Blog Post #1 (Barwick)

First PBL Implementation Observation

As a reminder, this project was our "21st Century Progressives" unit in which students learned about the Progressive Era from the early 20th century, then applied concepts and ideas to current world issues.   They were given research time from approved sites on a Symbaloo I created to learn more about world issues, then they chose an issue that was important to them to focus their project on.

The lesson that Dawn observed was one of the first days of actually planning their projects.  The students helped me to create a class rubric of elements they felt would be important to grade them on, and they were tasked with making a list of materials they would need (including anything I would need to procure for them), as well as outlining what their product would be and how they would accomplish it.  My biggest concern with a project like this is student engagement and autonomy, so I had asked Dawn to specifically help me observe this with my students.  Overall, they did seem to be engaged while discussing their materials and products with their groups.  From watching the video clips and my own observations of the room, I felt like most students stayed on task and were enjoying planning how they would implement their project ideas.

I facilitated the groups, although I did notice from the video that I spent a long time on one group and not as much on others.  Reflecting on this, the girls in the bullying group that I spent the most time on were not as animated as the other groups in getting their project going so I felt I needed to help them the most.  One of those students is a non-native speaker (she is from Africa), and while she has good ideas, she is not always bold in explaining them.  The other two girls are generally quiet as well, so I felt that I needed to help them the most.  However, if I had left them alone more, would they have ultimately been fine? (I also think I worked with them more because, as an avid reader, I was most excited about their idea of writing a book about bullying, and I wanted it to get off to a great start!  I need to remember to show that same enthusiasm for all projects.)

I also noticed from the video clip that, at least in one group, one student was able to explain who progressives were and their purpose, but not the other one.  That led me to wonder if more students were confused about the overarching idea of the project and who progressives were and are.  I spent more time from then on reinforcing who progressives were back then and making connections to our current projects in order to cement that content knowledge.

At the end of this particular lesson, students were able to explain what their product was going to be, how they were going to implement it, and what materials I needed to get for them in order for them to be successful.  I felt that we had made good progress, and I was pleased that the students seemed to be engaged and working independently for the majority of the lesson.  It gave me hope for future PBL work time!

(That being said, not everything was this smooth sailing....other blog posts forthcoming...)