Below are the notes, goals and ideas from our workshop.
Contact Information:
Blair Hatch
Website: mm.hightechhigh.org
Email: blair@blairhatch.com
Jade White (Mohr)
Website: dp.hightechhigh.org/~jmohr
Email: jmohr@hightechhigh.org
Peter Cobb
Website: cobbandassociates.com
Email: peter@cobbandassociates.com
Goals
What do you hope to learn?
- Workability – logistics of planning, collaboration, time, structure
- Assessment
- Process, organization, management
What do you hope to experience?
- The process of being a student in the PBL setting
- The “aha moment” – this will work and will transform how we teach and how the students learn
Point of Strength
- Discussion where students are in charge of the discussion
- Sense of greater relevance to their lives
- Persuasive arguments
- Making powerful connections between ideas
- Teacher demonstrating and students participating
- Students asking questions with teacher responses to further discussion
- Managing from off stage not on stage performing
- Lots of noise
- No one wants to leave class
- Students working
- Group work
- Real communication in target language
- Real student interest
The Ideal Graduate
Skills
- Argue academically
- Learning to fail with grace
- Learning to collaborate (how to be a leader/follower, how to work together)
- Communicate effectively verbally, written and digitally
- Not taking yourself too seriously (having a good humor, being playful)
Competency
- Ability to make connections between disciplines
- Cultural literacy to enable understanding
Capacities
- Applying learning to the real world
- Pushing through comfort zone
- Ability to argue a point respectfully
- Willingness to question
- Applying what you know in new and novel ways (transferring knowledge)
- Learning to fail with grace
- Finding a passion
- Morally sound/ethical literacy (how to make ethical decisions)
- Be a contributor to the world (work that is purposeful)
- Educated/healthy skepticism (asking good questions and processing answers)
The PBL Vernacular
Planning Backwards – Start from final product, identify a goal and figure out how to get there before starting to work, use essential questions as a guide
Final Product (s0 far) – Format and content have room to develop, means by which skills, capacities & competencies can be evaluated, todays version
Essential Question(s) – Starting point for s & t, maybe a destination not just departure, evolve over time, why it matters, designed to explore and open doors not merely to answer questions, limited number
Scaffolding – providing various levels of support with end goal that student can do something independently, division of a task into manageable increments, check-ins, accountability, system of planning that takes prior knowledge into account, allows for growth and connections
Intermediate Deliverables – Actual parts of a project that are accomplished, scheduled check-ins, break large project into smaller parts, these are the benchmarks
Community Connections – Demonstrated relevance to the projects community of choice, real-world application
A Critical Friend Among Colleagues – Practice that facilities constructive feedback, ability to help one and other, kind, specific and honest feedback
Mentorship – Mutually beneficial relationship with different levels of experience/knowledge designed to encourage growth and competence
Critique and Revision – Process in which feedback is responded to, continual refinement of teaching/learning practice, intermediate stage allowing for revision
Presentation of Learning (POL) – Final public demonstration, culminating demonstraion of learning practice, includes audience not just teacher, includes intermediate deliverable, about the process, where you are now
Rubric – Set of expectations/criteria on how the POL will be evaluated, means by which to measure that the student has met goals, outlines components for success, students help create them and have them from the start
Digital Portfolio (DP) – Record of ones work in an electronic portable format, means to assess work and evaluate projects
Exhibition – Public display of work, can be active or passive, include parents, field experts, professionals, way to share learning with the community
Project Playground
Design a project that you could integrate with either a multimedia teacher or another teacher at your school. Topics are:
- Environment
- Health
- Elections
- Culture
Project “Homework” – Create a working title for a project you will design and implement this year
Working Titles
- Financing the Founders (Kelly & Kit)
- What Makes it Terror? (Suzanne)
- Storytelling as an Artifact (Tait & Julie)
- The Seeds of Discontent (Steve)
- Culture War: Enlightenment vs. Romanticism (Kent)
- My Modern Family (Kristen & Kara)
- Resistance: Heroism or Foolishness (Mieke)
- Watt Energy Means to Me (Tom)
- The Nature and Effectiveness of American Power in the Cold War (Wells)
- Debunking Diet (Cindy)
- The Five Components of Fitness (Albert)
- Comparative Middle Eastern Cultures (Nicole)
Rubric Examples
Click here to go to the document
Resource – creating infographics site – easel.ly