And I have to think that if these projects are piquing our interest that much, then they will only be that much more exciting for our students. Pretty great!
Thanks for your thoughts!