Project Based Learning

Learning Through Discovery

High Performing Schools:

Relevant and engaging curriculum PBL gives students exposure to modern applications of what they are studying giving their work a current context.

High Expectations PBL requires students to engage in the process of discovery and to learn from the application of their ideas.

Literacy Programs PBL is meant address students’ skills in research and processing of information.

Culture of Care PBL gives students responsibility for their learning and introduces them to members of the community willing to share their expertise.

Rigor/Relevance/Relationships

• PBL is designed to address the “Why do we need to know this?” by engaging student in a higher level of problem solving on topics that are relevant today.

Rigor/Relevance Framework

• Quadrant A – Acquisition Recall or discovery of basic knowledge

• Quadrant B – Application Definite opportunities for students to apply knowledge typically to a real- world problem

• Quadrant C – Assimilation Complex activities that require students to come up with solutions leading to deeper understanding

Quadrant D- Adaptation

• Learning experiences are high in rigor and relevance and require unique solutions to unpredictable problems

PBL: Unique Attributes

• Begins with an end product in mind• The production of the artifact raises one or more

problems for the students to solve• Uses a production model and mirrors real world

production activities• Students use or present the product they have

created• The end product is the driving force• Content knowledge and skills acquired during the

production process are important to success

The Five-Step Design Process

• 1. Begin with the end in mind!

• 2. Craft the driving question

• 3. Plan the assessment

• 4. Map the project

• 5. Manage the process

• Why Teach with Project Learning?

Craft the Driving Question

• Driving Questions are Provocative

– They must sustain students’ interest and challenge students to go beyond the superficial.

– Do music videos paint an accurate picture of North American Culture?

Craft the Driving Question

• Keep it open ended

– Driving questions do not lead to easy answers but instead guide students to higher level thinking and require them to integrate, synthesize and critically evaluate information.

– Should the United States have used the atomic bomb in World War II?

Craft the Driving Question

• Driving Questions go to the heart of a discipline or topic.

– The question can focus on controversies central to a field and debated by professionals within them.

– How safe is our water?

Craft the Driving Question

• Driving questions are challenging.

– They encourage students to confront difficult issues.

– Who are the most common victims of sexual assault and what are the effects on the victim?

Craft the Driving Question

• Driving questions can arise from real world dilemmas that students find interesting.

– How could we build a new community center using only materials that are native to the province?

– What are the psychological and biological causes behind obesity?

– What are the benefits of human genetic engineering?

Refining the Driving Questions:

• How does DNA work? • Better: Would you trust DNA to determine

your guilt or innocence?

• How does the novel “Night” explain the holocaust?

• Better: Why does genocide occur in today’s world?

Student Directed Driving Questions

• Students need to choose driving questions that mean something to them.

• You are in control of creating an engaging, even enlightening, learning experience for yourself that you will be able to showcase for others.

Planning the Assessment

Moving away from traditional paper and pencil tests.

Plan the Assessment

• How do we measure assessment?

Step One: Align Products with Outcomes

• Identifying culminating products for a project.

• Using multiple products and a checkpoint system for feedback to students.

• Using artifacts to assess skills and habits of mind-these are short assignments capturing your progress and thinking

Step One: Align Products with Outcomes

At the end of the project you will be able to answer the three important questions:

(1) How well do I know the content?

(2) What is my skill level?

(3) How well did I apply my knowledge and skills as I prepared my product?

Working backwards: How will products allow students to demonstrate their learning?

• An exhibition such as a video or oral presentation that requires them to demonstrate knowledge of the subject based on the standards and presentation skills.

• A research paper on a topic encompassed by the standards.

• A journal that records their progress during the project.

• The presentation and the research paper can be assessed using a performance rubric.

• Journals can be assessed formally or informally.

• Additional content outcomes can also be assessed through an exam.

Culminating Products Examples of culminating products include:

• Research paper

• A report. Students investigating a major issue in a project may conduct an analysis or do research on an important societal or community question.

• A multimedia show. Using digital media, students can create an electronic presentation that can be included in or portfolio or shown at an exhibition.

Culminating Products

• Presentations within the school. Presentations or demonstrations to school-wide assemblies or other classrooms are effective environments for increasing the quality of student performances.

• Exhibitions outside of school. Presentations to parents and community members can consist of oral presentations or presentation of an art or media project.

Multiple Products

• Using multiple products to organize a systematic set of checkpoints for project products will not only help keep students on schedule, it will help them refine and improve their work.

• Examples of multiple products include:

• Proposals • Outlines • Plans• Blueprints • Drafts • Edited drafts • Models • Product critiques• Final versions of papers• Field guides• Biographies

Artifacts

Some examples of artifacts include:• Notes• Journal entries• E-mail records• Records of conversations.• Interviews using a structured set of questions.• Short reflective paragraphs describing the

progress of a project.

Step Two: Know what to Assess

• Content knowledge and skills need to be broken down—“unpacked” and laid out in a series of specific statements. These statements become the basis for the assessment process and provide guidance to students on what they should learn.

Step Three: Use Rubrics

• From the student standpoint, the most pertinent fact about rubrics is that they are not secret. From the outset of a project, rubrics should be available to students.

• For teachers, rubrics are an excellent organizing tool for a project. The process of writing a rubric requires teachers to think deeply about what they want their students to know and do.