I stole some great ideas! Well, I borrowed with permission (but stole just sounds so much more impactful). Some I put into practice within days of that "field trip."
Group student generated social contracts was one of those. Students in my classes often say that they hate group work because there is always one person who gets credit for their hard word when they don't do very much work. This gives students a mechanism for enforcing behavior and for firing a student who isn't doing their fair share of the work. A student who is fired will either earn a grade of zereo OR they will complete a project by themselves. You should have heard the classroom gasp when I explained that part of the contract system to them!
Others ideas, I put into practice in the weeks that followed. There was great bulletin board that a teacher had in her classroom about changing the way that students things about school work. I adapted that for a bulletin board that went up in the hallway for the entire wing of my school (see image below).
Still others I have on my future implementation list.
The most important thing that I was able to observe, however, was just how teachers managed a classroom when the class was doing projects AND learning content. It was good to see these management techniques in practice and these teachers monitor and adjust to class needs in real time.
This field trip has left me feeling a lot less stressed about making PBL work in my classroom.
I love that you modeled your bulletin board after what you saw at JL Mann! I think we need that over in C-wing! Too often, this "internal dialogue" takes over, and we might tell students not to think that way instead of offering real solutions. I love it! I should have taken more pictures during our trip to Mann. I also agree with your statement that seeing PBL in action at a local high school makes us less stressed about implementing it in our own classroom. Good job!
ReplyDeleteI'm so proud of your bulletin board! I agree this is definitely a solution to a problem I have been guilty of complaining about. Go Ray! I'm also glad you felt less stressed after visiting Mann. I, on the other hand, did not feel less stress. I think the school-within-a-school model would help tremendously in our high school PBL situation.
ReplyDeleteHi Ray,
ReplyDeleteI am thankful that the Mann field trip was beneficial to you in the ways you reflected on in your blog post. I have always found it helpful to "see" new pedagogy in practice and I thought if our group could see the PBL school within a school teachers and students in their pbl implementation we would be able to not only understand the practice but see how it works in action. I saw in your first observation this semester how you immediately put group contracts into action as well as the mini workshop concept of providing support for student need to knows. I also really liked how you created the bulletin board for students in the hallway that helped explain growth mindset. This is a great visual for students and teachers. Sincerely, Dawn