After listening to Ken Robinson's challenge to revolutionize education, I feel like our work in D6 is headed on the right path. We have to realize as teachers that our students are changing. The population of students that I had my first year of teaching compared to those in my classroom recently are significantly different. Robinson mentioned how are students are more digitized. We have to change our perspective of teaching to catch up to them. I think D6 as a whole is moving to support the paradigm shift by providing us with the professional development to apply this new type of education.
I believe that the revoloution is needed in any capacity of teaching. I have often said this to my coworkers often. We can't continue to offer a fast food education to our students and expect them to get the same outcome. We have so many different needs in the classroom that we have to be able to offer more. Our students have to be engaged in what their learning. This is a "microwave" generation and they want everything quickly, PBL is an opportunity to slow down our students and allow them to actually think about their own learning. We currently use the PBL model at RES and it gave me such an insight on my students learning. I thought it also helped me as a teacher to make sure my instruction was more individualized for the students as they worked. The biggest challenge for implementing PBL in my classroom is time and materials. As a 5th grade teacher, we struggle with finding enough hours in the day. When the students would participate in a PBL, we would find it difficult to get to any other subjects that aren't integrated. Secondly, we would have a hard time finding the materials for some of the PBL we envisioned, even when using what we had was still enjoyable for the students. Overall, I think the PBL approach is very useful in the classroom. I love to see my students engaged in their learning and hearing them ask to work on their PBL.
I agree with your statement that one of the biggest challenges in implementing PBL will be time. Inquiry and project-based learning just takes longer, so I think the key (as Dawn mentioned today) is to find a unit that isn't working that well and try implementing PBL there. What do we have to lose, right?
ReplyDeleteI hadn't thought about how PBL helps our students slow down and allows them to think about their learning. I have found that when my students are working on projects they are so much more invested and want to spend the time to become experts on the topic. When we are not doing a project, many times they just want to be 'done'. But through PBL, they really are slowing things down as they are able to think about the topic and the process of how they are learning about it.
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ReplyDeleteI totally agree with your statement, " I thought it also helped me as a teacher to make sure my instruction was more individualized for the students as they worked." That is one of the things that I love about PBL-I feel all students can achieve and experience success.
ReplyDeleteHi Teelah,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your positive outlook with pbl and I, too feel that our district is moving in the right direction with our integration of technology as well as our support of pbl as an effective structure for our curriculum.
I agree with you that pbl provides our students with an opportunity to slow down and learn "in depth" and to also personalize their learning, promoting understanding and application of both literacy and technology as lifelong learning and career skills. I am looking forward to the continued work we will do this week creating our own pbl units of study.
"This is a "microwave" generation and they want everything quickly."
ReplyDeleteYour statement is so true. So many of our students desire instant gratification. They want to get things done quickly, and they aren't always willing to devote a lot of time and energy into their school work. I think it is important that we teach them that it is important to invest our time into things that are worthwhile, and PBL gives us the opportunity to do that!
From Marie: Knowing your hurdles is half the battle and you seem to know what your challenges are. You passion shows in your comments and that will lead you to the outcomes your desire for your students.
ReplyDeleteThis is a "microwave" generation and they want everything quickly, PBL is an opportunity to slow down our students and allow them to actually think about their own learning.
ReplyDeleteI so agree with this statement. I think that in many times we rush to "get through" content and students also want to rush to do this. How often in our classrooms do we hear "what do we do next?" I like the thoughts that we need to slow down and encourage students to think about their thinking.