Julianna Lux Blog 1

Sir Ken Robinson challenges educators today to acknowledge that what worked in the past, what was necessary to learn in the past, what was enjoyed in the past is vastly different from what works, is necessary to learn, and is enjoyed today. He doesn't directly address PBL, but he does state we need to encourage passion and flexibility in the classroom.  We can't always plan ahead of time for those moments that will excite the students, but we need to embrace them and nourish the students' passion in order to motivate them them to pursue their interests. I believe District 6 is encouraging the teachers to step away from traditional learning opportunities (that often lose students' interest) and embrace PBL's unique, and sometimes organic, learning opportunities that result in learning opportunities students remember long after the assignment is done. I will not say that PBL is fully embraced on all levels, nor do I believe it will ever be fully accepted; however, I believe we are moving in the direction Robinson recommended. Seeds are being planted, and perhaps we will reap a substantial harvest.

Robinson's inclusion of Abraham Lincoln's quote resonates with me: "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country."  I have often found myself falling into the same routine year in and year out in order to avoid having to constantly reinvent the wheel. However, if someone hadn't continued to reinvent the wheel, we would be rolling around on bumpy stone wheels using our feet for brakes.  The students I teach in my classroom are not the students who sat next to me when I was in ninth grade, nor are they the same students who sat in my classroom fourteen years ago when I first began teaching.  These students enjoy a different outlook on life and strive for goals once unimaginable.  I need to embrace these changes and grow with my students in the classroom.  Project based learning encourages the students to explore their interests and discover their creative talents--aspects of learning often stifled by traditional lessons in my classroom.  My vision of a PBL classroom is one where students and teacher work together to identify a need and pursue ways to fill the need.  I think of Mr. Bigweld's (from Robots) motto: "See a need; fill a need."  As the teacher, my role would to be to provide them with some parameters and encourage them to use their talents to create a final product; along the way, I provide them with guidance and instruction in ways to reach that final product.  Unfortunately, from experience, I sometimes don't provide enough scaffolding with some of the skills necessary to create the final products.  Or I don't leave enough time and must sacrifice creativity in order to cover the skills.  I need to remind myself that even through the struggles of creating a unit, sometimes the end result is completely worth it.

Makisha Miller Blog 1

My response to Ken's challenge to revolutionize education is that I like how he wants to challenge and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence. I agree that creativity has been lost in education and I think that PBL may help solve some learning difficulties that struggling students have. I think that Spartanburg District Six is headed in the right direction with helping teachers to developing a PBL mindset for students. Promoting, developing, and supporting this mindset help supports the paradigm shift because there is a need for a change in the way students view how things happen in the world and realize that there are many processes that one has to go through in order to become a successful individual.

Ken Robinson's challenge means personally and specifically for my teaching is that I will be giving up the way I was taught in order to help students gain a sense of learning through research and rigorous problem based learning. He is not saying that it will be easy but he is saying that the old way is not working anymore.

My vision of a PBL classroom is students working together peacefully with one common goal in mind. These students may not get their answers the same way but that is okay as long as they were able to come to the correct understanding while solving a real world problem.

I will continue to foster the step by step explanation to solving problems but I will first give students a chance to solve the problem. I will also let students know that just because I have given them the steps to solve a problem does not mean it is the only way as they should have learned during the PBL process.

My greatest challenge would be keeping students motivated and wanting to discover ways to solve problems by themselves because they are so used to teachers and the internet giving them what they need in order to solve problems.

Emily Waddill Blog #1

I, like Ken Robinson, believe that we must embrace everyone’s talents no matter what they are and that we cannot put the focus so much on going to college, but to prepare our students in a way that they would be successful later in life. I completely agree with what Robinson said in his TED talk, in that we put too much emphasis on the future, so we sometimes forget about the process and the learning experiences that impact our lives in the now. Robinson mentioned that the way to reforming education is through personized curriculum and I think that moving toward a style using PBL is a very important way to travel in the right direction. Through PBL we are able to support students that are more likely to engage and be motivated to learn, which will foster better student-teacher relationships and help take the necessary steps toward a change.

Personally, Robinson’s challenge makes me feel like we have a long way to go if we want our education system to improve, however, it is not an impossible task.  I trust that teachers will work hard to do what is right by their students and I know that I will do whatever I can to promote learning and growth in my classroom as well. My vision of a PBL classroom is one where the teacher is more the facilitator of learning and students are having relevant and meaningful conversations about the content. I will continue to be a role model for students and guide them in the right direction through modeling of my own and that of their peers. I think that for me, the greatest challenge is going to be letting go and allowing students to take more responsibility in the classroom and their work. I also believe that structuring my classroom with a PBL focus in mind is going to be struggle because I’m very much a Type A learner and it’s not always easy to plan things from a different perspective.

Clark H. Maxwell Blog1

1  1. I think that a PBL mindset would allow students to learn in their own way.  Not everybody learns the same way, or at the same rate.  Even though this is 100% different from the way I was taught, I can see the advantages.  If PBL gets kids to be successful at learning, to figure out what they are good at on their own, and to become productive members of society, I am all for it.  I think that it meshes well with our district’s “College or Career Ready” message well.  That is the ultimate goal, is it not, college or career after high school.  If it makes students take ownership of their learning, it will translate into other areas of their life.

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    2. The challenge for me personally is, How to do PBL with as little downtime as possible?  In PE, our goal is to keep them moving as much as possible since it is probably the only time the majority of students are physically active during the day.  My vision of a physical education PBL class would be students being active at the same time they are working on a project.  I think reflection and revision would be what I would use the most in my class.  I would say my greatest challenge to implementing PBL is probably due to me being stubborn, and not knowing enough about PBL in physical education.

Kristi H. Winslow Blog Post 1

Ken, expressed a climate crisis we face is a crisis of human resources and that we make poor use of our talents.  With the two types of groups Ken described, we as teachers need to change the majority of people that endure what they do rather than enjoying it and make that the minority.  As much as I enjoy my job as a teacher, I want to allow my students to enjoy what they are doing in my classroom, rather than just enduring it because they have to.  Through project base learning (PBL), students will have an opportunity to flourish and explore their talents and find out their passions.

Growing up, I use to say to myself, “when will I ever use this in the real-world.”  By using the teaching strategy of PBL, our students will be able to say, that they “can” use this in the real-world and not just for that moment in that class.  My vision of a PBL classroom will be one that is using real-world scenarios with challenges embedded for students to create solutions to, using their problem solving skills and have a chance to present their talents and what their passionate about to their group members to overcome the ultimate goal.  I will continue to teach my students the concepts that are essential for them to attain in to order to develop a deeper level of learning.  Where they may then take the knowledge, they have acquired and use it in future life events and situations.  The challenge in implementing PBL in my classroom this year will be retaining command of my classroom, while giving up control.  I will need to learn to let go of some control, not behavioral, but of how they may learn the content and the order, and just trust the process. I am very excited about incorporating PBL into my teaching strategies to serve better the needs of my students.  

Robert Smith - Post 01

Assignment 1A

The current American educational model has not been radically changed or altered in almost 200 years. Classrooms in the 21st century are still derived on a Prussian model brought to the United States by Horace Mann in 1843 (Rose, 2012) whereby all citizens are deserving of a free educational system. The result of his idea was a publicly-funded educational system, a rectangular-shaped classroom housing approximately 30 similarly-aged students, all led by a single teacher (Eide, 2012). This model became, and has remained, the primary template for public schooling in the United States.

One of the real challenges is to innovate fundamentally in education. Innovation is hard, because it means doing something that people don't find very easy, for the most part. It means challenging what we take for granted, things that we think are obvious. The great problem for reform or transformation is the tyranny of common sense. Things that people think, “It can't be done differently, that's how it's done.”

- Sir Ken Robinson

Meanwhile, technology has revolutionized society outside of the classroom (Prensky, 2008). Computers, and the Internet, have changed how human beings interact with one another, communicate with one another, and go about conducting everyday searchers and research (An & Reigeluth, 2011). The modern world has become always linked-in to some facet of the digital world. Whether through the cellular telephones people carry, or through the applications and conveniences of the modern computer, the world has become an interconnected place.

Robinson commented that “(e)very education system in the world is being reformed at the moment and it's not enough. Reform is no use anymore, because that's simply improving a broken model. What we need…is not evolution, but a revolution in education.” Unfortunately, as summarily argued by Rose (2012), while society has evolved and grown from the conventions of the mid-1800s, there has been little evidence to suggest that this growth has any significant impact on teaching in general, but specifically on learners’ academic performances. This non-result comes even though many school leaders have tried to modernize the old Industrial education model (Rose, 2012).

Regarding how Robinson’s comments may be used in conjunction with the development of a Project Based Learning (PBL) mindset for Spartanburg School District Six students, I believe that administrators, teachers, and learners, in that order, must all believe that: a) there is a real urgency for educational “revolution” and b) that PBL is that instrument of change.

Assignment 1B

For me, Robinson’s challenge means that I do not stop carrying out my vision of education. For many years, I have used projects and interdisciplinary methods to teach. Projects usually begin in my classroom by the second week of school and are used throughout the year. Unfortunately, many times my assignments are projects for the sake of projects and not project-based learning. If I am going to become a true instrument of Robinson's educational revolution, then my vision of what a real PBL classroom is, what my classroom is, must change. I adopted the Wiggins and McTighe (1998) model of Understanding by Design many years ago. I have been integrating my lessons since before I truly understood what integration meant. However, that is not enough, per Robinson. Project-Based Learning should not only be my guiding pedagogical approach, but be the actual “framework for teaching skills and content” (Lenz, 2011).

I am not advocating for an abandonment of direct instruction. At times, especially in my discipline, mathematics, direct instruction is a necessity. However, I can control how much rigor and inquiry goes into my learners’ practice and personal knowledge construction. In other words, I may not be able to do the actual learning for my students, but I can make sure the practice and activities they use to acquire their knowledge is more rigorous, real-world based, and with true application opportunities than textbook problems provide. As far as my greatest challenge in implementing PBL in the upcoming school year, I cannot comment on this yet. As I already provide many opportunities for learners to engage in project-like, I will not commit to saying true project-based, yet, my greatest challenge may be how to do so in a more -based, not -like, approach.

Sarah Garner; Blog 1

Ken made a very interesting comparison between education and fast food. He stated that they were both standardized. As a nation, we want everything and everybody to be the same. Public education rarely allows students to explore their talents. However, through time and reform we are moving away from that thought process. Ken said that most students who leave the school system were not allowed to explore their talents and find their passion. As a nation, we need to move away from the fast food or industrial model, and go to what Ken called the agriculture model. We need to allow personalization and help our students find their passion and talents. This completely correlates to project based learning. Through different projects, the students are allowed to explore different career fields and experiences. They are able to find their talents and follow them. We need to lay the foundation to allow our students to grow and flourish. 

At first, Ken's revolution intimidated me because, like most people, change is scary. As a student, I was taught through steps and practice problems. I was unable to use what I learned in my math classes and apply it in the real world, or even give an example of how is used in the real world. It was not until college that I actually was able to apply my knowledge of mathematics. Being taught steps is not how students learn and retain knowledge. Project based learning will allow the students to make connections between multiple content areas and apply their knowledge to the real world. Project based learning will help me become a better teacher. I will become more of a facilitator. I will teach my students the knowledge that is essential and allow them to learn through exploring the topic. My greatest challenge will be discipline and student motivation. The students are so accustomed to learning steps and procedures, and then practicing with those steps. They are not able to think critically on their own. It will be a challenge for me to get the students thinking and coming up with solutions on their own.  I am excited to see how I grow through this experience.