Clark H. Maxwell Blog #5

Blog Post #5

What I Used To Think/But Now I Know

                When I was first asked to take the PBL class there was no doubt that I was concerned.  My area is physical education.  My main concern right off the bat was losing activity time.  Many of our kids only get physical activity at school, so anything that would take away from that had me worried.  In addition, I do not do very well with change.  Change can be scary, whereas the status quo is safe.  My experience in PE as a student and as a teacher has always been an old school way of thinking, “what the coach says you do the best you can and keep practicing until you get it right”.  I mean he/she is the coach, they know what they are talking about because this is what they do.  Now I know that this may be archaic, but it is how I am.  Therefore, I had difficulty at times this week trying to figure out how I can do PBL and still have activity time.  Luckily, we had a great instructor who listened to my concerns and put my mind at ease.

                Looking at the “Profile of the SC Graduate” and the “Essential Elements of PBL”, it is obvious that they go hand in hand.  There are a few key elements of each that stick out to me that are essential for students moving forward after high school.  Being able to use critical thinking and problem solving skills are two core elements in my opinion.  In the real world you have to do that every day.  PBL caters and develops those skills on a smaller scale, but is something that applicable later in their education career or life.  Sustained inquiry and knowing how to learn are the other two things that jump out at me.  If the project captures and peaks the interest of the student, they will want to dive deeper into the subject material own their own.  I know I do that on a weekly basis on various areas of interests.  Knowing how to learn, I feel, is an extension of this.  Maybe the student needs to see it visually before they can make connections. On the other hand, they might need to use google for research, or get some on the job training before the material sinks in.  Either way, students learn how they learn best and as a result go deeper and learn more.  These four concepts should allow our students to be the very best they can be in education, in their jobs, and in society.

                This week of class was really a PBL within a PBL.  We started with a problem, our own PBL unit.  Then we collaborated with others on different aspects of our units.  Bouncing ideas off each other and picking out the pieces that would work best for our subject and us.  We had to communicate as well.  What we were thinking, feeling, what we liked, and what we wondered as we processed through critical friends.  Some of us had to get creative to make things work because of some challenges our subjects present.  Then we revised things until we had our final product.  Which was our own PBL unit to do in the fall.

                The one thing this class has taught me was that PBL and PE can coexist.  Are there going to be challenges, yes.  The main challenge for me is balancing physical activity time with PBL time.  I think the best way for me to implement PBL in PE is to keep the projects simple and short.  I believe that making the projects PE related, it would keep the students motivated to do it.  This way it will not feel like they are just in another academic class with work to do.  Overall, this class has opened my mind to many possibilities within PE.