Project Based Learning
June 20 - July 3, 2016This topic's journey started before the course actually began. Project based learning is something that I have been interested in for a while and did a very small amount of with my students.
I was introduced to Kevin Brookhauser (@brookhouser) at the Custom Google Summit my district put on in April of this year, where Kevin did a keynote presentation about 20time. He left me a (signed) copy of his book "The 20time Project", which I read some of prior to this course. I finished it as a part of this course's research and would recommend it to everyone. |
The 20time Project Reading |
While re-reading the beginning of Kevin's book and finishing reading the remainder of it I took notes. Those notes can be found HERE!
Kevin was also our guest speaker for the Google Hangout on Air for this course. The recording can be found on here. My favourite concepts and quotes were Tweeted out as I read! |
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Google Collection of Resources |
As there are so many places to look and so many resources about 20time, it made sense to create a Google Collection to share the best of the resources that I've found. Join the public Collection entitled 20Time in order to access this curated resource.
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Projects vs
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Projects are the end product of learning and although usually fun, do not require any critical thinking, problem-solving or new learning. Problem-based Learning (PBL) is the process of learning while solving. I love the visual provided to us as one of our readings.
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We were asked "Think about the projects that you have assigned to your students in the past. Pick one of those projects and decide whether it was a project or project based learning. How could you tell? What could you do differently to change the lesson so that it was Project Based Learning and not just a project?"
A project that I did with my grade 3's was to have them pick an animal and research about it, as part of our Alberta Science curriculum's unit on animal life cycles. The only part of this project that gave the students any agency was that they got to pick the animal of their choice. The remainder of the project was quite structured; categories they had to fill in as they were reading/researching. Also, it was done at the end of the unit as a 'wrap-up' activity. Completely a project! If I was to do it over again, not only would they get to chose what animal they want to learn about but they could look at it from any angle (can we save this endangered animal, what makes this animal unique from others, etc.). I think that they would have learned about it's life cycle just by learning their animal in depth, in order to answer whatever question/thesis they came up with about their animal. Also, if this had been done as the learning from the unit (instead of at the end) I would have been able to draw on what the students were doing to share with the class things that would trigger them to want to know that aspect about their animal. I think the learning would have been so much deeper for them, and more interesting for all of us!
A project that I did with my grade 3's was to have them pick an animal and research about it, as part of our Alberta Science curriculum's unit on animal life cycles. The only part of this project that gave the students any agency was that they got to pick the animal of their choice. The remainder of the project was quite structured; categories they had to fill in as they were reading/researching. Also, it was done at the end of the unit as a 'wrap-up' activity. Completely a project! If I was to do it over again, not only would they get to chose what animal they want to learn about but they could look at it from any angle (can we save this endangered animal, what makes this animal unique from others, etc.). I think that they would have learned about it's life cycle just by learning their animal in depth, in order to answer whatever question/thesis they came up with about their animal. Also, if this had been done as the learning from the unit (instead of at the end) I would have been able to draw on what the students were doing to share with the class things that would trigger them to want to know that aspect about their animal. I think the learning would have been so much deeper for them, and more interesting for all of us!
Some of my favourite resources provided to us for learning about PBL include:
https://youtu.be/08D0dBGIzYQ
https://youtu.be/xfP53Alnbhk
http://www.edutopia.org/pbl-research-learning-outcomes
https://tommullaney.com/2015/11/04/5-videos-to-move-you-towards-student-centered-and-future-ready-teaching/
http://plpnetwork.com/2012/04/04/pbl-in-primary-who-asks-the-questions/
http://plpnetwork.com/2011/08/15/project-based-professional-learning/
http://www.teachthought.com/learning/project-based-learning/project-based-learning-cheat-sheet-authentic-learning/
http://www.teachthought.com/learning/project-based-learning/difference-between-projects-and-project-based-learning/
http://www.hightechhigh.org/projects/
http://pblu.org/projects
Research Project |
After researching 20time I created a slide deck and shared it with the Google+ Community and in the courses resources.
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Moonshot Thinking |
The video that we were asked to watch about moonshot thinking was wonderful! Kevin Brookhouser talked about it also on pages 54-59 of his book. He stated that the biggest lesson he learned was "to never, ever discourage someone from thinking too big." (p58) I love this concept and completely agree with him.
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PBL Plan |
Thesis Statement: Integrating technology in the classroom engages students.
My project plan can be found here! I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. I would love to be able to actually do this with a group of teachers in our district. I did my peer review for Allegra Osborne. A fun project where teachers get to make recommendations to the district for the Add-Ons they will support. |
Final Reflection |
Although I was really excited to learn about 20time (and PBL in general), I struggled to focus and really get going on this course. Coming up with an idea for the final project was very difficult; I am one of those fixed-minded people who have trouble being 'creative'. The turning point for me was when I had finally formulated my potential driving questions; even though I had come up with two, the second one just struck a chord and I was off.
What will student agency look like in your classroom one year from today? Since I don't have my own classroom currently, I hope that through my project plan I will to be able to see a lot of student agency (along with tech integration) in the classes of the teachers I work with. I hope that their students will be given the opportunity to be engaged through this amazing process and that even a few of those that are bored with school will have the chance to turn those feelings around. Let's allow students to show us their greatness! |