Blog Post # 1

Chapter 2: Thinking. Through Project Based Learning “In project based learning, curiosity is the engine for learning. Of course, more than curiosity is required for students to reach the finish line. But if a project doesn’t get students caring and wondering from the outset, it’s almost certain to fall flat” ( Krauss and Boss). No truer can a statement be made when reflecting on my experience with implementation of PBL. The goal is to have students actively engaged in their learning process. The lack of stimulation and high interest with a project will definitely deter the ultimate outcome. As an educator and a lifelong learner, if I am not invested in the process and what I am working on, it is very hard for me to maintain focus. This is the same for my students. Trying to find something that is relevant, connects to best practices, standards yet is high interest is a tall order. However, I know that students at this day and age learn differently from years past. Passive learning isn’t helping them make those authentic connections and strengthening their neural pathways expanding their preexisting schema. Thinking about brain research, I wanted to design a PBL unit that would provide that choice to students connecting to the uniqueness of their brains, exposing them to varied experiences that help expand schemas and making connections from new to old information. One of the essential steps to doing this is getting to know my students. Finding out what is of high interest to them or relevant to their lives, I found insight into how to captivate them during implementation. Knowing your cliental or students is an invaluable piece of information that helps your curtail information or the product to what is going to be most beneficial. In hindsight, developing a PBL unit is always best once you know your students. I found myself having to redesign a lot of the content because I wanted it to have the most impact on the students I was currently teaching. With the unit I had developed fully ready to implement, I have spent a lot of time getting to know my students through conversations, conferences, and their journaling and interest inventories. This has helped me tremendously with determining my next steps with the PBL. Flexibility has to be a key component when embarking on this paradigm shift. Just because you have spent time developing and feel you have a finished product, it may have to change based on the needs of your students. Using research and best practices is also something that I took to heart when thinking about implementing PBL. “The right kinds of learning experiences during these years help children activate the neural circuits need to become proficient problem solvers and creative thinkers” (Willis, 2011). The shift to PBL and utilizing it within my classroom and school is the way to promote what Willis stated in the above-mentioned quote. What better what to prepare our children to become thinkers, analyzers, and productive citizens than to immerse them in a process that calls for them to have to think through problems and solve them in a way to makes sense to them? Chapter 3: After reading Chapter 3: Making the World Safe for Thinking, I came away with many thoughts about how I would love for the physical environment in not only my co-teach classroom but my school as well to be. The first thing that stood out to me is the discussion at the beginning of the chapter about how schools like Birkdale Intermediate really dive head on into their PBL units. They really ignite the spark for getting excited about the upcoming PBLs by building an air of curiosity placing posters on the walls and even a flag up letting their students know that a new journey is about to begin. I think promoting new PBL projects and student interest is a great way for us to develop a community of learners. It helps students be excited about school and what they are learning. The other part of this is that is really connects the various grade levels. They are able to see what is going on around the school offering ways to maybe reach out and add something to the information the other grade level is focusing on. It promotes a community atmosphere instead of isolation. One of the biggest challenges facing us is how to develop the physical space into a space worthy of PBL. In a perfect world, we could have classrooms designed like Google or High Tech High that would allow flexibility and maximum creativity. I think one thing that would be great is developing a classroom that allows for flexible grouping and seating. The first step is removing the traditional model where we have desks lined in rows facing the front of the room where the board is situated. I would like to build a classroom with tables, desks, and other working spaces that provide plenty of choices and give students the ability to collaborate. After visiting several schools, it would be neat to have large foldable dry erase boards where you chart create divided areas, where posting everything connecting to PBL unit currently being worked on. Since I currently am co-teaching with another teacher, I have to have room to negotiate with her. In order to have an area conducive to my unit plan, having several tables, grouping desks and using floor space with provide so flexible grouping and seating choices. We can even utilize the space in the hallway in front of her door as an area. One of the things that I am making sure that I incorporate into my PBL is what is mentioned on page 30 about using “thinking strategies” embedded into the unit. I want students during my PBL to know only dive deep into the content but to be able use higher depth of knowledge thinking that promotes extended thinking like the lasting impact, influence, connections or explaining your thoughts with reasonable justifications. This is why I want each student to think about each subject matter presented, so that they can think about the cause/effect of the controversy and how he or she can promote change or awareness based on their opinions. Based on the data, that I have collected I now know how to scaffold the material to best serve the students in the focus class. There are some materials that I may have to reduce the lexile level to so that they can gain the same information but in a way that they understand. The other part to this is the maturity level. There are some topics that I will not address because they will not be able to handle it or it will be too much for them to logically discuss. The types of documents that they are presented with will be modified to meet ability levels. My duration of the unit with be decreased due to the timing the unit will be presented. There are so many things occurring at the end of the year, so to allow students maximum amount of time to express what they have learned, I have decided to reduce the number of weeks that are working on this project from 9 weeks to about 4 weeks. This way students can really delve deep into the topics and find something that they are passionate about and be a sustained time on this.

Course 2 Blog Post 2

Video Self Observation Reflection 

At the beginning of this portion of my PBL, not all groups were engaged until I was able to go around to each group to explain again and clarify objectives. Some students needed more guidance than others. I was able to sit and work closely with two boys that were struggling to understand they needed to continue reading past “Pesticides” and find two more theories of CCD. Mrs. Mitchell sat with two boys near the front of the classroom to ensure they were on task and working. They were not struggling with understanding what to do, rather staying focused and on task. The same two boys separated themselves the class before due to this. The day of this observation, they told me they could work efficiently together so I let them rejoin. Though their performance could have been better, they did show improvement. They have successfully worked together with my close attention.

By the end of the lesson, the majority of students had reviewed the research independently or collaboratively to identify at least three causes of CCD. Students struggled to write an effective claim. Most could provide the theory they believe for CCD, but were not providing evidence. The next day I gave students an example and a sentence starter to rewrite/revise their claim ensuring they provided evidence to support their claim.

Video 1 – Two boys were struggling with understanding of overall goal. I let them work for a few minutes and went back to check on them they were still hung up on one theory, pesticides. I sat with them to provide guidance

Video 2 – I provided clarification for two girls working and guided them through what their process should be.

Video 3 – A glimpse of engaging activities, products, and bee information prior to this observation. Essential question “Why are honeybees so important to us?”

Video 4 – Two boys in front of classroom telling Mrs. Mitchell what they have learned. Mrs. Mitchell guides them to put what they have learned in their own words on their workspace. Two girls are using notes from classed in addition to their research for this lesson to complete task.

Video Self-Analysis “Noticing” Rubric

Identifying What’s Important – Advanced: I identified what was most important in my classroom and instruction.

Making Connections – Proficient: I made connections between multiple parts of classroom instruction

Incorporating Contextual Knowledge – Proficient: I incorporated some contextual knowledge into my analysis.

Drafting Next Steps – Advanced: I generated multiple next steps in my analysis and implemented them.

Clark H. Maxwell Chapter 4 post

Chapter 4 was all about letting students inquiry guide them in their learning.  I think that's great if the student is motivated to learn and better themselves.  That is what makes all of this work.  The student has to decide for him or her self.  In PE, inquiry can happen during a game we might be playing, or while watching another team play.  We call it scouting, or adjusting your game plan to get better results.  I's sure when we teach comprehensive health that there is some real inquiry, but there are some things we cannot discus at school.  The majority of my assessment is informal, and all visual.  I am always looking for better athletes for our teams, and many times these are the guys/girls in PE who excel and can lead teams.  The only hard scoring that I do is on the FitnessGram test.  We can't give a grade for these tests.  The way I've set up my PBL is to have my students go through various workouts for a few weeks.  This gave them an idea as to how they will need to organize their project/workout.  I thought that this would help them learn/see how they would need to organize things in the gym according to the space we have.  I do not think they would have come up with the same thing on their own, but I could be wrong.

Chapter 4 Post "The Thinking-Out-Loud-and-in-View Classroom"

Chapter 4 was an eye opener for me and made me question my teaching technique of my PBL lesson. I wish I would have started PBL by teaching a starter lesson so students would have known exactly what to expect. When teaching my lesson I was sure to ask open ended questions. I also tried to be more of a navigator instead of giving specific answers to their questions. I was able to listen to students working together and watch them figure out how to add up their vacation prices. I got excited at one point when I heard one student tell another that "you don't have to add all the numbers up, you can just multiply if it is the same number." They were teaching each other. I need to work with my students on brainstorming and have them learn how to distinguish what they know from what they don't know. I would also like to teach a lesson with a little more discovery just to see how far I can get students to think outside the box while searching for an answer.

Julianna Lux--Chapter 4 reflection

I really wish that I had encountered this chapter over the summer before creating my PBL. The idea of a starter project and starting small would alleviate the stress I currently feel as I am coming up on implementing my project. Starting with a PBL at the very beginning of the semester instead of waiting until the end would also work better because my students would be learning the process from the beginning instead of halfway through the semester.  The students need to have an opportunity to learn the process before taking on a bigger process, and I feel I don't have time to teach the process in a way that's going to leave them with a good taste in their mouth about PBL and becoming independent learners.  I'd considered switching my PBL to a different class period (which meant a different level and curriculum), but I do not have a 3-4 week chunk of time to do a PBL with them, so I'm back to my original class and wishing I could go back in time to begin the semester with this PBL instead of the middle-to-end of the semester with this PBL.  Teaching it from the very beginning of the semester would allow them to build on what they learn and create a more meaningful experience than a one-and-done project.  I'm not giving them an opportunity to learn from their mistakes to make it better the next time around.

I also wish we had PBL instruction posters we could put up in the classroom--"Do Three--Ask Me," "Buzz" instructions, "SCAMPER" and so forth.  I believe this would help the students understand what to do.

Sarah Garner; Chapter 4 blog post

As I read through chapter 4 I came to the realization that I do not allow my students to do much inquiry. I am teaching them through a project, but I am not letting them discover the content on their own. I teach the topic and then relate it to their project, but I am unsure how to let the students discover this information on their own. For example, I teach slope and how to interpret slope, and then I tell them the connection. I am wondering how I can have them make that connection on their own. I feel that I am still struggling with letting go of control and allowing the students to be creative and think on their own. I feel that helping students with creating thinking tool kits will help with this process.

Emily Waddill Course 2 Chapter 4 Post

What I have realized from reading this chapter is that doing PBL for the first time with 6^th graders will take a lot of modeling and scaffolding. However, I know that this will be a great experience for all involved. I feel that I need to provide a daily to do list to help students stay on task and help with time-management. I also really like the idea of students distinguishing what they know from what they don’t know. On the first day of the project, I plan on doing this activity with my students before creating our Need To Know list as a class. I really think that this will help my students form questions about budgets and being responsible with money. I also like the idea of Do Three – Ask Me so that students get familiar with problem solving on their own before asking for help.

I also realized that my project did not really allow students to provide feedback to one another and I want my students to know how to give thoughtful feedback. So instead of one group giving a final presentation to the whole class, I’ve decided to do the Gallery Walk protocol. I know that I want to provide students with a template/rubric to provide feedback. However, I’m not sure how to calculate each group’s final grade. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!