Lindsey-Day 1

After watching this video I felt like Ken Robinson would have loved to be in our class today. J  I feel that his “organic process” goes hand in hand with PBL as well as the shift in thinking within our district.  We are very fortunate to work in a district that supports new ideas and changes, and helps its teachers create learning conditions that allow for students to flourish.  We are living in a “digitized” society and we have to be willing to change our old methods to best meet the needs of our diverse students.  And I believe implementing PBL is the right kind of change.

 I see Ken Robinson’s challenge as a reminder of all the things we already know about education and best practices for our students.  These things are often forgotten due to everyday stresses of teaching.  I am very fortunate to work on a team that does A LOT of collaborative planning; (as in we do everything the same J) but with that can come some resistance to change.  Each year we revisit lesson plans, and each year some teachers don’t want to make any changes.  I always remind them that our kids are different each year and while it may have worked then, it may not work now.  We need to be accommodating for our diverse learners and make sure they have the right learning conditions to flourish.  Within my own classroom I hope to continue to foster critical thinking through inquiry, while revising some of my previous PBL units to include all the design elements.  My biggest challenge in implementing PBL is time and allowing students to generate the essential question.  I feel teachers never have enough time; but with implementing a PBL unit I feel it is hard to gage time management in our daily lessons as well as how many days/weeks to block off on long range plans. Another challenging area for me is allowing students to generate the driving questions.  This is an area that is difficult for me when planning a PBL; the thought of turning it over to my second graders is a little intimidating.