Class 3- Blog Post #4 Mandy Irick: Digging in Deep

A thought occurred to me today during our work session with our PBL unit. The PBL had been introduced weeks ago to the students with the driving question behind all of the work and research being “How can high school students transition effectively into successful college freshman?” Today we were at a point in the process where students were writing emails to college professors and college students to gather more information about how to answer the question. Students had to formulate their own questions along with asking the professor for feedback on their chosen five to eight essential college must haves ranging from academics to soft skills. Before we even devilled into this world, a mini-lesson was devised to introduce effective email etiquette and a whole class created list of important features the email should contain. Students were working independently on this task, using the information they learned, and sharing with peers and teachers to get feedback on the email. Now keep in mind, this is an exploratory class. We have less time to complete and many students look for this as an opportunity to breathe, relax, abstain for rigor and to be honest not stress since it isn’t a core content class. It was during the time myself and my co-teacher were walking around providing support to the students, that I noticed one struggling to get even one line on the email. He would jot nonsense down or a statement that could be taken as an act of defiance. This student is not a struggler by any means maintaining very high marks on all of his core content area classes. He is articulate and for the most part not an extreme behavioral problem. However today in particular he was causing others to struggle with their emails because he was so off task. Now it would have been extremely easy for me to scold him, remind him of what he needed to do and offering no options or outlet. Believe me when I say that it was difficult. However, the goal for PBL in my mind is to engage the student, amp up participation along with rigor and make them feel invested in the process. Therefore, I decided to pull him aside into a one-on-one session in the classroom. Luckily, having my co-teacher in there help so, those that needed my assistance could contain to go through him and I even recommended peer tutors to help as well. I cannot tell you how glad I was that I took the time to do this. My first question was to the student why are you are struggling to write this? There are always options so let find the struggle and determine a way to fix it. The first statement he made to me was that he did not understand how this related to him. In his perspective, why should he have to do the work for high school students when they could do the research and leg work? He felt it was not designed for him therefore; it was not relevant and caused him to do extra than he should. Wow, that really struck me. I could easily see the connection of why this pertained to them because everything they were brainstorming with their essentials are fundamental skills that make you successful in life regardless of what you do. Unfortunately, this student did not make the connection. To him, it was unfair because he was doing work for someone else. My next question to him was how could we make this applicable to him. When talking about the essentials, I posed to him what are some skills that you need to improve on? He and I talked about at least when the feedback arrived it would be beneficial and relevant to him not just to others. We talked about what were the areas he knows are important but he needs to work on. The student told me things like I” need to be more organized with materials and that I am really bad managing my time along with having a hard time working with others and staying on task.”  From there, he completely revised his eight essentials to be more meaningful to him. The other question I posed to him was did him feel that he had enough information to begin his personal project and forgo the email to the professor. I told him this could be an option. At this point, he became even more transparent since he was sharing weaknesses and revealed he struggles when it comes to writing and essays. He equated the email to writing a long drawn out piece. The student knew it was a weakness so he was trying to avoid doing it. This revelation led us to work together to compile an email with his own thoughts while in a straightforward manner. It was after I helped support him during the first line of his email that he continue to work on the rest without help. He placed thoughtful responses and questions that were pertinent to him but also comfortable. I say all this because it was such a learning experience for me. PBL is for not only providing rigor, critical thinking and personalized learning but to learn more about the students that are in our class that we are working with. I reflect back and think it I did not take the time to question and have a conversation with him, I would have never discovered what I did today. PBL is a mindset and a shift in the way we think. It we want students to be engaged and take ownership, we have to be willing to allow them time to share their thoughts and problem solve ways to make it more meaningful to them. By doing this, the student began to understand why this was important to him and even had a chance to make it more personalized. I think that in the past I have not done this as much as I should have. After this experience, I know that it will be a staple. He made the learning about him not solely what I wanted for him. I was able to guide and make sure he stayed within the perimeters of what we were trying to accomplish. As a teacher, I learned more about the insecurities that he possessed in writing even though in an outward appearance this kid was highly successful at school. It helped me to understand why he was fighting not to do the task and really learn more about his self-perception. PBL will always possess trials and tribulations with some days being better than others are. However, for me putting those students in control of their learning and building that agency can only occur if I am willing to let go of the stringent guidelines that I have set forth. Today was so beneficial because I had to change my mindset and let him rationalize the learning making it more effective for him. We have to be more flexible and constantly strive to build this effective classroom environment. The classroom does not have to have two teachers to run smoothly because it we teach them how to guide their learning, the teacher can have a chance to be like me acting as a facilitator rather than dictating what he needs.