A Piece of My Mind

And on to day three of my first PBL training experience. I will say that at this point in my training, I was thinking about how I could not believe it was already three days of training and over with. I have sat in one day trainings that seemed longer than this was. That is a testament to the work BIE is doing and the skill level of Tim Kubik.

This is one of my all time favorite history videos. It is a killer mashup of American history and a song the students are familiar with from a group called One Republic. Well worth your time to watch:

Too Late to Apologize: A Declaration

This was Dan’s suggestion to go along with a little media introduction of American history. And the cool thing is that this was shot in the White House:

Lin-Manuel Miranda Performs at the White House Poetry Jam: (8 of

The idea here is that no one student gets trained to be the only one to know how to accomplish something in the group. At least train an additional group member in case something stops the responsible group member from completing the task. It does not hold the entire group back. It’s called collaborative work for a reason.

Notice accountability does not always mean a grade. Let the students know the difference and how their ongoing accountability “scores/notes/etc” with you play into an assessment that ends up in the gradebook.

I said this in the beginning, but you can see I really meant it. And with good friends in my PLN like Adina checking up on me, how could I not want to keep on learning. twitter

This was a metaphorical game to prove the point that when one coworker gets down during the school year, we can always bring the one to bring them back to life.

Adina was looking for some additional PBL resources for her own personal learning. These are worth looking into.
Edutopia
BIE
PBL Checklist 4 Teachers

This is always a sticky subject when working with students, but it is one that needs to be broached. Consider my next few tweets:

In other words, they cannot argue their own expectations. When the parent who wants to gripe realizes it is the expectation their child helped create that he or she is failing to live up to, then they have only their child to debate with.

They cannot just say that Johnny is not doing his part. They must present their side of the argument based on their contracts. What is he failing to live up to? Is it fire worthy? Can mediation solve it?

Enough said.

As a longtime teacher of gifted students, this would be like a car accident: you know not to look, but you just can’t help yourself.

This is the real meat of the entire topic summed up. Creating a culture of professional hiring and firing is absolutely real world.

I believe we call that….failure.

This is a pretty killer idea worth considering. You don’t think you have a day to spare in your schedule? Hmmm. Consider the time saved long term in this.

Critical friends can be harsh, but it is not called lovey dovey friends. The point is that the students need to see it is okay to hear constructive, critical feedback on their project. Better to receive that BEFORE it is presented for assessment than after.

The kindergarten teachers handled all of the questions like champs. I was proud to be a part of the group.

This helps limit the areas the peers can go. In other words, it limits the side trips kids tend to take when they start talking. It keeps it focused and valuable.

This goes back to the video about how important the First Follower can be in group dynamics. The Lone Nut is the one who puts him or herself out there. It is not until the First Follower steps out to support that person that the idea can take hold and draw many others into the fold. The video below demonstrates it perfectly, but just know that PBL is is the Lone Nut worth following. Your kids deserve it. Your career deserves it. You can be part of the epic success of the student, or you can be the one the kids remember as the teacher who was a worksheet master. Your choice.

First Follower: Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy

I have absolutely no idea how I got off track in posting the second and third day of my reflections from my PBL training with the Buck Institute for Education via Twitter on my training. I apologize to my mom and the other person who clicked on the link in Google after a search for PBL. Let me get back to completing the two days before something else gets in the way. Again, since it has been so long, I am posting what I said on Twitter during the training and adding a short reflection as needed to show what I was thinking or what I wanted to better understand. It might not be the best way to reflect, but it’s my blog, so what the heck.

If you haven’t seen the RSA Animate video Drive, you really should. Like now.

This was mentioned at the beginning of the day to let us know what to expect. I really like this method of review and it helped me prepare mentally for the end of the day expectation. In other words, I didn’t want to get caught in the fishbowl with nothing to say. That’s not very productive as a learner, for sure.

This tweet was retweeted a bunch of times, and deservedly so. It was a great line by our trainer. Gives you something to think about, and I know every time I use the word grade now, I have to pause to make sure it is what I meant. Assessment is a much more meaningful word. It is also a much more meaningful process. Keep that in mind.

Read my notes above.

The fist to five was new to me and most assuredly an easy one to utilize to immediately assess each student’s comfort level with the current topic. Basically, hold up the number of fingers on how you feel you are doing with the concept being discussed (you choose what number means great or not at all). You can quickly average/estimate the scores to decide if you move on as a whole group or a small group. Exit tickets lets students share their opinion on post it notes or similar on the way out the door, at the end of the project, at the end of a lesson, etc. 

I like this part. One thing you need to make sure of, though, is that you get enough grades in they system to show the student’s actual progress. Can you really show a true average with only four or five grades per six weeks? Does it give the student and parent something to use to help the student growth? I’d say it depends on the topic(s) covered. If it is one topic covered in all of those grades, then probably so. If different topics, then most assuredly not.

This is great to keep in mind when CREATING the assessment tool(s) for the project. Don’t slap down a one size fits all rubric and force the kids to adjust their learning to your personal thoughts. That truly kills the point of PBL. What you have done at that point is just turn it into a project. Anybody can do that at a low functioning level.

Yeah, I know many of you think QR codes are stupid and a time waster, but it is a new technology that these teachers are trying out. I love the fact that they are stepping outside the box here to tie in something different. Besides, QR codes are a way of life for many marketers, fitness devices (parks use QR codes to give instructions on outdoor equipment), and information links in general. Folks should be familiar with them.

See my notes before. Maybe it is the fact that someone gave me an expectation of learning at the beginning of learning. Maybe it is the fact that I find myself excited about learning in general now. Regardless, I love the transparent process that the fish bowl activity provides. It invites anyone to be a part of the conversation…or not. Yet, we all learn from the conversation that is inherently a part of it.

Ooooo. Burnnnnn. In other words, don’t just go download a project off the web and think everything falls into place easily. It doesn’t. You have to consider many angles of where the students can take the learning. It is more time intensive in the beginning, but it pays much larger dividends in the end for you and the students.

Wow!. All I can say here is, Wow!

Okay, I caught some pushback from this on Twitter. I don’t apologize for the sentiment of it. Basically, why do we keep doing a one size fits all assessment of our students and then complain they cannot do all of these varied things requiring out of the box thinking. All we have taught our kids is multiple choice. Life is not like that. PBL is an instructional strategy. Done right, it does not take up 100% of your instructional time. You are still needed for mini-lessons, occasional short lectures, conferences, facilitating, guiding, conferences, some more guiding and facilitating. You get the point. What we don’t need more of is worksheets, multiple choice tests, and people who are NOT educators telling us the best way to prepare our students for the REAL world. Pearson’s world of multiple choice sucks, plain and simple.

Remember, I was in a district that did not allow YouTube, Twitter, or any other social networking site. Many had mastered the art of downloading YouTube videos as home and bringing them on flash drives. How stupid is it that any department forces you to use your own resources and family time to do something that should be done in the classroom?

This was an idea I threw out to some folks. I realize there are all kinds of chats available out there. I did not see one specific to PBL. It would be a nice support place for folks to go to that are new or those willing to mentor others.

Obvious, but I meant it. Check out their site. They have some work to do on the collection to better control the quality of the projects there, but it doesn’t take long to separate the wheat from the chaff.

I really liked this quote from @KubiKahn. He is exactly right. Randomly numbering kids for groups when the product results in many grades is not the fair way to do things. Match strengths with weaknesses as a group. Don’t set the group up for failure. It’s not fair, and it will only cause you grief down the road.

 Suzie is another master of PBL and a part of BIE’s national faculty. She is a published author on integrating PBL and this link was a great resource to add for the day. Looking for something new for an ice breaker? Take a look at these.

So, that’s day 2. I’ll get to work on day 3 next. I won’t make you wait long. I promise. Thanks for reading along. By the way, if you decide you are interested in PBL training from BIE in Texas, TCEA has an upcoming training scheduled in Austin October 25-27. Get in soon. There were only a handful of spots left last I checked.

So, you’re thinking about ways to move your class to a more project based or inquiry based learning setting. This teacher has a pretty cool idea that will allow you to do just that without tons of work. It becomes extremely engaging for the students because they are having to generate their own learning. Nothing is being spoon fed to them in this activity. I can see myself using this to introduce concepts to students in pretty much any subject area.

I had the honor recently of going through three days of PBL training with some great Garland ISD elementary teachers. The leader was Tim Kubik from the Buck Institute for Education (BIE). I have to say, it was one of the best trainings I have been through. It was a nice combination of mini lessons, hands on work, presenting, reflection, short lecture, and more. When you have veteran teachers corralled for three days, you have to be different or else you’ll lose them. Tim did the job.

Some quick background on BIE. BIE got its start in 1987 from a foundation created with the Leonard and Beryl Buck Trust. In the late 90′s, the focus of the foundation turned to project based learning.

Below are some of my reflections I posted to Twitter along the way as well as some additional thoughts. I am not going through my day bullet by bullet. I can do that for you, but it was not really what my day was about. My day was about experiencing a different kind of instruction with a new group. I learned tons, and most of it can be referenced in any one of the books on PBL.  My reflections here are to remind me of the points that jumped out at me during the three days. 

I also recommend you read the great article “Debunking Five Myths About Project-Based Learning” by John Larmer. It will help you get over those initial road blocks in your mind that might be holding you back.

I know there are more. Add them in the comment section.

Sure, this shows my geeky education side, but it got me excited. There are not many professional development trainings that actually offer to let you reflect on your learning at the end of each day. It’s almost as if the presenter wants your feedback or something. Crazy talk, I know. I’ll reflect more on these as I go through them later, but they are awesome ways to get your students’ toes wet in PBL thinkology. (yeah, I just made that word up)

Voice and Choice. That is a pretty nice way to summarize the point that students need a say in the direction of their learning. PBL allows a lot of that even though the real direction comes from the teacher based on standards and time frames. Allowing students to be a part of the group norms (discuss later), rubrics, final products, and leadership roles in the groups will be a huge benefit to them as they grow as learners. If the students really enjoy the topic, they will keep on learning even after the final presentation is completed. That’s called life long learning. You do it, too.

Michael Kaechele says it best here:

The most important part of PBL in my opinion is that it gives students voice and choice in their learning. It requires the teacher to step back and give power to the students in deciding how they will solve problems and present their solutions. (this is also where some resistance comes from teachers who are unwillingly to give up control)

While not completely on topic, it did slide through my Twitter stream during this first day. I’d say it is rather fitting for the day. Sit and get, or squirm and learn? I prefer the latter. Puts them on the spot for so much of their own learning.

So, you might wonder what the point is of using QR codes. In this instance, it was an opportunity for the kids to learn some new technologies (both QR codes and the iPods) while giving the visitors previewing their final products an opportunity to access the learning easier and in a little more “showy” fashion for the kids. They are kindergartners, so it will be pretty cool to see school board members struggling with these tools and the 5 year olds jumping in to show them how to use it all.

This came up because the teachers were brainstorming online tools they could use with the kids and then going down through them striking the blocked sites. Sad, really.

The kindergarten teachers I was learning with asked for some other K teachers to follow on Twitter. Who better to start with than my buddy Maria Knee? No one tells it like it is quite like this wonderful lady.

Tim Kubik was the facilitator of this training. Honestly, he is one of the best trainers I have experienced because he allows the work to move forward as a collaborative instead of making everything about him and his knowledge. It was great to be able to eat lunch with him each day and learn more about his work with other schools. By the end of the three days, he connected me with another school so my 4th grade could do some long distance collaborative PBL with butterfly migration. This is going to be a great tie into our nature center. I look forward to working with him more in the future.