Mo Physics Mo Problems

This past week, I spent three days in Napa California attending PBL World which was run by the Buck Institute for Education ( bie.org ).  A colleague from my school and I were enrolled in PBL 101 an intensive course for those new to Project Based Learning. To say the experience was transformative, would be to sell it short. Simply put, everything I thought I knew about PBL was renovated.  I learned that what I thought I was practicing was not Project Based Learning as it should be done. I learned so much that I need to write about it in order to process it all. I plan on posting about each of the days individually over the next couple of weeks.  So without further ado, let me talk about day 1. This was written on the plane ride back, so please forgive any glaring proofreading errors. Day 1 Keynote The first part of the keynote was by John Mergendoller of the Buck Institute and his focus was on Gold Standard PBL. It was a very interesting time to att...

It's been awhile since I last posted.  I feel like I've got lots of lost time to make up.  Well, my co-teaching partner and I put together our first full blown PBL unit with the help of the Buck Institute's fantastic book PBL for 21st Century Success .   What I found most useful was the ability to align the process in term of the 4 C's.  The table below is simply a reorganization of the work presented in the book. If we were going to go full on PBL, we decided not to go with a project I had created from scratch.  Using the resource bank at bie.org , I found a project called Blocking Sound I had actually encountered before while taking a course via PBLU.org .  The project involved students designing materials to soundproof walls. I slightly modified the driving question to focus on the needs of my classroom. Modifying the table above, we designed a plan specific to our unit.   My first big mistake was not presenting the driv...

When I first began my my journey towards redesigning my classroom model, I choose  project/problem based learning as a guiding light.  I would say that I still have lots to learn and look forward to attending PBL World this summer to dig deep into PBL 101. As a district, we are moving towards a model which incorporates the opportunity for personalized learning opportunities .  I fully embrace the idea of choice and voice in one's own learning.  I have been struggling with wrapping my head around how I can offer both to my students. This is the first image that came to mind. Can I design problem/projects which also allow for student voice and choice at a deep level?  Are they two great tastes that go great together or two distinct instructional models that can't coexist. Let me talk about this in the framework of the project I just completed with my physics students. Groups were given a toy known as a Kick Dis which is a small disc that hovers on a ...

 When students have completed and presented their work, the project isn't over. We don't just throw it out like the trash.   One of the key design features of Gold Standard Project Based Learning is reflection.   We ended our first project in AP Physics 1 today,  and I asked students to reflect on the project process and reflect on what helped them learn and what improvements could be added to the system.  So, here is what they said was good for their learning. The big takeaways for me are that although I assign problem sets to be completed outside of project time, they still find them beneficial.  Project time does take away from the ability to go over problem sets together or correct them as a class.  So, having a posted solution has been key.  Also, I have the feedback board where students can list problems that we can go over as a class when necessary.  We used this a few times in the momentum unit and I though it wa...

When making changes to our instruction, educators need to know if these changes are leading them in the right direction.  Sometimes this data is hard to come by. But, responsible educators need to look for any signs they can face going the wrong way too fast. The 2013-14 school year was my initial implementation of project based learning in the classroom.  I have lots of anecdotal and qualitative observations of student achievement that tell me I am going the right way with my curriculum redesign.  It is still important, though, to have some quantitative data to back up my decision to stay the course with PBL. Following the completion of term 3, I administered a test to 51 students in the project based setting and 29 students in the traditional setting.  The test measured mastery of 7 key physics objectives taught during term 3.  The test was given 3 weeks into term 4.  Students were given no prior warning to the term.  This means th...