Squeeze of the Test

We offered our first professional development this week to local teachers on PBL (project based learning). Since we are a lab school at the county level it was determined from the planning stages of our school to offer PD to the local districts.

One of my colleagues and I ran the PD session and I was struck by a couple of things. The teachers who attended did not ask very many basic questions about what PBL is or why it is a good pedagogical choice. Many of them had already used it in their classrooms in at least one project and were looking to further develop their understanding and practice of it. They did not need to be convinced to try PBL. In their districts they were the early adopters. They did ask questions about student motivation, managing the projects and groups, and grading.

The questions that hit me the most were questions about testing and assessment. They wanted to know how we assess; how we measure student growth (i.e. what standardized tests do we use and how often); were we concerned about how our students will do on the 11th grade state test (you know the BIG one).
 

Lifted from Trendblend

These teachers were obsessed with testing and assessment. But to be clear these questions were not asked in a skeptical or judgmental way. They were asking these questions because that is the climate that they live in back in their home districts. It was very clear to me that testing was very emphasized in their schools and although they wanted to shift to student-centered PBL they were concerned about how their students would do on tests. They were looking to be assured that if they went all in with a PBL classroom that their students would perform better on standardized tests. To me, test results are not a very important part of PBL at all. I believe in PBL because I think it encourages a better way to learn and develops important life skills such as collaboration and communication that won't be on any test.

Even though I taught in one of these districts two years ago, I have forgotten how dominate the testing culture is in most schools today squeezing out everything else. I am truly blessed to be free from the fear of these tests. My students will take the tests and I sometimes worry about how they will do a little bit, but I do not teach in a climate that obsesses about them non-stop and makes them a key factor in every decision.

Other PBL teachers, how do you encourage teachers who want to shift to PBL but feel pressured by a test obsession culture?

National Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day!

Today was supposed to be the launch of our school's greatest project ever including field trips to local factories. Unfortunately weather got involved and we had massive closings (our school buses in students from 20 different local districts) and our busing canceled the trip on us. We ended up with about 25% of our student body showing up so what should we do? Well when you are given lemons you make...bubble wrap!

On the way to work I heard that today is national bubble wrap appreciation day. So we took the protocols learned from Chad Sansing's Flying Schools Educon session and adapted them to this "special" day. Students went through the design process creating new applications for bubble wrap.
 

 They made boats that really float 

 Clothing

 Bow ties are cool!

Animal Clothing

Gun target with paint in it that "pops" out when it is hit.

A steering wheel that you can pop when you are stressed. 

If you didn't catch the reference this came from The Reichenbach Fall. 

All in all it turned into a good introduction to design thinking. We have a long ways to go in particular in the area of improving on our original ideas but it was a good first step and I look forward to implementing this kind of thinking into future projects.

Do you trust students?

I have been trying to be authentic to my beliefs about learning. Hence the students are working on projects of their own design around the Vietnam War and the Cold War. My one class has five groups of 2-5 students each building a Tumblr feed, making a game, writing a children's book, creating a rap video, and filming a documentary.

The other half of the class (about 20 students) is working together to make a Choose Your own Adventure style videos on YouTube. This is a very mixed group with students who have previously performed well and struggled in my class. Let me just say that they have blown me away. First of all a couple of them took charge and organized the group's research assigning everyone a topic which they then decided to make into a timeline.

Next on the whiteboard they started mapping out the paths of the "choices" in the video.

Later they divided into roles as writers, directors, actors, artists, props, editors, and computer designers for special effects. We are putting an addition on our school for next year and the construction workers put up a temporary wall as they literally tore off the outside wall over holiday break. What opportunity did students see with this wall?

A place to draw scenes for their videos.

Even after being so impressed with their efforts I saw some of them shooting some scenes outside. I watched them for a few minutes. They were not in costume. They were not organized. The video camera was sitting to the side on a stand. They weren't even using it!

They were obviously not using their time wisely. I went outside to redirect and Jake told me that he was using his phone since it had an app that added some special effects. I said ok and went back inside.

I guess I forgot about that part of the conversation because I started class the next day by complimenting them on their organization, their creativity, and their efforts. Then with the memory of them running around in a field yesterday, I gently reminded them to focus on the quality of their video. I told them their "process" of learning was great, but that all people would see would be their end product: the videos.

They quickly assured me that they were taking steps to address this including some costumes and props. A few minutes later they were begging me to come watch their movie trailer.



Once again they showed great things in what they were doing. I have blogged alot about giving students a chance to own their learning and they will do great things. The truth is that this project has been very hard for me for fear that the students will "fail" and not learn anything. It has not been easy to give up control.

My teacher eyes see kids running around in a field and I momentarily lose my trust in their efforts. Then they show me what they are doing and prove that they deserve it.

Letting go as a teacher is so hard...

How to win a war.

Last week I lost a war. This week I was determined to do better. The first thing I did this weekend was to actually complete the Venn Diagram assignment myself. I realized many weaknesses of it including poor design and poor choice of texts. I should have created structure before the assignment to help them understand the texts before asking them to compare them. The Library of Congress also did not really address the topics in the way that I wanted. 

So Monday morning I apologized again for the assignment and told students I was not grading it. I explained my intentions and goals of what I had hoped to accomplish and acknowledged how the assignment failed in its execution. I introduced a new challenging read related to the essential questions, but in this task did not ask them to do anything extra with the text, just understand it.

The rest of the week students chose a part of the story of the Spanish American War to tell and started developing materials for their videos. Students like this better, but it would be a stretch to say that very many of them are excited about the project.

Your Choice from marfis75

My larger solution is coming at the end of the project. We are planning the next project on the Cold War. I created a Project Briefcase with the standards and the topics of emphasis: McCarthyism  Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam. My temporary Driving Question is "How do you all want to study this?"

I have not planned how we will do this project, the audience, or what our final product will be. There will be no fancy entry event. Students are going to help design this project from day one on what they want it to be. I have given lip-service to this idea before but it is time to put my money where my mouth is: student designed projects. #winning

The one thing that we are planning for this project is a detailed simulation of the Cuban Missile Crisis. We feel this is worthwhile because the students have asked us multiple times including last week to do more simulations. Also it is taking a ton of time to research and set up on our part so there is no way that we can wait to start putting it together.

We are looking at this next project as a pilot for turning over our entire curriculum to the students. We have some concerns but it is time for students to take control of their own learning.

I lost a war this week.

I lost a war this past week. My partner and I designed a PBL unit around the driving question "...cuz MD?" for a unit on the Spanish American War. We plan on having students each tell small parts of the war by creating short Common Craft style videos. At first students were hooked trying to figure out what "MD" was. But after they did our project seemed "destined" to failure.

We have found that when students have a good basic background on a topic such as WWII or 9/11 that they do a good job on inquiry. When the topic is more difficult students tend to focus on basic "what" questions instead of deeper "how" or "why." On top of that they can not even ask good "what" questions unless we lead them to the topics. This is logical when they lack background knowledge, so we end up creating fairly structured activities to "guide" them. In the past if we do not do this they miss many important concepts on their own.

So this past week we created a number of structured assignments to "help" students. We created an activity where they compared Howard Zinn's description of the Spanish American War with a more traditional approach from the Library of Congress. They were supposed to make a Venn Diagram comparing the similarities and differences of the texts. Students struggled with the reading level and with how Zinn's writing was not structured like a normal textbook. They had not read Zinn before and could not recognize the "big story" that he was telling of the struggle of women, labor, and minorities as a counter to big business and government. This was the first time we have asked them to compare texts like this. Our selections were too long, too unfamiliar, and the task was too unstructured for the first time attempting it.

The next day we had students analyze the poem "White Man's Burden" (not an easy read). Again this was the first time that we have looked at poetry this year and we mostly asked them to do it on their own. Students were not curious or engaged. They were bored. We were looking at primary sources that were not easy reads and students gave up because they had no buy in in the project. They called us out on it on Friday. (The irony was I was proudly wearing my new shirt for the first time.) They called it irrelevant,  "busy work," and "worksheets." They called it "vomiting up information." They said they saw no point in what we were doing. They were struggling and frustrated. It hurt because it was true.

One student reminded me of promises I had made in the past not to teach like this and gave examples of better learning that we had done in the past. Once students find their voice you can't take it away from them. I listened and did not immediately respond. That alone is really difficult for me. I processed and talked to my partner. We recognized mistakes we made in not showing students the relationship between the assignments and the essential questions. We apologized and explained the connections to the class. We went through the essential questions with the class and checked off the ones that we had addressed. It was also clear that students have a good understanding of the key concept of Manifest Destiny after the week's activities.

We communicated the objectives more clearly to them and it ended on a good note. Students left feeling less frustrated. Problem solved.

But it hasn't really resolved for me. I was boring. I sucked. I have to do better. This represents my deepest struggle with teaching to the standards. I am not happy with this project and never have been. I am teaching it because I have to for the standards. I recognize the lack of relevance to students but was unable to come up with a way to make it matter to them. We have no authentic audience for the videos and choose them because we thought they would be fun for the students around this boring topic to them.

 This tension between what I have to teach and what students want to learn has been the biggest internal struggle for me this year. To be continued...

#edcampgr PBL presentation stuff

Slides of overview of PBL
 

  PBL Project Outline Form

What My Students Believe About Politics

This past week we finished "phase one" of the #MYparty12 election project. Students explored their personal opinions about political issues and the historical backgrounds of the two primary parties. Here I would like to share how students explored issues and then started to identify with different parties.

Our "entry event" was to have students write their name on a scale of 1-10 on a huge banner paper on two issues: healthcare and concealed weapons (click through to see how we framed the issues). We picked these two issues because of our students interests (guns) and we also wanted an issue that involved a belief in both the responsibility of government and budget issues (healthcare). We also picked our issues from the topics on the site ProCon.org. After we described the positions students wrote their name on the spectrum where their position was.

Next students read the arguments and statistics at ProCon and discussed it in groups. Then students re-wrote their name if their position changed or circled their name if it stayed the same. This led to a discussion of changing your beliefs and also what your beliefs are based on.

We also were very deliberate to only use the 1-10 scale. We avoided the words "left," "right," "liberal," and "conservative" because we did not want them to be biased according to what they thought they believed or had been taught by their parents.

The following class students brainstormed a long list of issues and then each group researched on in the style of ProCon.org. In other words they had to find arguments and research that supported both sides of the thesis statement they created. Next students had three minutes to present both sides of the research and then every student got up and stood under the banner to represent their views. We intentionally had the "liberal" view on the issues go to the left side and the "conservative" view go to the right, but still avoided using these terms until after they were done.

Students stood under this banner to represent their views

Afterwards students reflected on how much they stayed in the same general spot with the different issues or moved around. We also had a big moment when I "rephrased" a student thesis. The original was "Illegal immigrants should not be allowed in the country." Almost all students agreed with this statement in the "10" or  "conservative" side of the spectrum. I changed the wording to something to exempt children who have lived in the U.S. most of their life here and there was a large shift to the "left." We talked about how pollsters frame questions to manipulate how people vote on issues.

We then spent a few days researching FDR's New Deal and Reaganomics to understand the historical origins of the basic beliefs of the two majority parties. And finally students took the survey at isidewith.com. I really like this site because student are matched to candidates based on their opinions about the issues. It lets a person rate how important each issue is to them and gives multiple nuanced choices for each question. For example on abortion instead of just Pro Life or Pro Choice you can choose things such as "not after the first trimester" or "only legal in cases of rape or when the life of the mother is at stake."

The best part of the site though is that it matches you to minority party candidates such as Gary Johnson (libertarian), Jill Stein (Green), and Rocky Anderson (Justice). The students ended up pretty evenly divided between Obama, Romney, Johnson, and Green. Students were surprised by these answers and that led to some great discussions. Some were also upset and claimed that the site was rigged because they did not like who it said they were matched with. Many of these students scored high for both Obama and Romney and did not understand how that was possible. This lead to a nice discussion about what it means to be an "independent" who agrees with both sides on different issues.

All in all this was a great process that led to great conversations about both the issues and later the parties and candidates. After watching the first debate this past week students are starting to get excited about politics and the election! This week students will create their own political parties with names, logos, slogans, and platforms. Stay tuned...

Student Designed Curriculum

Piles of sorted standards

Last year was my first year at a new PBL high school. Before school started I created a year-long scope and sequence of what topics our projects would be and what the final products would be. The projects gradually went from very specific teacher designed to more open ended ones. I included lots of student choice along the way and ended the year with open ended products such as our art fair.

I knew from the beginning of last year that I would be teaching the same students for two years moving up with them for this year. One of my goals was after students understood the PBL process to invite them to help me design projects. So at the end of the year I asked for volunteers and got around 10 per class (out of 50 students).

We set aside a time to meet during work time at the end of last year and I showed them a list of this year's state standards. I had the standards all cut out into strips and asked students to sort them by topic which they had fun with. Then we spent another hour talking about project ideas, products, and authentic audiences.

So this year I have a very general scope and sequence based on the students suggestions. I have specifically designed the first three projects (the first one is not really a project, but a review technique that deserves a separate post, the second is the #MYparty election project which had to be planned since it is being implemented around the country, and the third is a more open-ended one on 9/11) but the rest of my year is fairly wide open.

I plan to continue to gauge student interests and get their help in planning the rest of the year as far as project ideas, driving questions, products, and authentic audience. Once again I do not want to limit students' motivation, interests, or creativity by imposing all of my ideas on them. I am excited by the unknown paths that students and I will discover together this year. I truly believe that this is the most important part of any good curriculum: allowing it to be student-designed and focused.

I leave you with a quote from Postman and Weingartner "Unless an inquiry is perceived as relevant by the learner, no significant learning will take place."

#MYparty12

Copyright by New Tech student Adrian Harris

I am part of a massive PBL project with the New Tech Network centered on the election this fall that I thought I would share with everyone. Joe Urschel and myself brainstormed the #MYParty12 project that asks students to not just follow the political banter this fall but to evaluate what they actually believe in themselves. Our main goals of this project include (but are not limited to):

• Have students understand the history of political parties and the election process in the United States
• Have students think about what issues are most important to them.
• Show students how they can have a voice in this country.
• Challenge students to develop persuasive arguments to support claims (Common Core)
• Have students explore the civility of politics.

So we created a project that focuses on these points but is flexible enough for teachers and students to take in unique directions.

Every participating school will have students create their own political platform and then a 30 second video commercial. Schools will have primaries based on their own voting methods and the winning video from each school will be entered into a New Tech Network election. All of the schools' entries will be narrowed down to the top five who will participate in an online debate leading up to the presidential election in November. On election day there will be a Network vote for the winning party.

But that is just the minimum requirements. Students and teachers can take this starting point and go in many directions according to their interests and class. We have made a Google Doc jam packed with resources that you need to get this project started and other suggestions of activities and how to implement it. Also check out the Election tab of my livebinder for other resources. Some of the suggestions include debates between different schools, having students develop their own civility rubric, skyping in state politicians and others involved int the election process, and having "debate parties" at school to watch the presidential debates live and tweet out thoughts with the hashtag #MYparty12.

Obviously this project is perfect for an American Studies (integrated U.S. history with ELA) or Government class, but is not limited to those subjects. This project could be completed in a stand alone ELA, digital media class, or adapted by any teacher. We are using the hashtag #MyParty12 to send out info. and to promote student work. 

I know that you may not be part of the New Tech Network of schools but feel free to follow our hashtag and watch the students commercials when they start to post them on the New Tech Network home page. Or better yet borrow from our ideas and set up your own collaboration with another teacher in another school.

My "What Now"

So I went to TEDxGR this week and was inspired just like last year. My favorites again were the scientists who talked about design, specifically Andrew Dent and Nathan Waterhouse.

Lifted from Material ConneXion website

Andrew Dent is a material scientist at Material ConneXion and his job was to make products "faster, lighter, cheaper, and stronger." Now he has added has added sustainability to what he needs to create. I loved the materials library that they have created with samples of all materials available to clients. How wonderful would it be to have a library of materials in a lab for students to play and create with?

from Amazing Dat

Another focus of his talk was about nature. He showed how scientists try to mimic nature in creating synthetic products. He gave the example of Speedo looking at sharkskin as a model for creating the best bathing suits for competition swimmers. But then he blew me away with a photo of what sharkskin really looks like. It is so complicated it makes man made designs look ridiculous.

So Andrew said we need to focus on using nature, rather than copying it and gave an example of clothes made from tea and bacteria. These kind of products are biodegradable and sustainable by default.

I also appreciated how he talked about how his person friends are mostly artists. I agree with his approach that science and art need to combine to create future designs and products. It reminds me of the STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) movement in schools that recognizes that STEM needs the arts embedded into it to solve the world's challenges.

Nathan Waterhouse gave me my biggest takeaway moment. He told the story of how NASA science in the 60's was both a collaboration and competition at the same time. Five teams of scientists worked in the same large building on their designs in competition with each other. But they also shared their progress with each other and could see each others' work. They could talk to each other, see each others' products, and copy if they wanted to. This is the method that allowed the U.S. to conquer the moon in only a decade.

At my school we are always talking about collaboration as a skill that we want students to develop. But Nathan has me thinking that we can have both collaboration and competition going on at the same time. When you combine that concept with gaming in schools (from Bill Sabram's talk) I am really fascinated by what kind of classroom structure for learning could be created. I will be reading some James Paul Gee this summer and trying to wrap my mind around how to combine standards based assessment and problem based learning with a social studies class designed as a game. I also want to make learning student-centered with lots of choices for them so they are intrinsically motivated.

My early thoughts are to have students create their own versions of "choose your own adventures" where instead of just turning to a different page in a book, they may have to research and master a topic, watch an on-line video, or ask and solve historical problems from primary sources. Students could work their way through post WWII America and try to pass an equal rights amendment or peacefully end the Cold War. Then students could play each others' simulations and critique and evaluate them. The best ones could be shared with other schools as winners of the competition 

Now presenting: LEARNING!

This post is part of a series where I look at the "recipe" of PBL (problem based learning) and give an overview of each step and then explain how I have adapted it to the "flavor" of my teaching philosophy and style. I also use SBG (standards based grading) for my assessment method and that influences some of my methods. My hope is that it will be both a good introduction to someone new to PBL and a source of ideas for those who are already teaching with PBL.

Introduction Making a PBL Cake; Step one: Chicken or the Egg?; Step two: Pop the Driving Question;  Step three: Now Presenting: LEARNING!;

Process:
After deciding on a Driving Question to focus the project the next step is determine the Proof of Learning (POL) or products for the project. POLs can be individual, collaborative, or both. The best POLs match the purpose of an authentic audience. Students should present each project to people besides the teacher and their classmates. This raises the expectation of quality work because instead of just meeting what students think the teacher wants to see they have to prepare for the public. POLs also give an opportunity to practice skills such as public speaking and collaboration. An enjoyable POL really helps motivate students to engage in learning and to create a quality product.  


My Method:
I like to look at my POL's as part of a big picture process. I look at my scope and sequence of projects for the year. Since I am teaching PBL to 9th graders who are new to PBL I wanted to start with simple POLs to gain confidence; such as wikis or a timeline. I also wanted to do a variety of projects such as graphic novels, videos, and art. I tried to match projects to the driving questions that made sense together. I also mixed my projects up so that a "big" one would be followed by an easier one. 


POLs are supposed to always be done in front of an audience outside of the classroom. Although this is very important it can be difficult to find one for every project. Sometimes I do have students present in class only for small projects knowing that they will do a larger presentation on the next one. Other solutions are to have students "present" online by having them post to blogs, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Students can then try to see who can get the most "hits" or "views" on their project. Another fun way for students to present is to have an open house where students set up their projects to explain to invited guests. 


Having trouble finding an audience? Try having your students present to younger (or older) students or another class in your school teaching the same topic. Invite in college professors or student teachers to be your audience. Connect with local businesses who relate to your current project. One of your best resources for audiences may be your students' parents. Survey them and ask what they do and if they have any expertise or connections to others with expertise around your topic.

Student created WWII Propaganda Posters

The other thing I did as the year progressed is quit telling students what product to create but rather let them decide how they wanted to present it. I shared this list of different genres that students could choose from to present their projects. I had students write diaries, wear costumes, design their own propaganda posters, and even decorate a cake. Giving students choice in how they present is one of the most successful things I have found in PBL so far. As a bonus it is much more interesting than watching the same type of presentation over and over and over....


Next post will discuss we will discuss Knows/Need to Knows.

Pop the Driving Question

This post is part of a series where I look at the "recipe" of PBL (problem based learning) and give an overview of each step and then explain how I have adapted it to the "flavor" of my teaching philosophy and style. I also use SBG (standards based grading) for my assessment method and that influences some of my methods. My hope is that it will be both a good introduction to someone new to PBL and a source of ideas for those who are already teaching with PBL.

Introduction Making a PBL Cake; Step one: Chicken or the Egg?; Step two: Pop the Driving Question;  Step three: Now Presenting: LEARNING!;

by Earl - What I saw 2.0

Process

The next step in the PBL process is to formulate a Driving Question (DQ) for the project. The purpose of a DQ is to hook student interest into the project and to frame what the project entails. All future pieces of the project should relate back underneath the umbrella that is the DQ.

My training included a complicated formula to make sure that you create a good DQ with all of the important details. The examples ended up feeling more like a paragraph than a question. They were very wordy and an adult would have to read them multiple times and break it down into pieces to understand them. 

Buck Institute has a planning guide to create DQ's that you can download and use based on the template above. It actually is a pretty good starting point if you have never written one as it is open-ended and even says that you can skip parts. But it also can become too much of a formula if followed strictly all of the time. I asked for an over the top example on Twitter and Geoff Krall sent me this beauty:

which I must confess is more engaging than some lame educational ones I have heard.

My Method

I don't care much for the template above. The examples I have seen got too wordy and were not student friendly. Instead I try to think of short, challenging questions that students will be interested in answering. I do not want to start off a project with a boring question! This is an important part of "selling" a project to students. If the question is too complex that students need to re-read it than simplify it. Students should be able to easily understand your DQ and they should immediately be interested in it as a valid question that they are curios about. When it comes to a good DQ, less is more.

My process begins by summarizing the theme or key learning point that you want students to think about for the project. Then I brainstorm a list of as many DQ's about the topic that I can think of. This is also a great stage to get some critical friend support and ask others for their ideas. No one is out of bounds. I ask my colleagues, family members, students, and even throw it out on twitter. I also share all of my ideas as I collect them. Usually an excellent question comes quickly out of this process and gets edited in the process to the final DQ.

For example for a project on WWII I might have used the formula to create: "How should have the United States determined if World War II was morally right before entering it?"  Instead I used "When is war just?"

For a project on slavery, racism, and genocide the formula might give me: "How can students at KIH produce a video to motivate Americans to prevent genocide?" Instead I came up with "Why do people tolerate hate?" This one actually got lengthened from "Why do people hate?" because I wanted to emphasize the continued lack of action by the world in the face of modern genocides.

For a project addressing standards of Middle East conflict and the history of the geographic spread of religions I debated on a couple different paths. Some of my suggestions were:  

• Does religion cause all wars? 
• Are social networks triggering social revolutions? 
• How does technology change societies?

But I ended up deciding on "What will be the results of the Arab Spring?" because it tied into current events but required them to research backwards to make a prediction about the future.

Hopefully these examples give you a flavor for my opinion of a good DQ. Remember, keep them simple, student-friendly, and interesting. DON'T BE BORING!

Next post will be about deciding on students' proof of learning (POL) or final product that will demonstrate their learning.

Chicken or the Egg?

This post is part of a series where I look at the "recipe" of PBL (problem based learning) and give an overview of each step and then explain how I have adapted it to the "flavor" of my teaching philosophy and style. I also use SBG (standards based grading) for my assessment method and that influences some of my methods. My hope is that it will be both a good introduction to someone new to PBL and a source of ideas for those who are already teaching with PBL.

Introduction Making a PBL Cake; Step one: Chicken or the Egg?; Step two: Pop the Driving Question;  Step three: Now Presenting: LEARNING!;

by ecatoncheires

Process:
The age old question of which came first applies to how many teachers feel when attampting their first PBL project. Where do you start designing a PBL project? Should you start with the standards or with an end product in mind? Should you start with an authentic audience and what their needs might be? In short, the answer is YES! There really is no right or wrong way to start to design it and different people start at different places.

I think starting with someone from the community who will partner with you in planning a project is one of the best ways. This ensures that the project will be authentic and serve a "real world" purpose or solve an actual problem as opposed to a fictional one. That said, I have yet to have a project using this method. The disadvantages are finding a community partner who is willing to dedicate the time and energy to plan, introduce, and assess the final projects. But if you have the opportunity and I have seen projects that have this is a great method.

My Method:
For my Global Studies class I started out by focusing on the standards rather than audience or product. I did have some products in mind that I want students to produce throughout the year such as video, hands-on art piece, graphic novel, debate, etc. I knew I wanted students to create a variety of products through various methods both on the computer and off. I also knew that I wanted my first products to be simple so that students could be successful while they learned the process and build up to more challenging products and more choice as the year progressed.

The way that I started with the standards was that I printed out a list of all of my state standards and cut them into individual strips. There were somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 of them. I then sorted them by theme ignoring for the most part chronological order of events. I was a bit overwhelmed by the number of them. Then I discovered that the standards had been graded into power standards of a sort and color-coded by which topics most commonly appeared on the state assessments. There were only 8 blue ones that are on every test and 9 green ones that one third of are on the test each year. The rest were the less common red ones. As I looked at the red standards most of them were actually sub-standards of the larger themes of the blue and green ones. So I ended up throwing away all of the red slips and focusing on the blue/green ones.

I explain all of this to bring out one important philosophy of PBL that would serve you well to accept. You are not going to "cover" all of the standards. You should intentionally skip some and focus on what you in your professional judgment consider to be the most important. The PBL philosophy is to go deeper on fewer things that students will actually retain and remember rather than shallowly hitting everything.

For a social studies class I also decided to teach thematically instead of chronologically. That topic probably deserves a post in and of itself, but this choice allowed me to combine events from different time periods and tie together the larger themes of history. For example I tied together the Black Plague with small pox of the Columbian Exchange in a project focused on disease.When we looked at the Arab Spring Revolutions we traced the tensions in the Middle East back to imperialism and all the way back to the origins of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Once I had the standards grouped by themes I put those themes in order creating a scope and sequence for the year. This gave me an overall plan and helped me visualize how the different projects would build off from each other.

The next step was to create Driving Questions, which will be my next post...

Making a PBL Cake.

This post is part of a series where I look at the "recipe" of PBL (problem based learning) and give an overview of each step and then explain how I have adapted it to the "flavor" of my teaching philosophy and style. I also use SBG (standards based grading) for my assessment method and that influences some of my methods. My hope is that it will be both a good introduction to someone new to PBL and a source of ideas for those who are already teaching with PBL.

Introduction Making a PBL Cake; Step one: Chicken or the Egg?; Step two: Pop the Driving Question;  Step three: Now Presenting: LEARNING!;

photo by bunchofpants

I loved to eat, but I do not really enjoy cooking. Once in a while I will make something that requires actual prep work, but usually anything I make is pretty basic and I am not confident enough to stray from the directions on a recipe. I can cook. I am confident I can make a cake from a recipe (I can't actually remember ever actually making a cake in my life).

I am not a chef. A chef creates food based on knowledge of how ingredients and different cooking techniques work. A chef makes their own custom cake from scratch because she understands how the proportions work, what kinds of things can be substituted, and how to experiment to bring out new flavors. Any cook can follow a recipe, but a chef can create master pieces from her own expertise.

Project Based Learning (PBL) has a recipe that any teacher can follow. My favorite description of it comes from Buck Institute:

 

I was taught to cook to this method and I think it produces a very tasty cake. It is a tasty white cake that is delicious, but would never make it on Cake Boss. But when it comes to teaching I am a bit of a chef. I understand the overriding philosophy of the process and ingredients of PBL and I have enough experience in the classroom to take this process and give it my own flavor.

So in my classroom we do not "follow the recipe." We definitely are a student-centered, PBL class but I have adapted the process to fit my teaching style and my students. This is also not a completed process but something I continue to adjust with every project.

I would like to start a series of blog posts explaining the philosophy of PBL and its components according to the recipe and also my adaptations to it. Hopefully it will serve both as an overview to a teacher who is new to PBL and as some suggestions to teachers already using PBL on modifications they might choose to make. As always please chime in on the comments with your questions or share your recipes for how you make PBL unique for your classroom.

"I don't know either"

Today I think we had a breakthrough in one of my classes. We are about a week into our PBL unit on genocide. I changed up the driving question from "Why do people hate?" to "Why do people tolerate hate?" I really want students to focus on the lack of action by the world to stop genocide in the last century and move them to DO SOMETHING about it.

South Sudan Slaves

We started off the first day with one of the "Lost Boys" of Sudan as a guest who shared his story with us. The next day we talked about the scandal at Penn State and how no one intervened to help the victims. Then I introduced the driving question and we looked at this slideshow and students generated their own essential questions in groups. I told students that they would make mini-documentaries as their final product but it was going to be up to them to decide on what to do with them and to find their audience.

We spent the next few days researching. I got some pushback from some students that they did not know what "to do." So against my goals of student-centered approach I created a template (again) to help guide them in their research.

But... we talked about my goals and purpose of the class moving from teacher directed and centered to student-centered. I told them that worksheets are the opposite of creativity.

One of my students spoke up and said that the problem was not with the research but that they did not know what their videos are supposed to look like.

I paused and responded, "I don't know either."

You should have seen the look on their faces. I mean how can the teacher not know what he wants for the final project.

I told them if I told them what I wanted that is exactly what they would do. But I wanted them to be creative and come up with their own ideas. I wanted them to make a video with a message for the world, not for me. Slowly I could see the lights go one. I think we turned a corner in class today. I think they are starting to understand what this class can be like if they take control and guide it instead of me....

To be continued...

Genocide

Getting ready to start a new PBL project on genocide building off from the imperialism project that we will be completing this week where we asked the question "What if _____ ruled the world?" Students studied imperialism and then will write a creative essay exploring how the world would be different today if a culture other than Europe dominated.

I would like to share my outline of my next project and beg ask you all for some feedback. First of all we will discuss slavery, the beginning of racism, imperialism, and genocide. For an entry event I am working on having a couple of different groups come in to present what it is like to be a victim of genocide. I am working with a local group of Native American educators, refugees, and a pastor who is one of the "Lost Boys" of Sudan. I would like students to interview refugees and explore the history behind the conflicts.

Kosovo refugees from United Nations Photo

Their final presentations will be short documentary videos about the refugees. Today I got the idea of introducing Kiva to my students. Then I thought that students could have a premiere showing of their documentaries and charge admission to raise money to donate to Kiva. I am excited about this concept except for one thing: it is all my idea. I really would rather that it came from my students. So I am trying to think of a way to introduce the big concepts to students that might allow them to come to similar ideas themselves. I don't want to force it on them either in a fake way.

My conundrum is how to do this in an authentic way. I want to tell them about Kiva because most/all have probably never heard of the concept. I also will be planning the visits of our guests and outlining documentaries as the final product. I may try to end my input there and see what students will come up with on their own. Maybe something even better than my ideas!

I know that at least one class is ready for action because a girl made a comment this week that my class is negative and depressing because of all of the negative aspects of history we have looked at so far. I definitely sense that they are ready to do something positive to make a difference in the world.

Finally my driving question for this project needs some work. I originally had the driving question of "Why do people hate?" but am not sure that is specific enough to genocide. I have also considered "Where does racism or hate come from?" but still feel like that is too specific.

So now it is your turn. How would you introduce these ideas to students with enough freedom for them to make up their own minds about what to do with it? Also can you suggest a better driving question or do you like some variation of mine?

9/11 as a PBL theme

I just posted on TeachPaperless about why I will not be teaching 9/11 tomorrow. That does not mean that students will not learn about it eventually. It might take us all year in Global Studies to get the background to truly begin to understand it.

As I will have the same students next year for American History I am thinking that 9/11and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would make a great PBL theme for the whole year. It could be connected to almost everything in our history.

• The terrorist acts on civilians could be compared to other attacks on civilians such as the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Wounded Knee Massacre or the My Lai Massacre.

By Rolling Thunder at de.wikipedia [Public domain or Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

• The propaganda of WMD to justify a preemptive strike against Iraq could be compared to other propaganda in history. The use of patriotism for war to distract people from domestic and economic problems is another theme in US history.

• The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could be compared with the many other conflicts in our history. The parallels with Vietnam are numerous. 

• The history of Afghanistan can only be understood in the context of the Cold War and the Soviet Union. 

• Our setting up governments in Iraq and Afghanistan could be compared to puppet governments in Africa, Asia, and South and Central America under the guise of "keeping out the Reds" while we protected our rights to pilfer countries of their natural resources.

• The torture and abuse at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib could lead to a discussion on civil rights and who has rights under our Constitution. Not to mention the high percentage of minorities who serve in our armed forces and fight the politicians' wars. 

• The question of the motives of the terrorists leads to complicated discussions of imperialism, puppet dictators paid for oil, and centuries of hate between Jews, Muslims, and Christians dating back to the Crusades.

What would you add to this list?

PBL challenges students to think, then do.

I wrote a short article for the Grand Rapids Press today explaining/defending Problem Based Learning. It was in response to a commenter ripping PBL and innovation in the classroom. I think it is important for all of us to promote authentic learning at the local level whenever we get the chance. If you are interested in PBL check it out.

If you are coming to this blog from the article please check out this post about Personalized, Passionate Learning to learn more about my philosophy of learning.

Confused? Frustrated? Good!

This past week our staff attended a training for all schools starting a New Tech school in the fall. There are 18 new high schools opening across the U.S. next year. There were also teachers from four schools in Australia who are not officially part of New Tech Network, but use a problem based learning environment. My school had already had an extensive three day training in PBL so I went into the training with a good background. Some of the other teachers had just been hired the week before so everything was new to them.

Our morning session did not make a ton of sense to me. We were being immersed into a PBL situation as students. Our task was to make an audio walking tour of historic sites in Washington DC based on Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol. We were required to tie the historic sites to the beliefs of the Founding Fathers. We went through the PBL process of an entry document describing the task and found out what we know and what we needed to know. During this the question came up as to whether or not we needed to actually read the book. This question was discussed but never answered. This was the pattern of this daily session: lots of questions answered with questions and little direction.

from Flickr

We were often confused and frustrated. Now this was not the whole time. We completed a great group contract with our Australian partners in our group. We talked about the task and had divided it up. I attended an excellent "workshop" on how to find the ties in the symbolism between monuments and primary source documents.

On the last day our trainer laid out the scope and sequence for us of how the whole project would work in a real classroom. It was not until then that I understood the whole process and the whole week. I was confused and frustrated by design. They wanted us to feel the stress of a student "doing" PBL for the first time.

I thought the trainers were a bit unorganized and should have explained the directions better. A typical teacher (read me) would explain the whole project in detail at the beginning including how to find and interpret the appropriate resources and what tools to use. This approach tends to kill interest and motivation. But there was another reason to allow some confusion and frustration. It is what they call "just in time" instruction. How many of you all know that students tune you out when you explain something and you must re-explain it over and over again to them individually?

One of the important principles of PBL is to allow some confusion/frustration to create a need for students to seek out more information. Then you have their attention when you explain or share resources. Now you don't want students to be frustrated too long so that they want to give up. If they are new to PBL it probably will only take 5 minutes of confusion before they are ready for more instructions.

As Dan Meyer says "Be less helpful." I need to work on more questions and less answers from me to students. I need to put the responsibility and focus of learning back on the students. How about you? How do you use confusion/frustration to teach students?