iGeneration - 21st Century Education (Pedagogy & Digital Innovation)

Many uses of PBL in a Geometry Classroom

Emphasis on QUALITY!

Ways by which to enrich PBS outputs

 This article gives some free websites that students can use for project based learning assignments.  They all make projects easier for students to put together and to get to from different computers.  In a way this makes me think of my personal learning network with the free ways to share ideas through the internet.  These resources all seem very useful for a project based learning classroom and I cannot wait to see how they will grow and expand by the time I have my own classroom.

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Great rubrics for process

Learning more about PBL and loving it!

Oh how I wish...how can we get buy in? Thesis article says what we need, but how do we get others to hop on the bus?

This article brings in the perspective of teaching from the Common Core standards with Project-Based Learning.  This article says PBL cannot be added to the existing classroom practice.  To be successful with it, it requires a fundamental change in teaching philosophy.  Changing into a PBL classroom means letting go of a lot of conventional school beliefs and norms.  Teachers will need to shift thinking from "controlling students" to moving toward a more learner-centered approach giving the kids autonomy.  The following are the three core factors Markham says will maximize our effort and desire to successfully establish a PBL Friendly Culture: caring relationships, desire for meaning and purpose, and the power of mastery.  The underlying fear and perspective this article was written from is the fear that "districts who talk about implementing PBL across their schools, do not fundamental understand all the changes necessary for successful implementation of PBL."

I am intrigued by the idea that teachers need to go from controlling students to trusting students.  It will be difficult for teachers who have been teaching a certain way their whole careers to suddenly allow learning to be more exploratory and be a little more trusting of the students.  The students are going to face the same challenge from the opposite perspective- they are going to go from being told what to do all the time to being given more freedom.  Some won’t know what to do with this new found freedom and more than likely, they will totally take advantage of the teacher's hands off approach to the classroom environment.  For other students, this new style of teaching will be a breath of fresh air because they will finally be able to stretch out and learn at their own pace in the way that is best for their own unique learning style.  I also am glad to see he made the point that you can't just add PBL to current classrooms- the whole philosophy will change.  This makes me wonder what schools will be like if we start out using PBL and continue to grow from there.