Makisha Fowler-Miller Reflection on Emerald High School Blog 1

I really enjoyed Emerald High School. When going in I really did not know what to expect. I was excited to see students eagerly engaged in the lesson. My favorite part of my visit was the color personality grouping. I love the fact that the students were being taken out of their comfort zone. I plan on utilizing this concept in my room. I also enjoyed the fact that the students in the Coding class seemed to be so knowledgeable. I am so amazed by what Emerald High School is doing.

What I am excited about the most.......Robert has finally turned on the light for me to what a PBL lesson should look like. I talked with him and he is okay with me coming to his class and getting some pointers. I am so excited! I really was still confused about what a math PBL should look like. Todays briefing and reflections have really helped me a lot!

Blog Post 1 - Kristi Winslow - Reflection on Emerald High School

The overall experience at Emerald High School was fantastic.  It was amazing to see all subject areas working on individual projects that would help with their students soft skills.  That is something my school struggles with as a whole in having all subject areas working on something that our students will be able to use in their future.  As a science teacher I observed many aspects in the classrooms that I cannot wait to incorporate into my own classroom. 
In the ELA classroom I loved how the teacher gave her students color personality tests to create classroom groups based on their personality rather than their ability.  I would love to use this strategy in my class, due to my students consistently being in groups and working on independent group projects.  I believe this would have a huge impact on their social skills ans work ethic. 
 I loved how in the biology classroom, I observed, the students were involved in a silent debate on the purpose of their PBL experience they were beginning, on whiteboards that were large enough for each student to reach and write their own response.  When having my students come up with a whole group consensus, I have not been able to supply them with large enough boards or chart paper, for them all to work on at the same time, so I would love to get larger boards where they can erase or add more to it at the same time everyone else in the group is working.  I believe this would cut back on students having their opinions swayed by what others have written and allows them to voice their opinions based on what they know, think, or what they have learned.

Kimberly Trott

I really enjoyed the visit to Emerald High School.  I felt that the trip really helped put PBL into perspective.  I realized there is no one correct way to implement PBL. I tend to be very structured at first and feel like I don't have permission to deviate from what I've been told or taught.  I realized that PBL regardless of how it looks is occurring if students are engaged in the learning and solving of a real world problem in their content area.

What I really liked was the students involved in discussing the roles of the group members in science.  This was a political science lesson within the science classroom.  In the computer AP course I was amazed at what the students were doing.  I liked that the students were actively engaged in the learning without instruction from the teacher.  This was of course an AP course and the students are typically motivated in those classes so what is impressive is that the possibility of student choice in the artifact that they were creating.  Students were able to follow the directions and work with one another collaboratively.

The English class was really well developed and Ms. Wells and Snelgroves class was a fantastic model of PBL in practice.  I like how she told me they had essentially mini products to produce like the newspaper as well as the larger PBL timeline that goes on the hallway of the school. 

The social studies class let me see that I didn't have to have every aspect of PBL student driven.  The class used teacher created rubrics for the PBL projects.  It made me realize that the implementation of every PBL protocol is not necessary.  There is an ideal, but you may not necessarily be able to do that with every PBL. 

Emily Waddill Course 3 Post 1

I saw very many great things happening at Emerald High School today and several ideas that I would like to try out in my own classroom. It is truly evident how the whole staff has come together to embrace PBL within their school and made a community with the students and teachers collaborating. Something that I didn't really focus on in my last PBL unit was the soft skills. I was so focused on what I had to do and what the students needed to do that the soft skills fell on the back burner. I really want to discuss with the students how working together benefits them and that we're trying to improve our soft skills to be college and career ready. I also plan on giving the true colors personality assessment at the beginning of next year and using group contracts more often with my students along with work contracts so that we can use our class time most efficiently.

Sarah Garner; Blog Post 1

I truly enjoyed our visit to Emerald High School. This very impoverished school has not limited itself because of it, but has found ways to engage and improve the students' education. They have done this by incorporating PBL. Many stories from the teachers included higher student engagement. Right now in my classes I am struggling with students completing their work. Just in my fourth block, I have 41 zeros because students just do not turn in their work. Through the stories from the teachers of Emerald, I believe that PBL projects will increase that motivation to turn work in. I also enjoyed seeing the students undergo creating their own work contract. During my PBL unit first semester, I felt that one of the partners did all the work and they other partner got the grade. I feel that incorporating the work contract into my next unit will reduce that from happening again. I really loved how they used the personality test to group the students. Most of the time we group students together based on some good characteristics, but mostly the bad. I want to use the personality test to group students in my next PBL in order to group the students using all positive characteristics. The school seems very passionate about project based learning, and they are seeing the results from their students. I hope that my school will create a similar culture in the future.

Julianna Lux--Blog Post #1

Bear with me...this is a long post (as mine tend to be...it's the writer in me). The first two paragraphs are an update, the next two paragraphs are my response to Matt Bertasso's article, but the last paragraph is the Call to Action for me--how I want to utilize what I gleaned from Bertasso's article. Skip to that if you'd like. I won't be offended.

Once again, we begin a semester with the weather throwing a curveball at us.  Last semester it was total eclipses and hurricanes; this semester it’s fake ice storms and real snow storms (which I was reluctant to believe would come up until the second I looked out my window at a blanket of beautiful white snow covering the ground and rooftops).  These curveballs have me scrambling to make sure I can get through each of the PBL units I’ve planned before the end of the school year.  Their first nine weeks is packed full with nonfiction- and community-based PBL, and I want to get them to the second nine weeks fiction and media-based PBL units rolling around in my mind.

We jumped head-first into a getting-to-know-you PBL (unit title pending) with the students writing personal narratives and opinion essays, conducting classmate interviews, and designing a class website. Some students are more excited than others (mostly because we’re in the writing phase of the unit as opposed to the designing phase), but I’m hoping they will all come around the further along we get. My biggest obstacle so far has been student absences--one student has been absent all but one school day, another has missed the last four school days, a third has missed every other day this past week. Once these three students return, I will need to find numerous opportunities to catch them up to the rest of the class without keeping them from making up work in other classes.

I designed this unit to ease the students into the idea of using projects to learn various skills--creating websites, interviewing people, solving problems in the community; however, after reading Matt Bertasso’s “The Secrets to Great Teaching,” I’m wondering if I’m providing the fish too much as opposed to teaching them how to fish. I’ve located the sample personal narratives opinion essays to read and examine for style, albeit mostly because the students cannot access Teen Ink on our network; I’ve stipulated the required elements for the website instead of letting them throw out ideas for what should be included. Granted, I’ve struggled to get them to answer my questions about what the writer is doing, but I wonder if I could eventually get them to answer more if I continue to expect it instead of settling back into the habit of giving them all the answers.

I also wonder if I’ll get better reactions if I give my students the rod instead of holding it myself. Bertasso says “When students have ownership over their learning, they aren’t learning for the teacher, the grade, or for their parents, they are learning for themselves and deeper learning happens. Students, at this point, are truly fishing.” I want them to fish for themselves. Every semester, my students receive a letter that describes my role in the classroom: “My goal is for you to emerge from this year as eager learners—always looking for the next big idea and indulging your curiosities.  I am here to facilitate and monitor you on your educational journey.” I’m a facilitator--my job is to make the learning easier, but I’m not doing that by giving them the fish, answering the questions for them. They will never learn to catch fish on their own if my hands are always on the fishing rod or I’m always giving them the fish.

That brings me to my next thought, and it scares me: What if I involved them in the planning of the unit? Completely throw out every bit of my plan other than a chunk of time during the semester and let my students design the unit with my guidance? I’d give the students a problem, theme, or essential question and see what they create.  At its core, this is Genius Hour but full-time. Can I give up that much control in my classroom? I might have to flesh out the unit to ensure it’s not fluff and my students are truly learning the standards, but part of me believes they will be fine. I’m not sure I’m ready to do that just yet with my CP students; perhaps I will after these first few units. However, I’m about to begin the first true unit of my English II American Literature class after we wrap up our summer reading writing unit next week.  I’ve been toying with the idea of having them research life in Colonial America and creating a presentation to sell the idea to those still living in England at the times. What if I tossed them the question “What was it like to live in American during Colonial times?” Would that be too open-ended? Would I get high quality products? Would they access the primary sources I would like them to use or would they create a project that could be completed by simply doing a Google search? How do I fit in all the literature I don’t want to leave out--Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Bradford’s Plymouth Plantation, Henry’s speech to the Virginia Convention? I’m scared, but I want to give it a shot. Am I crazy? A quote from one of my favorite movies keeps running through brain: “You’re daft, lady!” I think I’d rather be daft like Jack, though, than play it safe and limit my students’ potentials.