Group items tagged

This talk reminds me of PBL because the students are leading the learning. What do you think?

While searching for PBL examples I came across this project that I think will be really useful in designing future PBL's in my Marketing class. It's on designing a magazine cover to attract target audiences!

At its core, PBL is focused on important knowledge and concepts derived from standards, and skills valuable for today's world, such as critical thinking, collaboration, and communication.

This article changed my thinking...and therefore my classroom...to make me a PBL believer. I reread it often!

Using apps, technology and digital citizenship in PBL

Austin Kleon is a favorite of mine. I love his blog and weekly digest. We use his book Steal Like an Artist in our Design Thinking classes. Thank you for adding him to these bookmarks!

I think this will help inspire me!

This article succinctly points out why PBL can be so difficult to initiate into a school system. The author notes that our educational systems reward obedience over innovation. Worth thinking about how that can be changed.

This study compared 7th and 8th graders' achievement between groups of students who engaged in project-based learning with those who did not. This study is based on Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory, a method of experiential learning that starts with observation and reflections that leads to abstract concepts that lead to new ideas and thinking (Cervantes et al., 2015). The learning cycle, pictured below helps students learn and practice 21st-century learning skills needed for both college and career. The groups that engaged in project-based learning outperformed the groups that did not engage in PBL in both STAAR reading and math tests(Cervantes et al., 2015).

This article by Melinda Kolk, supports the same argument about the value an authentic audience can have on learning as the Monica Burns article. What I liked about Kolk's thinking that was different, was the idea of a flexible audience. Different groups may have different audiences based on the information and stakeholders the groups choose. Kolks also stressed the need for not just authentic audiences, but for authentic and real-world problems, which might influence who the audience is. The article suggests focusing on ideas that matter, work that matters, and effort that matters (Move from Projects to Project-Based Learning, 2022).

This article from the Journal of STEM Education presents teachers (who don't normally experience what is like to work in fields outside of education) who took part in externships in STEM jobs so they could learn for themselves exactly the types of scenarios their students might encounter. The results drove authenticity in their PBL teaching. I think it's important for teachers to truly understand these demands, and not just read about them. If we provide these contextualized environments for our students because we believe it's best for their learning, why don't we work toward providing those same experiences for ourselves? Bowen, B., & Shume, T. (2018). Educators in Industry: An Exploratory Study to Determine how Teacher Externships Influence K-12 Classroom Practices. Journal of STEM Education, 19(1), 5-10.