Blog Post 5: What I Used to Think, but Now I Know

What I Used to Think / But Now I Know - Blog Post 5

As part of my pre-assessment,students got four sticky notes and wrote down their answer to each of the four statements: What do I know about tornados? What do I know about hurricanes? What do I know about tornados? How can you stay safe during events of severe weather? The students answers ranged from being spot on to predictions made based on what prior knowledge they possessed. I found this helpful, as I kept the poster up throughout the PBL unit. I thought that I would use this as a tool to help the students see what they’ve learned throughout, but I did not reference it. I believe the students just saw it as part of the bulletin board and didn’t look at it again. For my next PBL, I want to do something similar, but I want it to be interactive. I want the students to be able to update their sticky note, or their thoughts, based on what they have learned throughout the course of the project. What they think at the beginning is great, but I want the students to see how their thinking and ideas have changed over the course of the PBL. At the conclusion of my PBL, my students took a weather test and completed their PBL broadcast videos or video product. The average on the weather test was an 85. The students did well on their projects. Their broadcast videos turned out great and they were so excited to share their videos with their classmates. The information the students included in their broadcast scripts was all accurate as it was based on their research notes and was read over by both their peers and myself. The students completed their group and self evaluations, which also involved a summative component. On the self evaluation, I asked the students the same four questions that I asked them at the beginning. Most students were able to provide more detailed answers, while others put a simple response. For example, one student wrote, “Tornados form by warm and cold winds.” This student clearly learned how tornados form. Another student wrote, “Hurricanes get weaker when they get on land.”’ This student learned that hurricanes gain strength over water, but lose their power over land. Some simpler responses include, “Thunderstorms have thunder, lightning, and rain.” While this is correct, I am confident that this student knew this prior to the project. In regards to safety, many students wrote that you should move to a basement or stay indoors. When I referenced the yellow sticky notes about safety the students completed before the project, that was the most common response.

One thing that I realized while reflecting was that I never once stood up in front of the class and provided instruction to them on each of the three types of severe weather storms. I was rather proud of this at first, but after reading some of the students’ responses, it made me doubt myself. On the self evaluation, I included a section which asked students to list what questions they still had about severe weather. One student wrote, ‘How do tornadoes form?’ Even though this student completed a video broadcast which had to include this component, because it was a group project, his group divided up the storms; so he did not focus on tornados, but on thunderstorms. I thought that all of the students would focus on learning about all of the storms, but know now that some students simply focused on one storm, which was whatever storm they were going to report on in their video broadcast. For next time, I will make sure that I do teach a short lesson on the content, just to ensure that all of the students do understand the basics which I am asking them to learn.

When planning this PBL in the summer, I thought that my students would be able to complete the unit in two weeks, and boy was I wrong. I know now that it is going to take a while longer, if I want it to be done well and if I want my students to really learn it. For my next PBL, I will plan on at least three weeks, if not more. I hope that by making it cross-disciplinary I will be able to devote the time I need to it. As I focused on primarily science on my first PBL, when I didn’t get to science one day, that meant we didn’t get to PBL. With the cross-disciplinary approach, I hope that my students will be able to focus on this project everyday for an allotted time period, or better yet, have it carry across the entire day.