SIGNIFICANT CONTENT: PBL chatter from the trenches; What works and what doesn't

SIGNIFICANT CONTENT: PBL chatter from the trenches; What works and what doesn't

Jump in, pick an element, and get started!  Those were the concluding words of advice given to a group of UNI students as I chatted with them via Google Hangout last Friday. First of all, props need to be given to the UNI professors who are giving their pre-service students an opportunity to reach out to teachers in the trenches to see how PBL plays out in the actual classroom! I absolutely loved chatting with these students and also thoroughly enjoy sharing this pedagogy with my student teachers, colleagues, and other educators in the state at Edcamps, AEA sessions, and conferences! The hands down winner of frequently asked questions throughout each of those settings is hands down, "Where do I start?" I would say start small, but give it a go!

Before you jump in head first, however, how would you answer these questions: Are your standards clarified? Do you know 'what' you are supposed to teach? Do you have vertical and horizontal alignment? Have you really READ and studied what your standards mean?  As you may have predicted, the first element of Project Based Learning to purposefully implement into your classroom should be significant content. Many debates have been centered around, 'Do I start with the project idea and then connect with standards or vice-versa?' In my opinion, start with your standards; but, keep it simple. Maybe just one content standard and an outside standard such as literacy and/or 21st Century skills; a total of, maximum, three standards for a project based learning opp lasting in the neighborhood of a week. 

Okay, what works. Standards have been referred to as daunting, boring, too general, even too specific, they limit learning, and promote teaching to the almighty test. Let's start debunking these attitudes by first creating I Can statements which put these often wordy and technical standards into student friendly terms. Some people refer to them as learning targets or student objectives; no matter what you call them, just get 'em created! Next, create a mindset that allows you to begin to see these standards as jumping off points; just start brainstorming ways to teach the standards in a way in which you never have! If ideas are what you need, check out #tlap (teach like a pirate),  #sstlap (social studies teach like a pirate),  and #nbtchat (no box thinking); each of these (and MANY others) are great Twitter chats to begin thinking about reaching the standards of the Core in a way that encourages learning through inquiry rather than simple indoctrination of content.  If you are using group work, technology, or close reading activities; be sure to claim it as you may well be meeting three additional standards! Grab a colleague, whether it be from your content area, or even better, out of your area of expertise, have a chat about your idea and really bring your PBL to another level!

Make yourself a chart like this to get started: 

Standard                                                                          I can Statement                                  Formative Assessment

1. copy/paste from IA Core                                        1. Student friendly term                      1. How are you going to assess        

website                                                                                                                                          the skill as well as the content? 

Example from my month+ long PBL titled, "War, What is it Good For?"-- 

1. Standard D2.Civ.3.9-12. Analyze  1. I can analyze primary 1. Link: Google Doc for Students

the impact of primary documents  documents of war time and

such as constitutions, laws, treaties,  make conclusions regarding

and international agreements on the   recurring themes among the

maintenance of national and   relationships with with US and

international order. other countries

Because of the manner in which the standards are written in the Iowa Core (or C3 Framework in my case), I believe they can only be met by implementing a student centered learning environment such as PBL. Toss the 'sit and get' mentality out the window and challenge your students to meet these standards through an active inquiry process!

Now, from the trenches; time to chat about what doesn't work. My biggest failures with PBL this year regarding standards is overwhelming the students with, dare I say, too much front-loading. After hooking the students with your entry event and disclosing the driving question, use proficiency scales to provide your students with the significant content learning opps as needed regarding low level information in levels one and two. However, be careful when moving onto level three (the beginning of the I can statements inquiry process) with telling them they will be learning this content at a high level by conquering nine standards over the next month. Let it be a bit of a mystery; let them uncover the standards without them really knowing per se. Students went from wondering what we were up to after the entry event to being completely overwhelmed and tuned out after unveiling the standards. While I always have the daily I can statements (derived from the significant content) posted on the board; next year I will unpack these standards with a little less formality. I like the idea at the end of a week having the students spend time reflecting on what they discovered, analyzed, or evaluated regarding the I can statement(s). They should also reflect on the formative activities that added to their content knowledge/skill set and conclude with a reflection regarding how this week's work brought them closer to answering the driving question. Let them, with your guidance and facilitation, uncover the mystery of the I can statements as needed; let the subsequent I can's be the exciting 'Next Challenge!' 

In sum, you will spend so much time thinking of ways to get your students hooked into the driving question, don't ruin it by bogging them down with a lengthy list of standards in which they must uncover prior to ending the unit! So, Goal One: Ask yourself and your colleagues if they have their standards ready to go for 2014-15. If you don't, ask your administrators if you can have some time to get these finalized, and then brainstorm, brainstorm, brainstorm!  Make the significant content come to life for your students!! 

Standards are the 'What,' and Project Based Learning is the 'How.' As stated at PBL World, PBL is not another thing on your plate, in fact, it IS the plate; every initiative and every standard can be supported by PBL! Start Small and Go Big!! 

Death of Education is the Birth of Learning...

"I hate the Iowa Core." I hate this C3 Framework thing." "I learn best from worksheets." "What is so wrong with just reading from the book?" "I passed all my quizzes, what else do you want from me?" "Tell me what good this is going to do for me to pass the ACT or even for life for that matter." "I'm not even learning because you aren't teaching me anything."

So, the Death of Education is the Birth of Learning. What does this mean to me and what do I want from it? By definition, education means the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction especially at the university or school level. Broke down further, systematic: done according to a fixed plan or system; and instruction: detailed information telling how something should be done, operated, or assembled. By these Google definitions, I don't want education in my classroom. I do not want it to be systematic, I do not not want it to be a fixed plan, nor do I want to tell my students how something should be done. Education by these definitions needs to go away.

A quote that has remained with me since the beginning of the school year is, "If you understand everything you're doing, you are not learning." That was in my daughter's fortune cookie,

and it encompasses everything I want my classroom to be. Birth of learning begins with the teacher spending her time building a classroom where confusion reigns, questions are supreme, inquiry and processing are more important than facts, failure is an option, learning is authentic, content standards are met, skills are developed, students collaborate, and the walls of the school are just for structural purposes. I want my students, to put it in plain and simple terms... THINK. Think creatively and think critically. I want them to discover things I never knew and quite frankly, never knew enough to even wonder about. Learning. This is learning to me.

As most of us educators, certainly all of my PLN on Twitter, have come to realize; students have long learned the game of education and have slowly lost the excitement and overall zest for learning.  I also think we could all agree that once they leave the walls of their elementary classrooms, many of us middle school and high school teachers slowly drill and kill low level facts and meaningless information into their brains. The system becomes a set of hoops in which they need to jump through all under the guise of, "We are preparing them for their future." At Iowa's 1:1 Institute Leadership Conference, Patrick Larkin mentioned vision statements and school goals; if we really analyze our schools' mission statements and assessed how each teacher in the building actually was contributing to it; how would we rank? Are we preparing them for a future of unknowns by taking away their desire to learn? Taking away their creativity and zest for learning by telling what they need to know, how they will learn it, and when they will test on it; is this preparing them for their future?

To be completely honest, my students have given me reasons to smack my head against the wall, made me go home wondering why I even try to teach, made me question why I spend so many hours worried about them instead of my own children, and have literally pushed me to the brink of throwing my hands in the air and just calling it quits. In the same breath, however, I can barely wait to tell you these students are also the ones who challenge me intellectually, who carry stimulating conversations, are able to push me to become a better teacher through needed research and study in order to reach them; and have also given me a plethora of reasons as to why I am a teacher. I can honestly say, however, the specific examples in which I am currently thinking about in both positive and negative scenarios have nothing to do with the true definition of education. The frustrations and successes in which I am experiencing are all surrounded by the idea of pushing my students to be learners.

To return to the quotes at the beginning of the blog, these students range from high functioning to students receiving special education services; I strongly believe we are doing a disservice to them all. The push back from students is understandable; they have been immersed in an educational setting that is decades behind our business counterparts for the past ten plus years; this is a mind-shift for them as well. And it is hard. It is hard to think in the manner in which I am pushing them; it is hard to analyze, evaluate, and to be producers of knowledge. It is so much easier to be told and to be mere consumers.  I think we are all in need of making complete shifts in our teaching pedagogy in order to truly prepare our students for their future.  In order to make this happen, we need to get rid of the 'education' mindset and bring the 'learning' back to the focus. Yes, I can declare, I hope for the death of education and for the birth of learning.