1 1. I think that a PBL
mindset would allow students to learn in their own way. Not everybody
learns the same way, or at the same rate. Even though this is 100% different from the
way I was taught, I can see the advantages.
If PBL gets kids to be successful at learning, to figure out what they
are good at on their own, and to become productive members of society, I am all
for it. I think that it meshes well with
our district’s “College or Career Ready” message well. That is the ultimate goal, is it not, college
or career after high school. If it makes
students take ownership of their learning, it will translate into other areas
of their life.
2
2. The challenge for me
personally is, How to do PBL with as little downtime as possible? In PE, our goal is to keep them moving as
much as possible since it is probably the only time the majority of students
are physically active during the day. My
vision of a physical education PBL class would be students being active at the
same time they are working on a project.
I think reflection and revision would be what I would use the most in my
class. I would say my greatest challenge
to implementing PBL is probably due to me being stubborn, and not knowing enough about PBL in physical education.
I agree with what you say about our goal being to create "productive members of society." I have been guilty of forgetting the "Career Ready" portion of our "College or Career Ready" message we promote with our students. As Robinson mentioned, not everyone plans to attend college, at least not immediately. We can differentiate within project based learning to teach the students the skills they need to be successful with either and, as you state above, allow it to "translate into other areas of life."
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with your statement about using PBL while keeping students moving as much as possible. Even though art is different than PE, I have to constantly keep students on task. Because as soon as one finishes early and gets bored they begin to distract others if I do not immediately start them on a new assignment. I know this will be challenging but I look forward to seeing how this way of teaching can help our students. I enjoyed your post!
ReplyDeleteHi Clark,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed meeting you yesterday and appreciate your honesty about the reservations you have, and most of all your openness to trying pbl in your p.e. classroom.
You identified keeping students active and limiting downtime as well as including opportunities for reflection and revision as areas you wanted to target for growth. As you begin work on your unit plan today, keep these two areas in mind as you work to create your driving question, your culminating product(s), your need to knows, and most of all, the scaffolding and support your students will need to be successful.
Sincerely,
Dawn