Getting the hang of it

We started our PBL on Ancient Greece this Monday, and it seems to be off to a great start! For the first time, I feel like we have something that we'd want to use again. For the entry event, we opened with a 30 min clip of 300 and popcorn. We felt that we owed the kids a break from they typical fast pace of the classroom. They were appreciative and the day started off on a positive note. After watching the valiant sacrifice of the Spartans to preserve Greece in 300, we challenged them (via PPT) to "revive the legacy of Ancient Greece" for modern day. The houses are competing against each other in an EXPO on Dec. 20th that will showcase Ancient Greece. The prize to the winning house is bonus points, which appears to be quite the motivator!

For this PBL we grouped students according to their preferences on seven different Greek topics (wars, government, daily life, mythology, etc...). Each group will have their own display as part of the larger EXPO. Grouping students according to preference seems to be working very well. The best part of this strategy is that we don't have to convince them to be interested in the topic they're assigned which is sometimes an imposible task anyway.

We've given students packets consisting of research questions, research materials, a calendar of events and deadlines, a daily work log to gauge progress, and more.
The students are responding well to their challenge, topics, and workload so far, so maybe we (and our students) are starting to get the hang of this whole PBL thing.

Wow! I think we're trying to address all of these!

Here is a link to the following post from The Innovative Educator.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2011

Is Your School Preparing Learners for Success? 5 Questions to Consider

Guest post by Shane Krukowski

“The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.”

~C. S. Lewis

Redesigning education involves much more than providing content online, prescribing canned interventions and adding interactive whiteboards to every room. It means choosing the abilities that transcend today’s paradigms, so that we authentically prepare students for the emerging challenges and opportunities ahead. It also means valuing assessment that gives us MORE THAN high scores, but low ability.  If you look at  just about any school’s website, brochure or annual report you’ll see many references to similar goals. However upon closer investigation we often find this is not reality.

How do you know if your school is preparing students for their future or their teacher’s past?  Here are some questions to think about when considering if learners are effectively being prepared for their world.

1. How is your schedule effectively meeting the needs of your learners?

As Tom Vander Ark articulates in his book “Getting Smart: How Digital Learning is Changing the World, “Master schedules will give way to interesting blends of customized learning experiences and projects that encourage integration and application. Just-in-time learning will become more common, slowly replacing the current model of just-in-case learning.” 

2. How do you prioritize pedagogy over ‘curriculum’?

What are you doing to create rich learning experiences and cut through superficial busywork that makes adults feel productive, but does little to reinforce/expand a student’s skills, interest and knowledge. If a school responds with the standard brochure talk of ‘high expectations’, ‘common core’ and or ‘interactive whiteboards in every room,’ follow with the question “how?” 

3. How do you build relationships with learners? 

How are positive relationships with teachers, mentors, coaches and family being fostered and supported? 

4. How are you educating parents to the importance and relevance of personalized assessment? 

Look up a stock on Google Finance and see how many qualitative and quantitative measures you have at your finger tips.  Why is it for human capital we don’t have the same appreciation for multiple metrics?  

5. How are you motivating students to keep learning?

In his book Outliers, Malcom Gladwell recommends we maximize the number of innovators we cultivate and foster which requires looking at human motivation in new ways and recognizing the importance of imagination and creativity. How is your school fostering empowering students to own the learning?

Too often schools attempt to polish the edges of their model in attempt to live up to this bigger vision. They hand select individual pieces of effective practice and then when it fails or doesn’t scale, they wonder why. These are schools that do things like proclaim, ‘we do competency-based evaluation’, but use course-based transcripts with GPAs--and they don’t realize the inconsistency. To effectively scale authentic, personalized learning and assessment, educators need to embrace new practices, utilize different tools, and ask important questions such as these. 

Assigning vocab would have been so much easier!

What happened to the days when I could pass out a vocabulary list and assign a short story and the questions following it, and then sit at my desk to grade the quizzes from the previous story while my students completed their assigned tasks in relative peace and quiet? That scene has been replaced by lessons so much more valuable. This past week really brought that home to me.

Our students finished their projects, practiced them one last time, and made their first presentations to "outsiders" on Wednesday. While I know the students were anxious about standing up and talking in front of strangers, I found myself experiencing anxiety as well! I must say that I was proud of them for their performances. Even though no one pulled off an AMAZING presentation, they conquered their fear of speaking in front of a group and worked as teams to present their ideas.

On Thursday, we stressed over completing the first writing benchmark and moving on to answering some questions concerning their project experience. We asked the students some pretty tough questions such as:

• "What did you learn about yourself during this project and presentation?"


• "What would you have to change to make yourself more successful next time?"


• "What could your group have done differently to be more successful?"

Then, on a Friday nonetheless, we tackled the job of sharing their responses as a means of "debriefing" about their experience. Let me just say that after today, I definitely need a week off! The students were very honest which led on more than one occasion to the mood in the room becoming very emotional. Mrs. Gouzd even had to take one group to another room to allow them to continue their discussion of how they felt they worked together. She said that when they sat down, one of the young men said that they should begin by each sharing their feelings about what had happened. He continued to "run the session" much like a counselor or mediator would have. In the end, they decided that they'd like another chance to work together on a project. We had a team member publicly apologize to his teammate for monopolizing the presentation. Over and over we saw freshmen behaving in a manner mature way beyond their years.

This maturity was evident again when each team was given their scores and asked to determine how to divide the points among the members according to how much each contributed. Some teams agreed that everyone contributed equally, and therefore, the points should be divided equally among them. However, more than once I heard teenagers say, "You really did more work than I did, so I think you should get more points than I do."

While passing out vocab assignments would be less stressful (and easier to put in Edline!), I am so glad that I have been part of seeing how much our students have grown in just a little over 12 weeks, and I'm so looking forward to the messy business of watching them grow and mature through the remainder of the year.

Buy-in

Who wants to sit in a "meeting" for an hour and a half on the day before a three day weekend? Twenty-two North Marion staff members, that's who. We talked, but most importantly, we listened, and this is what I heard.

• Freshmen core teachers are building a foundation for their students.



• Many teachers are ready to build on that foundation by trying new ideas in their classrooms: co-taught units, PBL, hands-on lessons, ...



• Teachers need time. Time to plan, time to observe others, time for professional development.



• Counselors need more personal contact with students.



• Exactly what is happening in our building that is causing such a stir? Better communication is essential.

I will venture to say that no other school stayed at a voluntary "meeting" until after 3 o'clock yesterday. That's buy-in.