Project Based Learning (PBL): How Do I Know if I'm Doing it Right?!?

This video seeks to answer the #1 question I get about Project Based Learning, and that is, "Am I Doing This Right?!?" The question speaks to the integrity of my favorite people, educators, and their desire to do the best they can by the students they teach. I hope this video helps you know where to focus your energy when you are trying to shift your teaching practices.

Special (and HUGE) thanks to my colleague Kristy Edgar for the amazing animations, graphics, and visuals for this video. She made a simple soundtrack come alive and be entertaining.

Teachers Who Understand Learning...

Teachers who understand learning intentionally plan for student engagement. They realize it's not something that happens without work, but neither is learning.

An Amazing Student A-Ha! Moment: Sometimes You Have to Do Something BEFORE You Understand It

This afternoon, a group of adults, admins and teachers, and I met with a group of 5 students to work together to plan our Day of Code event. One of the young men told a story that I feel compelled to share. It really rocked my world. I'll paraphrase for you . . .

"I watched a ten minute YouTube tutorial about how to code in HTML; before that, I knew nothing about it. Then, I opened up Notepad and followed the instructions to type in some code in the way I learned from the video. After that, I opened up the text file I made with Safari, and that's when I understood what coding was. Sometimes, you just have to do something before you understand it."

And that my friends, rocked my world.

CrowdSchool Seeks to Crowdsource PBL Units, Asks for a Start via Indie Go Go

CrowdSchool recently launched an IndieGoGo campaign to help scale its platform for teachers to create, share, and sell project-based Challenges. CrowdSchool seeks to make it easier for teachers to find and use project-based resources in the classroom.

All three Co-Founders have teaching experience, and Chief Learning Officer Tim Monreal still teaches middle school Social Studies. Pedagogy is at the heart of CrowdSchool and they are designing a platform that emphasizes 21st century skills like collaboration, critical thinking, communication, and creativity.

With a successful IndieGoGo campaign, CrowdSchool will launch a marketplace where teachers can search for a variety of project-based Challenges. Teachers will then be able to use a CrowdSchool Challenge online with students in their class. They will crowdsource project-based Challenges from teachers. Once teachers create a Challenge they can decide to share it for free to other teachers or list a price of their choosing. Project-based learning takes a lot of preparation time and CrowdSchool wants to make the planning process easier for teachers.

Although CrowdSchool is using IndieGoGo to raise funds to launch a full marketplace, they are currently adding Challenges and resources for teachers to use immediately in the classroom. On Friday, they released the first public CrowdSchool Challenge: "Create a Campaign to Reduce Bullying in your School or Community."

To use the Bullying Prevention Challenge Sign up here. It's completely free and they will send you everything you need to start using your Challenge within 24 hours.

To learn more about CrowdSchool visit their website , check out their IndieGoGo campaign page, or take a couple of minutes to watch the inspiring video posted below. 

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Article provided by CrowdSchool's own Tim Monreal. Thanks Tim!

What Leads to Engagement? These Three Relatively Simple Things . . .

I've been doing a lot of reading lately in preparation for the first upcoming Engage Me Academy. Here's one thing I learned . . .

Who Owns Project Based Learning?

Someone asked me recently if [insert organization name here] owned Project Based Learning. Well, I'd like us to think about that together because I understand the root of the question. There are some organizations, sales people, companies, etc. who seem to own the idea of Project Based Learning. Do they?

In fact, the tenets of Project Based Learning are ideas good teachers have been using for many years, even if they didn't call it that. One teacher in her 60s recently told me, "Oh Amy, I know all about this! This is how we used to teach before all the testing. It was fun!" Yes, it WAS fun! My friend and mentor Jan Robin was one person who taught me about it. She used it in her elementary school classroom back in the 80s and 90s. She told me that at one time, there was even a state standardized test that attempted to have students create a floating vessel out of some popsicle sticks and foil.

My knowledge about PBL has come from many different places, but it began in my own classroom when at the end of my rope, I decided to run my classroom more like a business. You can read about that here. I didn't know it had a name, and I'd never studied Seymour Paypert and didn't really get the connection to Jean Piaget. But I don't think either of these educational gurus and philosophers would mind if I reference their work on Constructivism, do you?

When people have something to share that is truly valuable, they are not threatened by others sharing the conversation, they are enlivened and encouraged by it. 

If you want to know more about Project Based Learning, The Buck Institute for Education's free resources are a great place to start. However, the best learning you can do is to talk to peers and colleagues who are implementing Project Based Learning in their own classrooms. You do not have to attend an academy or pay a company in order to become knowledgeable about this teaching and learning methodology, you just have to give it a try.

On the other hand, attending a training (no matter how expensive it is) doesn't make you an expert at PBL and just because someone has been paid to offer it or received an endorsement doesn't make them an expert either. Think critically about what you hear. Use your own experience to inform what trainers tell you. Keep up to date with your PLN about the topic. There is no one know-it-all guru who can tell you everything you need to know about anything. When it comes to your students YOU are the expert.

However, if you don't have guru funding, you can get in contact with other districts who are implementing on their own and share the knowledge. OR read about it and just give it a try yourself. If you have a supportive school administration and you make sure to use your standards to design a project, go for it. I'd love to hear how it goes.

Think about the differences between Project Based Learning and Doing Projects.
Be introspective about your assignments. Do they really promote the benefits of student 

choice? Check out the Student Choice Continuum. Do you agree with my placements? If not, give me some feedback. Here's the latest version. 

Most importantly, don't neglect to share what you learn. If you work in education, that's supposed to be what it's all about.

4 Other Essential Elements of Project Based Learning

Today I met with a great group of teachers embarking on implementing project based learning together. I shared this seminal article with them and we discussed their ideas. But AFTER I left their meeting, what I REALLY wanted to say hit me.

As you plan your projects, consider at least one element of project design that will get (and keep) kids interested BEYOND the 8 essentials . . .

1. Serve others in need with your project.

• Example: Students build a grocery store via donations to fuel the local food bank. In the process, they learn about pricing, inventory control, spreadsheets, and supply and demand.
• High school students create books about science concepts for elementary school students from poverty with no books in their homes. Each child gets a book.

2. Serve other students by teaching them something they need to know.

• Example: Everyone is reading this novel in English, but my team is responsible for teaching everyone about theme in this work of literature. If we do a bad job, no one will learn about theme. We’ll provide a tutorial, examples, and activities to teach everyone else in our class what theme is and how it works in this novel. Other classes who are also reading the book can learn from our work because it will be published online.
• Secondary students teach elementary students ___ through screencasts. (Fractions? Narrative Structure? Could be anything---maybe the winning team (see #3) gets to travel to meet the elementary school learners at the end of the project.)

3. Be a competitor.

• Each member of my class is on a team, and each of our teams are working on a project. The winning team gets to . . . (go visit another school with our cooperative counterparts as ambassadors, eat dinner at a restaurant with the teacher to celebrate, etc.)

4. Publish online (and get someone to see it).

• Create a blog on which to publish your classes digital endeavors, post pictures of paper masterpieces, etc. Then get friends, family, (whatever it takes) to comment on them from time to time. It’s very motivating for your work to be seen outside your school and sometimes even outside your country. Find a cooperating teacher and get her students to comment on your students’ work, then return the favor.
• Two of my favorite local teachers have created classroom Instagram accounts where their students’ work is published. Students, parents, teachers, etc. can favorite students’ work online. Teachers can use the accounts to provide directions for activities (like foldables). Thanks for the idea Brooke Lowery and Bridget Costello!

Student Choice Continuum: Version 1

I'm working on the idea of a student choice continuum to help explain Project Based Learning. This continuum is not meant to represent "good" verus "bad" instruction; almost all forms of instruction can be done well or poorly, purposefully or not. For example, I learn well by listening, so for me, an interesting, well-delivered lecture could be effective. My son, however, is not much of an auditory learner. Doing a Project would be better for him than a lecture.  I'd appreciate your constructive feedback on this idea. This is version 1. What can we do to make it better?

Back to School On Campus Staff Development, PBL Style

A couple of smart principals I know (and luckily get to work with frequently) told me that they're going to use Project Based Learning for campus staff development this year. We started brainstorming a Driving Question for this purpose. What do you think? Would you rather have PBL based Back to School staff development? What could we do to improve our DQ?

Driving Question:

How can you work in a team of 4-5 peers to create a 5-10 minute presentation on an engaging strategy, communication technique, or tool that could be used enhance learning or improve communication in our school?

Norms & Expectations:

• All team members must speak about what they contributed during the presentation .
• Teaching techniques or scenarios addressed by the teams should be presented in an engaging way and modeled during the presentation.
• A digital representation or handout that will help your peers remember the technique/tool/idea, etc. must be shared.

Scaffold for Writing a Driving Question for Project Based Learning

Need help getting started writing a Driving Question? Try using the scaffold below; however, don't get locked in! This is just an IDEA for a starting point. Feel free to rearrange, get rid of, and add elements as you please. If you have suggestions to make this graphic better, please let me know if the comments or via the contact form on the right.

Want this graphic as a Google Doc so you can edit it? Sure thing. Click here to get it. 

Brief Guide to Vocabulary for Project Based Learning

While I've been using Project Based Learning since my second year as a public school teacher some 14 years ago, I have only recently learned the vocabulary to describe the practices I find so effective.

Thanks to BIE.org for standardizing and publicizing this terminology. So here's what we do (and don't) say to describe our practices. A big shout out to a certain nearby Project Based Learning elementary school for giving me a few new words and helping refine my understanding of Project Based Learning in the elementary school as well. I would tell you the name of said school, but they are already overrun with visitors. (You can ask me again next school year.)

To begin with, Project Based Learning is not a regular noun, it's a gerund, like "caring" or "running." You can't "have" it or "hold" it because it's verb-like. Thus . . .

Don't say: This is my PBL.  Instead say, "This is my project."
Don't say: This is my students' PBL. Instead say, "This is my student's project."

But say: The more I learn about PBL, the more I like it.
And: PBL is the theory that makes the most sense to me.
Also: I have been hearing a lot about PBL lately.
Or say: My school is embracing PBL.
There are many more terms associated with Project Based Learning. Please put your favorites (or the most important ones I left out) in the comments for this article, and you will soon see them appear on this document.

P.S. There are many great resources for learning more about the theory and practice of Project Based Learning, including Edutopia's Project Based Learning Beat and their excellent YouTube Channel. As far as books, go, I'd love a good recommendation. While I just started reading this one, it's the best I've seen so far and the closest to my own self-developed theory, which means I like it a lot.

What do Students Do When the Teacher's Away?

Yesterday I had Instructional Rounds scheduled with a group of teachers involved in a special project. One of the 7th grade teachers I was scheduled to visit had a family emergency and wasn't able to be at school. I decided to go ahead and see what was going on since I already had the time set aside, and I have to tell you . . .

It was amazing.

The students are engaged in Project Based Learning and were finishing up their "Dream Big" project where they design their dream bedrooms in collaborative teams using Chromebooks. They must know furniture and building costs, calculate dimensions, and keep up with lots of spreadsheets and calculations, as well as use tools like MyDeco.com and Autodesk Homestyler to create their rooms in 2 and 3D.

Everywhere students were discussing projects and solving problems.

It was TRULY a WOW! moment.

Way to go Mrs. Brenda Schultz and class. We couldn't stop talking about you!

Photograph Used with Permission from Andy Carlos Photography, Houston, TX. If you like it, please use the link to visit and like Andy's Facebook page where there are beautiful photos with unique perspectives and lighting like the one you see above, and this one, my other favorite.

Fried Questions: The Question Slip

Part of transitioning to being the "guide on the side" is helping students become more reliant on each other and themselves than on you (the teacher). The Question Slip is a great option to wean students off your nurturing care and help them become more self and team reliant. Here's how it works, after ALLLL the directions are given, and you have asked many times if there are any more questions, and every hand has gone down, you hand out THE QUESTION SLIP, perhaps two per team. When I first tried this technique, I made a ton of copies and meticulously cut them all apart expecting to use many pages of slips per day. I handed them out, with a bit of trepidation but a lot of hope. Throughout the day, I waited to receive a returned question slip . . . but it almost never happened. In fact, I don't think I ever made another set of copies in my teaching career. However, I heard lots of great conversations, like this one (fictionalized with truthiness):

Albert: "Hey, I need you guys to sign this. I've got to as Mrs. Mayer a question!"
Marie: "Seriously? WHAT do you need to ask?"
Albert: "I need to know how long this needs to be. I mean like do we have to do three pages for four or ten or, like, what?"
Marie: "Dude! She told us that like FOUR times! It's as long as we need it to be! The grade comes from the rubric, not from how long it is! SIT DOWN. We ain't signing that slip!"

Of course Marie says these things with all the love and care of a classmate, but the best part of it is that Marie says it and not Mrs. Mayer. The only potential downside to Question Slips is the possible perception on the part of parents that you do not want to help their students. Reassure them that this is NOT the case. Students have time EACH DAY in whole group to ask any questions about ANY thing; however, question slips do help students become more self-reliant and are part of learning to work independently.

Please, even if you don't think this will work, trust me and give it a try. It changed my life as a teacher and after a time or two, I didn't need the slips because kids got it. Thinking for themselves was ok---even desirable, and this little slip of paper was all they needed to help them realize that they had what they needed ALL the time.

© Amy Mayer, @friEdTechnology, The Original WOW! Academy www.friEdTechnology.com Please copy and use freely!

Get the Question Slip file in Google Doc form here.

Interested in attending The ORIGINAL WOW! Academy and becoming a WOW! Master Teacher? Email me and let me know using the contact form in the top right and I'll put you on my mailing list.

What's the Difference Between Doing Projects and Project Based Learning?

Do you have ideas that should be added to this list or do you notice something that needs to be changed? Please let me know in the comments and you will see the document form of this list change accordingly.

Here's the Google Doc version of this file.