Blog Post #9

This week's blog question is, "What can teachers and students teach us about Project Based Learning?"  In order to answer this question, Dr. Strange gave us a list of resources to check out.

First, I read an article titled Seven Essentials for Project Based Learning by John Larmer and John R. Mergendoller. The article opens with two criteria necessary for a project to be effective, which are it must be personally meaningful and the project must fulfill and educational purpose.  Then the article lists the essentials for Project Based Learning.  The seven essentials that Larmer and Mergendoller gave are:

1. A Need to Know

2. A Driving Question

3. Student Voice and Choice

4. 21st Century Skills

5. Inquiry and Innovation

6. Feedback and Revision

7. Publicly Presented Work

This list ties in directly with the next resource provided by Dr. Strange which was a video titled Project Based Learning for Teachers. Both of these resources explain how PBL turns the learning process into something more meaningful by giving students projects that are relevant to their lives.  The video explains that the Common Core State Standards answers the question WHAT students need to learn and Project Based Learning is HOW teachers should go about teaching these standards. In the video, Tony Vincent also provided the viewers with his own list.  This list, I like to call it the 4 Cs of Project Based Learning, explain the skills the children will be improving upon by using the PBL teaching method. The 4 Cs of of Project Based Learning are: Collaboration, Communication, Critical Thinking, and Career and Life Skills.  These are important skills for the children to be working on because they will need them in every aspect of their life from the time they start school onward.  PBL used questioning, investigating, sharing and reflecting in order to improve these skills.

Majority of the resources for Project Based Learning have given advice and lists similar to the ones above.  Sometimes it is easier to understand how effective PBL can be, not by reading the articles, lists, and such, but by hearing how the students actually carry out the projects and how they feel about their work.  That is why I chose to watch the video Two Students Solve the Case of the Watery Ketchup by Designing a New Cap. In this video, two students explain how they created a solution to a problem they face every day.  The boys discussed their project and probably did not even realize that they had gone through every one of the seven essentials of Project Based Learning (well maybe not #6).  1. They had a need to know because when they use ketchup and they watery juice comes out at first it is a problem.  2. They had a driving question of why does this happen and how can we stop it from happening? 3. The two students had a voice and choice because the project was relevant to them.  4. They were able to use 21st Century devices such as CAD (computer aided design) and a 3D printer to create a new top for the ketchup bottles. 5. Obviously there was inquiry and innovation all throughout their creative process.  The two had to figure out what was causing the watery ketchup in order to design a new cap for it.  6.  Feedback and revision were not really discussed in the video, but they probably did not get the perfect cap on the first try.  Lastly, 7. the boys created the video I watched in order to present their work publicly.

In order to create effect projects for the students, it is necessary for the teacher to know what motivates her students.  PBL: What Motivates Students Today is an excellent video to gain insight to what the children are thinking about while they are working.  The first student said he enjoys when the teacher congratulates him on his good work.  This ties into PBL because at the end of the project, students are able to show off their work to other students and have them enjoy and applaud their work.  This also pushes the children to have higher quality work because they know not just the teacher will be viewing their project.  Another student said she was motivated by the image she had of her future.  She wants to be successful and have a family and that is what makes her want to do well in school.  As mentioned in the 4 Cs, Career and Life Skills are greatly improved upon by using the Project Based Learning method of teaching.  Other students said they were motivated by positive reinforcements such as food or prizes, while another mentioned the negative reinforcement of being grounded.  In order for him to be able to play sports or go swimming, he had to do well in school.  There are many ways that students are motivated and is the teachers job to figure out what motivates each one of the students and use it to teach effectively.

The last video I watched is called the Wing Project: Crafting a Driving Question.  A driving question is number two on the list of essentials for Project Based Learning.  Good Project Based Learning teachers are teachers that can pose quality driving questions.  One man in the video said, "[a] a good driving question sets up a process of inquiry the students are interested in, and guides them towards how they're going to the work and what kind of work they are going to have to produce in order to answer the question."  Recently, in a few of my education classes (including EDM 310), we have started learning how to write lesson plans and it is important to include a driving question in the plan.  Sometimes it is difficult to word exactly what one wants students to learn, but if the teacher uses what she knows about what motivates her students, it should get easier as it goes.