This post originally appeared on Edutopia, a site created by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, dedicated to improving the K-12 learning process by using digital media to document, disseminate, and advocate for innovative, replicable strategies that prepare students. View Original >
Game-based learning (GBL) is getting a lot press. It is an innovative practice that is working to engage kids in learning important 21st century skills and content. Dr. Judy Willis in a previous post wrote about the neurological benefits and rationale around using games for learning. She also gives tips about using the game model in the classroom. James Paul Gee has long been a champion for game-based learning in speeches, blogs, and books. Quest to Learn, located in New York City, infuses technology with game-based learning, where entire units utilize missions, boss levels, and the like for learning important standards. Here is the next step: taking these great rationales and examples and making it work for the everyday teacher.
Myths About Game-Based Learning
First, let’s clarify a couple things. One common myth about GBL is that it requires high-level technology. Another is that it is simply using games, whether physical or on the web, in the classroom. These ideas are not entirely true. Yes, GBL can be more rockstar when using technology, but it is not a requirement. No, GBL is not simply using games in the classroom. It is about making a rigorous unit of study a robust game, not just one day, where multiple games and challenges are used to explore concepts and learning targets in depth.
Gee refers to teachers as “learning designers,” and I couldn’t agree more. Teachers are the designers of all the components of the learning environment for students, from the management to the assessment. So here is the question for each educator: How do I design engaging game-based units in my classroom to assess important learning targets?
Inspired by the work I’ve seen, here is an overview of components and structure for the everyday teacher to implement game-based learning.
Overall Structure: Individual Quests and Boss Levels
A game-based learning unit should consist of both smaller quests and more robust boss levels. A quest can be done either individually or collaboratively in groups. These would be your lesson plans where you challenge students to complete tasks that will prepare them for the boss level later in the unit. They may be trying to figure out where to invade an area with their army, or they may be figuring out how they will be able to create an army unit for a battle, who will be in it, what roles will be needed, and how many of each. They may be doing a science lab to figure out who’s hand was on the murder weapon. They may be calculating times from interviews that suspects gave in order to see which suspect is most likely to have committed the crime. Again, these are engaging, game activities to have students learn and/or practice using content. Goals for quests can range from searching for resources to destroying something. The learning targets or standards for these quests are usually more individual and targeted, perhaps only a couple targeted standards. These standards for the quest however can be across one-two disciplines, or just in a single discipline. Objectives for the quests should be varied in order to keeps kids engaged in different purposes for learning.
Boss levels are more rigorous missions that require students to synthesize the content and skills learned in the quests. Students work with the teacher to create a capstone project or product that shows all they have learned from the previous quests. Boss Level problems or challenges can either be defined by the teacher or co-defined by the teacher and the student. Perhaps they are creating a crime lab with all the steps and tools needed. Perhaps they are creating a plan for a new emperor of the Roman empire to conquer the world. These boss levels assess and target multiple standards, usually across multiple disciplines, and they are all the standards that were practices in the quests before.
Overall Theme
You may have already noticed that all the quests are related under a thematic idea of question. Whether you call it a guiding or essential question, the intent is to frame the work in a theme. Perhaps they are trying to answer the question: How can we make plans to help the Roman Empire conquer the east? Or: What do police detectives do to solve crimes? Often scenario-based, it creates a challenge for students in a game-based fashion.
Need to Know
Game-Based Learning demands a “need to know” the content. In order to complete quests and boss levels, students will need to learn content and skills to do them. Instead of pre-teaching, the instructor teaches the material or facilitates the learning of material as students are engaged in the quests. The overall theme and mission is presented to the students, along with the quests and boss levels in order to create engagement to accomplish. During the boss level, revision or addition skills may also need to be taught, but again, there is a need to learn those skills and content.
Trial and Error, Timely Feedback and then Success
These challenges in the quests and boss levels demand that students take risks, learn from mistakes and reattempt. Throughout this process, teachers arm them with additional skills needed to be successful. Because students are engaged in multiple trials, teachers give immediate, useful feedback to students. This process of allowing for mistakes goes contrary to much traditional instruction, but gamers know (and yes, I am proud to be one) that the payoff feels great, and accomplishment feels more like genuine accomplishment rather than simply “getting it done.” The quests and boss levels that students accomplish end up having real value that students are proud of.
Incentives
Teachers give experience points, badges and other incentives to keep affirming and rewarding students. Mozilla is in the process of creating a badge tool around 21st century skills, and it is an exciting preview to the potential of badges. I don’t know about you, but I do like getting badges and rewards on Foursquare and Empire Avenue. This is all very similar to other video games, where student characters are rewarded better equipment, accolades, and characteristics. Students might get the “Perseverance Rank 1,” “Helping a Teammate,” or the “Computer Search Term Guru” badge. They might get experience points to use to purchase “virtual equipment” for their avatar. These points aren’t actually used in their content grade per say. In fact, students do need grade points to feel rewarded. Students in a GBL unit get rewarded for demonstrated 21st century and other skills through a variety of methods to celebrate all kinds of success and to keep students engaged.
Avatar
Part of gaming is role-playing. It’s exciting for students to take on a persona related to the unit. Are they Spartan warriors? Are they detectives? Are they space explorers for NASA? Students like to pretend, even secondary students. Students like to create. Part of getting them engaged in the persona and unit is allowing them to build on their avatar. They aren’t simply creating a character in one day. They build a back story and continue to tell it. They improve their skills with incentives and experience points and/or badges awarded. Just like a role-playing video game, students become someone else, and they learn skills and content through this avatar.
In this blog we went over the overall structures and elements of a GBL unit. In the next blog, we will look at actually planning out GBL unit, using Wiggins and McTighe Backwards Design model. We will see how GBL modifies and build upon this proven model of curriculum and instruction.
This post originally appeared on The Whole Child blog, an ASCD initiative to call on educators, policymakers, business leaders, families, and community members to work together on a whole child approach to education. View Original >
Project-based learning (PBL) is a fantastic way to increase parent and community involvement in your school in a truly authentic way. Instead of finding lots of little strategies to engage parents, PBL provides an opportunity to use one part of your school identity, the curriculum and instruction, as the leverage to have parents present at the physical space. Here are some tips and strategies on how to use PBL to increase parental involvement.
Public Audience
One of the essential elements of effective PBL is a public audience. Every PBL project must have a public audience. This can look like a lot of different things. The public can be judges or audience for the final culminating work or presentation. The public can come in during the middle of project to help coach students on their work as experts in the field. There are a lot of options. All of these could be parents. Every parent has some area of expertise to share, from health care to technology. I recommend creating a roster of parents, their areas of expertise, and how they would be able to volunteer. Parents will want to come to school if their knowledge is leveraged in a legitimate way.
Educating Parents about PBL
Because PBL is nontraditional, it is imperative that parents understand what it looks like, what the grading expectations are, and why the school believes it works. Parents are going to ask the same questions other community stakeholders will ask. “How will this help my child do well on the standardized test?” “Why are you grading 21st century skills?” “How will you help my child who doesn’t like to work in groups?” You will get these questions, so be prepared, and have education available for parents about the components of PBL.
Transparency of Projects
Every time you do a PBL project, it is important to let parents know what work your students are doing, and also to excite them about it. Communication with the home about schoolwork is nothing new, but this provides a focused, timely moment to communicate. In addition, it also provides an opportunity to debunk any misunderstandings about the PBL project that is occurring. If you are doing a project on health and AIDS, you can take the time in the letter home to parents to assure that the project is not sexual education. A quick e-mail or letter home about the PBL project can excite parents, solicit their expertise, and clarify expectations.
Culturally Responsive Projects
Find ways for the products you have students create to be culturally responsive. Find ways to weave student culture into the project so that parents see that it is being valued in the work students are doing. If you are having students do a project on world religions, then have each student reflect on his or her family and personal beliefs. If you are having students investigate hidden histories of the oppressed, have them investigate the cultures of their families and communities. Make it intentional.
Because the public is an integral part of PBL, it is a real way to engage parents in the school and work that students are doing. It is not without challenges, but with these tips, you can make parents partners in an important part of your school identity.
This post originally appeared on Edutopia, a site created by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, dedicated to improving the K-12 learning process by using digital media to document, disseminate, and advocate for innovative, replicable strategies that prepare students. View Original >
1. Use Social Media One of the best ways to document collaboration and engage students with technology is use social media platforms like Edmodo. Students can use it to share ideas, you as the teacher can use it to formatively assess where students are in terms of products and content knowledge, and it is a great way to have real evidence of collaboration.
2. Meet with Team Representatives As a teacher, when making announcements or doing a short mini-lesson for students, it gets really old to have to continually ask, “Can I have your attention, please?” You don’t need to. Instead say, “Project Managers, I need you here to pick up a quick memo with announcements about our presentation day.” Or perhaps say, “Head researchers, I need to teach you a quick mini-lesson on search terms to teach the rest of your group.” It saves you time and it saves students’ time, preventing a “time suck” in your classroom.
3. Play “Slacker Hard Ball” We all have “slackers,” so sometimes I put them all in one group. Now you might think I’m crazy for that, and that they might not do work. But here is what can happen: Often, one or more in that group starts doing something. The minute that happens, I make a public praise of that student’s work. Before then, that student had no “street cred” in my classroom, and now they do. Hopefully that moment can empower the student to excel.
4. Formatively Assess Often In order to make sure students are getting the content and skills they need, good teachers use many formative assessments. You know this. And it also holds students accountable. It ensures that they are getting good, thoughtful feedback to improve their culminating products and performances. If you are formatively assessing, you are managing your classroom effectively with accountability, reflecting on your teaching and their needs, and ensuring quality PBL project products.
5. “Give Up Power to Empower” This is my mantra for teaching. For too long, students have been conditioned not to have power in their education. As PBL helps to empower students, the teacher must be willing to give up the power to them. Don’t be a helicopter. Be present, but also give space for them to take ownership and problem solve.
6. Set and Debrief Goals for “Work” Time Implementation or “work” is not simply given over completely to students, especially when students who have never been given that space to work are asked, all of a sudden, to take complete ownership. Set goals for work for the time, debrief those goals, and set next steps. It will scaffold the process of students taking ownership and it will help students to hold themselves accountable.
7. Reflect on the Driving Question Continually revisit the driving question of the project. Just like with rubrics, if you don’t use the driving question, it will mean nothing. Help students make sure the work they are doing is working toward answering the driving question. Help students keep the eye on the prize.
8. Use Team Contracts Students are more likely to follow the norms of the classroom when they set them themselves, especially in their groups. It helps to decrease possibilities of escalations where there is teacher vs. student. Instead, issues that arise in the classroom become student vs. what student said they would do. Use templates, give samples and other resources to have students create effective contracts to manage themselves.
9. Group Students Intentionally When creating teams for a project, I never do random grouping. These students will be in these teams from two to six, or even eight weeks. We want to set them up for the best possible success, so make sure you are considering all forces at work, whether it’s behavior, ELL, academic ability or artistic ability to set students up for a successful team.
10. Have Students Choose Or Have Voice in Team Role If you are using authentic roles in the teams for the project, have students rank choice and/or choose their role. It will empower them to be experts and gurus in a specific area of content or skill in the project.
11. Differentiate Instruction through Grouping There is always a time and place to differentiate instruction in teams for PBL. When doing PBL projects that demand a lot reading, I create teams with varying reading ability level. This allows me the opportunity to really work intensively with a group to build their abilities and push them far. Again, as long as it is intentional, create teams to allow you to differentiate instruction.
12. Use Heterogeneous Grouping It is great to have students learn from the strengths that each one brings to the group. Balance groups with leaders to push groups along. If your project has a major artistic component, make sure there is a student with that strength.
13. Allow for Conflict I know, it’s difficult. When we see our students having issues and arguing, we need to remember that they are problem-solving. We need to not be “on them” instantly to make them stop arguing. Arguing and conflict is part of the process of collaboration and making decisions. Be present, but, again, don’t be a helicopter. Teach them how to solve conflicts.
14. Celebrate Achievements Don’t forget to celebrate the work that students accomplish. Students need affirmation. Mozilla is piloting some cool new badges to celebrate student learning, especially in the area of 21st century skills. Use stamps and gold stars. I don’t know why stamps and stickers have such power, but they work. And they help to celebrate student work and learning.
15. Give Useful and Accessible Feedback Part of conducting formative assessments is giving good feedback to students. Feedback should be specific and doable so that students can later implement the suggestions you give. Useful feedback will ensure that there is something specific to do, and there is always improvement that needs to happen. There is no “dead” time because there is always feedback to implement.
16. Use and Return to the “Need to Know” The Need to Know is a living and breathing document that you create with students at the beginning of the project, where you ask students what they need to know in order to accomplish the project you have presented them with. After the initial creation, you must revisit it to let students see what you have armed them with and and also solicit more “need to knows.” It will keep the momentum of the project going and also help students see what they now know!
17. Hold Students Individually Accountable through Individual Products In addition to collaborating on innovative products, students should be demonstrating the content and skills of the project individually. I want to make sure that each student walks away with the same content and skills that they are learning through the creation of their group products.
18. Allow for Voice and Choice in Products Voice and choice will allow students to use their strengths — from artistic to techie — in a project. It will help keep them engaged by honing their ways of knowing and showing that knowledge. Give them options of choice in the group and/or individual product, and be sure to allow their voice to shine in the project. It will keep them invested and engaged.
19. Demand High Expectations Do not fold! The minute you fold, the minute you let students know that you will change the due date or modify requirements, they will know they can goof off. My due date and requirements do not change because I have used the Teaching and Learning guide to backwards design my calendar. High expectations create great products and urgency! Consider reading Ron Berger’s An Ethic of Excellence.
20. Empower Students Absent with Achievable Goals We all have students who are absent, and hopefully with the creation of authentic and engaging projects, they will want to come to school more often. Regardless of the reasons for which students do not attend regularly, we have to welcome them to our classroom with open arms and also with achievable goals. I recommend helping groups set goals each day with chronically absent students that have achievable outcomes for that day. That way, there is something he/she can get completed for the group without serious issues of incomplete or lost work.
Bonus! 21. Create Engaging Projects that are Authentic and Relevant The best tip I can give you is to create an engaging project where the outcomes and learning are relevant and the audience is authentic. When kids are engaged, they are less likely to be behavioral issues. Honestly, if I am experiencing major issues in terms of classroom management, the first question I ask myself is, “How is my project not authentic, relevant, and engaging, and how can I improve?”
A quick note on these tips: There is no real silver bullet to get every single kid under the sun engaged in your classroom, but good teachers use all the strategies they can muster. That is what these tips are; strategies which can help you ensure that all students work towards amazing PBL projects and other assessments in your classroom.
This post originally appeared on Edutopia, a site created by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, dedicated to improving the K-12 learning process by using digital media to document, disseminate, and advocate for innovative, replicable strategies that prepare students. View Original >
In my last blog about driving questions, we reviewed the purpose of the driving question as well as some tools to help you refine your driving questions. In addition, some sample, poorly written driving questions were given to have you practice. We will review them at the end of the blog and look for some exemplars from all of you.
There are many types of driving questions, but I like to break them down into three types.
Philosophical or Debatable: These types of questions are honestly debatable questions that have complex possible answers. Of course, all driving questions should be open-ended, but philosophical or debatable questions by nature require complex, rigorous thought, and of course corresponding student products. Be careful that you aren’t writing this type of question, but the answer obviously sways one way. If you have an agenda, and want students to get to a certain place, this isn’t the type of question to use.
Example: Can a dog live in the desert?
Product-Oriented: How do we create ______ to ______? This is a great type of driving question to use if you have a specific student product in mind. Notice that it isn’t just about the product, but the purpose as well.
Examples: How do we create a podcast to debunk myths and stereotypes of world religions? How do I create an epic poem about an important episode in my daily life?
Role-Oriented: Students love to take on roles and pretend to be things they are not, even high school students. In this type of driving question you give students an authentic or real-world role with a problem to solve or project to accomplish.
Examples: How do we as architects design an outdoor classroom for our school? How I as a scientist design an experiment to debunk and common scientific myth?
I’ve had teachers ask, “What is the difference between essential questions (à la Understanding By Design) and driving questions?” In my opinion, essential questions, when created to their utmost potential are driving questions. Driving questions are just essential questions that are high on caffeine. They demand authenticity and rigorous problem-solving, which essential questions can do, but don’t always. In addition, essential questions are often created to be more like enduring understands or learning targets. Those are great, but shouldn’t be confused with driving questions. Essential questions that sound like enduring understands are not exciting and do not DRIVE the learning, which brings me to my next point.
We spend time crafting and refining driving questions for the student. The student! Just because a question sounds interesting to you, it may not be to a student. Driving questions must be accessible to the students and engage them. I’m a big nerd, and so love learning. Enduring understandings and questions that mirror them appeal to me, but to the reluctant and marginalized students we are trying to reach, they are not. So remember, it’s all about the students. Try testing out the driving question you have created on a student and see how they react. Will every student jump up and down about it? No, but we can at least have students say, “I guess that sounds cool.”
One last point, be culturally responsive. Some driving questions may not be appropriate depending on the students you have in your classroom or in the location you teach. The driving question, “How do we create a game to cheat people out of their money without them knowing it?” may not be culturally responsive. A Hindi student might find that question offensive, because it is contrary to cultural values. However, the driving question “How do we create a fun chance game for the neighboring fourth grade classroom?” might be more culturally responsive. Just keep that in mind.
Rewriting Last Week’s Poorly Written Questions
Now let’s see how I might transform some of the bad driving questions from from last week:
What is epic poetry?
Can be rewritten as How do I write an epic poem about an important episode in my life?
You will notice that the project will be more relevant and challenging. Yes, they will learn epic poetry, but in order to write about themselves.
How have native peoples been impacted by changes in the world?
Can be rewritten as How do we create new policies to honor the culture of the Snoqualmie tribe while allowing for casinos?
Here the question is local. It also demands innovation for a complex task.
How does probability relate to games?
Can be rewritten as How do we create a new gambling game to cheat people out of their money without them noticing?
Here the question is a bit subversive and quite engaging. Content about probability will be learned for an authentic purpose. A quick note, this question may not be culturally responsive, as it demands behavior that may be contrary to certain cultures. In that case, you might make the question, How do we create a chance game to engage elementary students?
Why is science important and how can it help save people?
Can be rewritten as Should we allow for genetic engineering to prevent diseases and illnesses?
Here the question is contentious and debatable, and it is focused on specific topics so that the scope isn’t too large.
Well, there you go! Two blogs with tips, tricks, and tools to create great driving questions for your projects. Keep working at the “beast” of driving questions, and you will find yourself able to spout them off at will to your colleagues as they build their PBL projects.
This post originally appeared on the Huffington Post, an internet news and commentary website. The Education section features updated on college, teachers, and education reform, where I regularly contribute. View Original >
I’ve had the privilege of talking to many participants who attended and organized the Save Our Schools march that occurred in Washington D.C. Teachers are angry, and the biggest point of contention is student data being factored into student evaluation. But do you really want to know why teachers are angry about reforming evaluation and tenure? Besides the issue of high stakes test and data, there is a major movement that needs to occur before teachers will come to the table and negotiate new forms and criteria for evaluation.
Before reforming the criteria of evaluation, the processes and structures of evaluations must be reformed. In most schools, the ways teachers are evaluated is terrible, and the main thing is it isn’t their fault. They often don’t have any sort of power over the structure of the evaluation including pieces such as time and frequency. The traditional picture of teacher evaluation is what I call “drive-by” teacher evaluation. The administrator comes in once at the beginning of the year to see how teachers are doing. The teacher is then told what he or she is doing well and what needs to be improved. At the end of the year, the administrator returns for the official evaluation to see how the teacher is doing and to see if he or she has met the criteria.
The first problem here is frequency. How can you judge a teacher practice based on two observations per year? Even if the administrator has a good understanding that the evaluation is just a moment in time, and that the whole picture of teaching and learning is not being seen, a few visits to at teacher’s classroom hardly warrants a comprehensive evaluation of the teachers effectiveness. Frequency needs to increase.
Now before teachers start getting angry, there are many provisions that need to happen in order for frequency of visits and evaluation increase. The culture around evaluation needs to be reframed. It needs to be viewed with the proper lens of formative and summative assessments, just like when we evaluate our students. Not all observations and evaluations should “count.” Instead they should be used as they are intended, to provide feedback and goals for the teacher. Teachers need to understand and unpack the criteria. This rarely happens. Teachers don’t use the evaluation rubric because they don’t own them. The criteria must be tied to the mission and vision of the school as well as individual teacher professional growth plans. Those evaluating must engage the teachers in analyzing the criteria and targeting professional development that is truly needed.
Professional development must be occurring in the year between the evaluations in order to arm the teacher with the skills he or she needs to be an effective teachers. Instructional coaches and leaders must be readily available. The problem is this is often the first area of funding that is cut. How can we expect teachers to improve if we don’t provide ongoing professional development and coaching?
If you really want teachers to come to table and even consider using student data as part of their evaluation, then the processes and structures of evaluation must be reformed first. Currently, they are ineffective for both the administrators and the teachers themselves. Instead of being a “hoop to jump through,” let’s make it an authentic part of the teaching profession as I know some schools have.
This post originally appeared on Edutopia, a site created by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, dedicated to improving the K-12 learning process by using digital media to document, disseminate, and advocate for innovative, replicable strategies that prepare students. View Original >
Driving questions (DQ) can be a beast. When I train teachers, they say the same thing, “Writing the Driving question is one of the hardest parts of an effective PBL.” I agree. When I am constructing a DQ for a PBL project, I go through many drafts. It’s only now, after implementing many projects and having coached countless teachers that I consider myself adept.
To get a better sense of this, I encourage you to watch some videos at the Buck Institute for Education’s “How To Do PBL” playlist on their YouTube Channel before we dig in.
Our Driving Question Now Is: How do we write an Effective Driving Question?
First, we need to understand why we have them. Driving questions are there for two entities, the teacher and the student.
For the teacher: A DQ helps to initiate and focus the inquiry. Remember the project shouldn’t be trying to solve the world’s problems. Instead, it should be a focused action, and focused inquiry; the goal is to ensure the students are focused. The teacher needs to help focus the teaching and learning, and the driving question help with that.
It also captures and communicates the purpose of the project in a succinct question. When reading the driving question, the teacher and student should be clear on what the overall project is as well as its purpose. Also for the teacher, it helps to guide planning and reframe standards or big content and skills. I will say more about this later, but the driving question should not sound like a standard reimagined in the form of a question. Instead, use the driving question to reframe the standards in ways that are accessible to both you the teacher and the student.
For the student: Ultimately, the driving question is for the students. It creates interest and a feeling of challenge so that even the most reluctant student thinks, “Hmmm, I guess that sounds kinda cool.”
It guides the project work. All work for the project, including the culminating project and daily lessons and activities, should be trying to help students answer the driving question. Whether it’s a lesson on commas, or implementation time, or drill-and-skill with math problems, the work needs to connect to the driving question. Why? The seemingly “boring” activities of the day-to-day have reason, relevancy and purpose, and then guess what? They aren’t boring anymore.
This relates to my next point. It helps student answer the question: “Why are we doing this?” This is the Golden Question that many administrators ask students when they are visiting. If your driving question is good, it can help connect that work so that students can articulate the reason behind daily lessons and activities.
My driving question is posted all over my classroom. It’s on worksheets, the project wall, and the online blog. It is continually referred to while we are working on the project so students are reminded of the purpose of the project and daily work.
The Tale of the “Snarky Kid”
I must tell the story about “Snarky Kid.” Snarky Kid is the kid who pretends to hate everything in school or your class, but still shows up and does work. In my class, we were doing some comma practice sheets in class right after a direct instruction lesson. Our driving question was: “How do we get a government official to preserve both casinos and the culture of local native peoples?”
My administrator, of course, came up to Snarky Kid, and asked, “What are you working on and why?”
Snarky Kid replied, “We are working on stupid commas.”
“Oh, I see,” said my administrator. “Why are you working on commas?”
“Because we are writing letters to the senator to make her change her mind, and we don’t want our letters to suck. We want her to read them, and not look bad.”
Fantastic, right!?! Despite the crass answer, Snarky Kid was able to articulate the immediate relevance of the task. I’d like to think that maybe the driving question helped that student to answer the administrator’s question.
In my next blog, we will explore different types of driving questions, look at some transformations from bad to good driving questions, and look are some further criteria. In the meantime, I’m leaving you with a task to practice refining driving questions.
Practice Refining Driving Questions
Watch the video on the Tubric, a useful tool to help create effective driving questions, and then follow this link to create one of your own. (courtesy of my colleagues at the Buck Institute for Education)
Even nerdy activities have their place in the classroom. (Can I get an amen?)
Next, use the Tubric to refine the poorly written driving questions below. It’s true, you have not yet received all the tips and tricks I have to share, nor do you know exactly what the PBL projects are that connect to the driving questions presented. However, you can still practice, and maybe come up with questions of your own around creating effective driving questions. (Hint: I’m modeling part of the PBL process in this exercise.)
Here are some driving questions for you to refine. Feel free to pick one and focus your work. I’ll be covering some of the tips and tricks to refine driving questions in my next post.
What is epic poetry?
How have native peoples been impacted by changes in the world?
How does probability relate to games?
Why is science important and how can it help save people?
This post originally appeared on Edutopia, a site created by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, dedicated to improving the K-12 learning process by using digital media to document, disseminate, and advocate for innovative, replicable strategies that prepare students. View Original >
This post originally appeared on The Whole Child blog, an ASCD initiative to call on educators, policymakers, business leaders, families, and community members to work together on a whole child approach to education. 
This post originally appeared on the Huffington Post, an internet news and commentary website. The Education section features updated on college, teachers, and education reform, where I regularly contribute. 
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