“What I Used To Think/But Now I Know”
Austin Baker
After participating in the Introduction to Project-Based Learning course, I realized that although many of the things I have been doing in my classroom are reminiscent of PBL, I still have a long way to go in creating a course that is truly rooted in PBL.
I used to think that if the students were working independently to solve problems, then I was pretty much set on PBL. While that is a major component of PBL, what I have learned is that even though they do need to be doing this, it needs to be part of sustained inquiry. I guess I kind of had that going on, because the goal of the class is how to become a better photographer. After having learned more about PBL though, I have restructured and refocused my class to answer specific questions (that all tie-in together) that carry on throughout the duration of the course. I have tried to lay out the questions and assignments in such a way that the skills & concepts learned through the assignments all lead to a natural progression that answers the sustained questions laid out through the course.
On top of that, I have tried to focus the assignments to have less of me disseminating information, and instead, creating lessons that are structured in such a way that I facilitate the students' learning by guiding them where I want them to go, but letting them discover the information on their own, mainly through research, trial and error, and practice. I realized that I spent too much time demoing and lecturing about the information I wanted them to get, instead of showing why the information was needed and then letting them learn the information on their own (after being guided to it).
Another area that I changed dramatically after participating in the course is feedback. I realized after the class that too much of the feedback was from me to them; there was some between them but it was definitely focused on me critiquing them way more than them critiquing each other. I have since restructured my assignments to include weekly peer-to-peer feedback through various protocols such as critical friends and digital version of a graffiti wall (since the class is paperless). One of the points I'm going to hit hard earlier in the semester than I have in the past, is how to think and discuss their own as well as other's work with constructive criticism. In my own experiences, I have found that students feel critique is a negative thing, and I'm going to establish very early on that it is not negative but it is essential.
A final thing I change in my curriculum is a larger focus on revision. Students have always been free to go back and revise their work before turning it in after having a constructive criticism session with me, but by including assignments that promote sustained inquiry and tie-in the various skills learned into a bigger picture, I am afforded an opportunity to incorporate a sustained project that spans the entire duration of the semester and allows for constant revision. By shifting the focus of my website assignment from a "dessert" style project to a "main course" style PBL project, students not only are encouraged, but also directed to make revisions and updates to their project as their skill and understanding grows over the course of the semester. I believe most of them will learn the benefits of constantly critiquing and revising their own work after having done it on a long-term project that ties in all of the other learning they have been doing throughout the course of the semester.
From here, I think the biggest challenge will not be the large amount of work I need to do in order to restructure the rest of my classes (three levels of photography and four of video), but will be incorporating PBL into my lone English class. Photo and video naturally lend themselves to PBL, and I know that PBL can be seamlessly integrated into the learning experience for those classes, as I've tried to have that mindset with those classes for seven years, but I realize now that I'm still stuck in the old, lecture-based mindset for my English class. I naturally started to break out of it a little bit last year by having students work through a couple of how-to texts about reading, analyzing, and discussing literature, but I'm going to have to work to find a way to make the work more meaning and relevant, other than just "this'll show you have to better appreciate literature in all its forms."
