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 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 >
Online education is becoming a legitimate and viable option for education systems around the country. Both colleges and secondary schools are offering classes to students. In fact many states and schools are requiring students to take some method of mode of online learning. New York made major changes around seat time and face-to-face contact between student and teacher. The state’s intentions are good. They want to move away the focus from seat time, and they want to offer courses that might be hard to offer in certain areas of the state to all students. With all these innovative systemic changes, one might think we are completely on the right track. I offer a word of caution.
Online education is in danger of replicating a system that isn’t working. Yes, I wrote it. With all the potential for innovation that online education has to offer, we have fallen into the pitfall of replication. The keyword is “danger.” There is much that online education can do to innovate the education system, and much that has already been done as a result. Yet most of the actual courses and pedagogical structures that are in place are simply replicating the traditional style of education.
What’s the biggest positive effect of online education? It is causing schools to reevaluate and seek to answer the question: “Why do students need and want to go our schools?” In addition, online education is focusing on the learning, not time, a movement toward competency-based pathways, especially those championed by iNACOL, and moving conversations about student achievement in the right direction. Teaching and learning can be tailored to the specific student. Students complete work at their own pace and seek feedback and instruction as they need, rather than when the teacher decides. Students are immersed in a variety of technology tools and media, allowing for different ways to learn content.
With all these positive implications and results, what is missing? The pedagogical structures for most online courses is traditional and does not meet the needs of all students and the variety of learning styles that they come with. Although there might be a variety of media types, such as videos or music or reading, the lesson design is still in the “sage on the stage” mode, where the course knows the content and pushes it out on students. Although students might be asked to show what they know in different modalities, from a collage to a podcast, they mimic low-level performances of regurgitating knowledge for the teacher to assess. Grading practices are often poor, with arbitrary point values being given, rather than focus on the standards. Well-designed rubrics are not present for students, and if they are, the students are left to their devices to understand it. Revision mimics a typical essay from school, where only one draft is required. Although there might be discussion boards or other social media to collaborate, collaborative assessments and work are not present to create a true need to collaborate. Discussions boards, for example, are treated as a summative assessment, points in the grade book. Shouldn’t it instead be used for the purpose is was created? It should be a place where collaboration and wrestling with rigorous questions can occur, not a punitive measure to “cattle prod” students into doing work. Courses are often not culturally responsive, nor are teachers trained in culturally responsive teaching and what it looks like online.
The good news is that there are some innovators out that are truly looking at online education to implement proven pedagogical practices that seek to engage students. Some schools are using project-based learning as their focus to create a need to know the online content and demand that students innovate and collaborate together, whether fully online or in a hybrid model. Game-based learning courses are starting to be developed where students engage in missions to learn important content and skills where timely feedback and incentives are the norm. Some online courses are completely standards-based, where students are graded on learning targets, not simply time and work.
What should you take away from this? We can do better. Parents should be asking tough questions around these concerns when they consider signing up their student for online classes. Course providers should be trying new and innovative practices and consider culture in the course design. Teachers need to trained in these new pedagogical methods, so that professional resources includes not only strategies and tools for teaching online, but a push toward an innovative art of teaching. All stakeholders should be actively involved in collaborating on courses with the content developers and push back when they see “the same old thing.” Our students deserve the best possible education, not simply a replication of a system that has not served all our students.
This post originally appeared on InService, the ASCD community blog. ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) is an educational leadership organization with 160,000 members in 148 countries, including professional educators from all levels and subject areas––superintendents, supervisors, principals, teachers, professors of education, and school board members. View Original >
This one is for my online and hybrid teachers or any teacher who has used technology but has found it difficult to foster collaboration and community.
First and foremost, even though many have been trained not to, your students can collaborate. In fact, students might not know they’re already collaborating; my WoW students (World of Warcraft) consistently collaborate to solve quests and gain experience.
The online world of education can be a lonely one, and until collaborative projects and assessments become the norm (they are not now), it will remain a challenge to leverage community and collaboration online. Here are some tips:
Translate their world of collaboration and community to one you want for your classroom.
The culture of online games and technology comes with cultural resiliencies. Use them. Ask students to share moments in their online, gaming, or even real lives where they have worked together. Honor them, and make connections to the type of community and collaboration you want. Don’t grade discussion board assignments.
Yes, I said it. Discussion boards are a formative assessment, not necessarily graded. They’re intended as a way to check in on student discussions, but primarily, discussion boards are places for students to grapple with content and concepts. Use scaffolding to have them ask questions of peers, but don’t use discussion boards as a punitive tool. Otherwise, students will not use them the way you want them to. Allow for space and time in discussion boards and other collaborative spaces.
Some of the best discussions occur over a good chunk of time, longer than we might want. A good discussion can last anywhere from one week to a semester. Students may even want to discuss ideas you may not. Honor student voice, and give space for it. Good learning will occur there and will lead to a sense of community and student ownership. Remember that the learning is occurring synchronously and asynchronously, so time is not the ultimate driving force. Again, this relates to Tip #2 and grading. Once students show they know how to use discussion boards, then you can be more flexible with time and space. Do many team-building activities online.
Just like in the first week in brick-and-mortar schools, you need to do a variety of team builders and icebreakers to create a safe place for students. Hybrid teachers, you need to do both because you need students to see the community and collaboration in both places. The challenge is to take these activities that occur in the physical world and translate them into the activities that work online. Pick the right tool for the purpose.
Before you go technology-happy with all the tools available, make sure you limit your choices to ones that foster community building and collaboration. Ask yourself how you want students to collaborate and build community, and then pick your tools.
I half-joke with teachers I work with, “If I’ve made you uncomfortable, then I have done my job.” Perhaps some of these ideas are causing some cognitive dissonance, and that is great. Just remember, if we want true student communities online and innovative collaboration, then we may need to do things differently than we have before.
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 >
Physical structures should match school cultures and learning modalities, not the other way around. Despite what some might say, physical structures communicate a lot about the learning environment and what to expect. Just like we set up seats for the first day of school to set a tone, the building communicates a tone as well. Throughout my visits, I’ve come across many innovative buildings that really set a tone for safe school culture and innovative learning. It’s not about technology and bells and whistles; it’s about the layout and ways that the walls talk.
My first two examples come from Dubiski Career High School in Texas. Where are the traditional lecture seats set up? Outside the classroom. These formal stations are set up throughout the school to allow for presentations, formal lectures, and other similar learning experiences to occur, but not in the official classroom. In fact, it is hard to tell where the learning environment begins and where it ends, hence creating the message that this is a continuous learning environment. This structure also communicates that learning occurs in many different places and in many different ways. Traditional lectures are not the focus but are used when appropriate, and this message comes across quite clear.
Another example: The school embraces different kinds of content presentations, as in the example of its mock trial room. The school creates a variety of spaces to indicate that learning and demonstration occur in different ways, keeping students on their toes and allowing for innovation and creativity. Overall, the physical structures of Dubiski Career High School communicate that learning is innovative, seamless, and appropriate to the objectives.
Dubiski Career High School hallway (Photo credit: Andrew K. Miller)
Dubiski Career High School mock trial room (Photo credit: Andrew K. Miller)
Manor New Technology High School, also in Texas, has physical structures that communicate both in terms of learning but also in terms of school culture. I’m going to focus on school culture examples. Classrooms within the building have large windows that open into the hallway. It communicates transparency of the learning, both for the faculty and for the students. Classrooms are not isolated. On the contrary, classrooms are open and welcoming. In addition, students and teachers share the space.
Student work is prevalent throughout the school, covering parts of windows and walls. Student ownership is the clear message that is being communicated. Yes, faculty share the space, but share is the key word and only a fraction of what students own. In addition, students claim ownership of the school walls in innovative and creative ways, as evident by the photo of the school wall. In this case, student work led to designing a mural that would remain on a school wall. What an excellent example of a high-stakes audience, which we know raises the level of student work. Here students are given the opportunity in the classroom environment to own the school, communicating that this place is first and foremost about the student.
Manor New Technology High School hallway (Photo credit: Manor New Technology High School)
Manor New Technology High School mural (Photo credit: Manor New Technology High School)
It would be great if we had the money to create innovative new structures to mirror rigorous learning and safe school culture. I know that many use this as an excuse not to try. Instead, I would encourage you to find ways, no matter how small, to create structures at your school that communicate a message that school put students first, that school is a safe place, and that innovative learning occurs. Look at everything from the schedule, to the way you set up your furniture in the classroom, to the space on the walls you give to students. You can start now to push for better physical structures at your school.
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 >
Another buzzword that permeates the conversation around education is relevancy, and rightfully so. We want our students not only to make connections to real world problems but also to do these activities.
However, it is not simply in the task that we want students to mimic this real world connection. Students are already conditioned to do this. They are used to sitting and completing tasks. Even when the task might have great connection to the real world, it can still just be that: a task to complete. We need to keep this in mind when we ask students to perform real world math, just as the Math Common Core dictates. This common core standard below gives a great example and sets a good tone for what can be target for math instruction.
In a previous blog discussing Math PBL Project Design, I wrote about reframing the word “problem,” and pointed to this standard. For many of us, there is a very traditional meaning that is activated: a word problem in the text book, or simply a calculation to be made. In fact, the Common Core gives it as an example.
We can do better. We can assess learning in a much more relevant and engaging way. For instance, how do we assess this common core standard related to area and volume?
This standard is much less specific about what this might “look like” in the classroom, which leaves it ripe for innovation. There are a variety of products and contexts that could assess this standard. The major assessment, or culminating product in PBL terms, could take on the form of a podcast, presentation, marketing plan, or even a short story.
Perhaps high school students are creating a pool that can meet the needs of ALL people who want to use, from those who have special needs, to children, but at the same time needs to meet certain criteria is terms of standard amounts of water and size.
Perhaps middle school students are in charge of design a new and improved pyramid to be presented to the pharaoh, complete with a variety of antechambers.
Perhaps elementary students are in charge of creating an organic garden to sell certain products at the local farmer’s market.
(A word of caution, don’t give students the exact criteria, instead make them research and make decisions on what the criteria should be.) Again the genre is not as important as the rubric that demands specific criteria. As long as the rubric is clear and transparent where students must demonstrate math skills, include examples, etc, then we know that students are in fact learning the content standard, or common core standard. If you as the teacher need a specific graph, then make sure to include in the rubric. If you need written explanation around the mathematical calculations, then demand it. If you need diagrams and measurements, then make sure the rubric demands it. Grading is not a surprise anymore. It is clear and transparent.
When looking at the potential for work with this Math Common core, make sure you have high expectations for the level of work your students can do. The old definition of the word “problem” is not rigorous. Redefining the word “problem” within the frame of Problem or Project-Based Learning is rigorous, and still demands real world connections in an authentic way. If we want our students to really wrestle with math concepts, then we must create space for this work to happen, and create assessments that mirror this complex work.
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 >
Teachers want to know what the day-to-day looks like. I know I do. After generating great project ideas, I want to know exactly what my day-to-day looks like. There is a pitfall there. Sometimes we plan the calendar too quickly. When this is done, projects can be unsuccessful. Why? Because not enough time and thought is given to content, skills, and knowledge that are required for students to be successful. When teachers reflect with me on projects that were not as successful, I often hear these comments:
“The project went longer than I thought.”
“I forgot a lesson, or didn’t think that the students would need it.”
These all stem from rushing too quickly to the calendar. Here are the steps and some advice for building a calendar for a successful PBL project.
Begin with the End in Mind
Look at the products students are creating. What skills, knowledge, etc. will students need to be successful in the project? This Teaching and Learning Guide, provided by the Buck Institute for Education, gives an example for an elementary project. It is very similar to Understanding By Design backward design process.
Open Your Filing Cabinet
Please, please, please don’t reinvent the wheel. Teachers have amazing lessons and resources that they collect over the years. I know when I moved classrooms I had an exorbitant amount of binders and folders of teacher “stuff.” Use that amazing teacher bag of tricks. In fact, you may use traditional teacher tools. In the example below, you can see readers’ workshops as a staple instructional strategy for the project. If this were a math problem, you would most likely see selections from the textbook, direct instruction lessons, or worksheets. If this were a project focused on writing, you might see worksheets on commas, as well as drafts and mini-lectures for writing skills. These are great, and will help your students. The important thing is that these teaching strategies are aligned to important content and skills needed for kids to do an authentic project. A small caveat: make sure you vary your strategies to meet the needs of all learners.
Plug and Play
This is the most gratifying step, because now, building the physical calendar is easy. You’ve generated necessary skills and content to be successful for the project. You’ve looked in your library of teacher resources to come up with specific lessons, strategies and tools to arm kids with these skills and content. Now, you can plug and play. Using the right column of the Teaching and Learning Guide, put the lessons and tools in appropriate places in the calendar. See the example calendar week below. Don’t forget to include implementation and work time, where students apply the knowledge into creating and performing the tasks for the project. In addition, make sure you have your formative assessments and draft products built in, not only to check for understanding, but also to hold students accountable.
It’s a Reframe
We’ve all been there. We’ve all been to professional development where it feels like we are being asked to erase our teacher toolkit like an Etch-a-Sketch. This is not the case. Project-based learning is a reframe, ensuring that all teaching strategies and tools are aligned to an authentic project. You will use your teacher resources, and when taking the time to plan, build a successful PBL project calendar.
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 >
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. 
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. 
This post originally appeared on InService, the ASCD community blog. ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) is an educational leadership organization with 160,000 members in 148 countries, including professional educators from all levels and subject areas––superintendents, supervisors, principals, teachers, professors of education, and school board members. 
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