Tieraney G. Rice Post #6: PBL Workshop

I had the pleasure of presenting my PBL project "Shapes Are Everywhere" to one of the program directors with Greenville County First Steps.  Greenville First Steps is an organization that partners to promote school readiness initiatives by enhancing the work that local preschools are already doing in the community.  Their mission is to help get children ready for school.  I wanted to present my project and talk about the benefits of PBL to this organization to raise awareness about the approach and to demonstrate how it is effective as early as preschool.  First, I explained what PBL is and I gave an overview of what takes place for the students and teachers during the different phases of the approach.  I talked about the project I implemented in the fall. Then, I talked about and showed my shapes project.  I had all of our documentation from the project displayed on the wall starting with the driving question all the way to pictures showing the final presentation we had for the families and members of the community.  She was very impressed by the inquiry based activities the students were engaged in throughout the project.
Prior to my presentation, the program director had not heard of PBL.  So, that made me that much more excited to share the information.  She was enlightened and eager to go back and share what she learned with her colleagues.  I certainly enjoyed sharing the information with her, and my hope is that she will share it with other preschools she visits.  I'm also hoping that I will be able to share my projects and the PBL approach by doing workshops at other preschools.