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.

Building Tech Literacy with Google Classroom and Lucidpress by Guest Author Eliza Wright

You heard us right! Now, Learn how Lucidpress+Google Classroom Can Help You Improve Digital Literacy

The latest generation of students may be tech-savvy, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re tech literate. What’s the difference? Tech savviness refers to an individual’s skill level, whereas tech literacy more broadly refers to the ability to use technology responsibly and appropriately.

So how can teachers best prepare a bumper crop of young Tweeters and Snapchatters for a lifetime of meaningful technology use?

We think the answer is simple: focus on key outcomes. That way, students will come to appreciate the productive possibilities of technology even as the tech landscape continues to evolve around them.

Here are three key outcomes to focus on as you guide your students’ use of technology this year, along with tools and tips to help you do so:

Collaboration

Technology makes collaboration easier, and collaboration makes learning easier.

Collaborative tools are a dime a dozen nowadays, but some of the most impressive come included in Google Apps for Education (check out this year’s new features). Lucidpress, an intuitive web-based publishing and design tool, is also worth investigating, especially since it now integrates with Google Classroom. Educators can try Lucidpress for free just by signing up. This integration means that teachers can easily create assignments with Lucidpress, distribute them, and make comments on their students’ drafts before grading.

Presentation

Arguably, the learning process isn’t complete until the learner can explain what he or she knows to others. Giving students the chance to present their work to others gives them extra motivation to prepare thoroughly. It’s also a great opportunity for them to polish their public speaking skills and develop their own voice.

Google Apps for Education comes with Slides, which is a great (albeit simple) presentation tool. The aforementioned Lucidpress is also excellent for creating and presenting documents like digital presentations and printed brochures.

Conversation

Digital conversations can be tricky, and it may seem easier to avoid them altogether if you meet with your students face to face, but helping students to express well-developed opinions and ideas online can be a springboard to intellectual engagement.

With Gmail and Google Translate, students can chat with pen pals in another country. You can also use Google Sites to create custom websites on nearly any topic, from environmentalism to pop culture. With today’s tools at your fingertips, we think tech literacy is more attainable than ever. Let us know which tools and techniques are your favorites!

Article by Guest Author Eliza Wright of Lucidpress

Eliza Wright is a marketing manager at Lucid Software. She's passionate about roller derby, cooking, social justice, and—what else?—content marketing. Contact her at eliza@lucidchart.com or find her on Twitter at @eliza1wright.

Updated Student Choice Continuum

The idea of the "Student Choice Continuum" has had quite a bit of traction thanks to followers on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. Thanks for your feedback. Below please find the updated Student Choice Continuum which has discarded the "Based on Curriculum" anchor found in the original version. Educators pointed out to me that any of these activities could be based on curriculum or not and that often teachers think their activities are based on curriculum (word search) when they are actually not helpful to student learning. Keep sharing and sending feedback! I'm listening!

Vector Version (svg format)

Extra Large PNG Version

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?

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.

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.