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PBL Camp Homepage

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Saved by betty.ray@edutopia.org
on July 24, 2010 at 10:34:30 am
 

 

Welcome to Week Three of PBL Camp! 

 

PBL Camp is a four-week online collaboration to give us experience in the planning and implementation of a project for students of all grade levels. The camp is underway, but you may view an archive here: 

 

Week 1 Archive

 

 

Week 2 Archive 

 

 

 

 

Camp Technical Requirements 

You will need a computer with an internet connection and a web browser.  Note: The technologies we'll use in PBL Camp will NOT work in Internet Explorer 6. If you are running IE 6, please upgrade Internet Explorer  to participate in this camp. 

 


 

 

Week Three Activities: Map Out Your Project Plan

 

We have two goals this week:

  1. Map out the learning activities that will happen during your project
  2. Plan ahead for resources, expert connections, and technologies your students will need.

 

Note: We recommend working with a team of colleagues to map out your project plan. Even if team members take a project idea in different directions for implementation in their own classroom, you will benefit from sharing ideas and giving each other feedback. Of course, you are free to work individually if you prefer. We suggest you continue using the project planning from provided by the Buck Institute for Education.

 

Need help setting up your project page? See Create a Project Planning Document tutorial.

 

Activity 1: Attend the Webinar on Connecting with Experts

 

Week Three starts with a webinar:

 

Working with Experts

Monday, July 26

1 p.m. PDT/4 p.m. EDT

 

Participate in the July 26 webinar 

 

Link for the recording will be posted here as soon as it's available.

 

Overview: PBL often involves connecting your students with experts who can help them answer their questions. We’re going to model that in this week’s webinar. This is your chance to learn from experts about three topics that are likely to arise during your projects: Service-Learning, Citizen Science, and Student Publishing. Get acquainted with our guests before the event and be thinking about questions you’d like to ask them:

 

  • Barry Guillot on Service-Learning

 Barry Guillot is a seventh-grade science teacher at Harry M. Hurst Middle School in Destrehan, Louisiana. In 1997, he started the LaBranche Wetland Watchers project as part of a school-wide emphasis on service-learning. He combines activities designed to serve the community with specific learning objectives that immerse students in real-world science.

 

Learn more about Barry Guillot and the Wetland Watchers by watching this Edutopia video.

 

          Handouts from Barry Guillot:

 

  • Laura Burkholder and Jennifer Fee on Citizen Science

 Laura Burkholder and Jennifer Fee are joining us from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to talk about citizen science projects. Laura is the NestWatch project leader and Jennifer is the BirdSleuth project leader. These are inquiry-based science projects that your students can take part in. Scientists at the Cornell Lab have a need for real data about birds to track the long-term effects of the Gulf crisis.

 

 

  • Susan Ettenheim and Paul Allison on Student Publishing

 Susan and Paul are co-hosts of Teachers Teaching Teachers, a weekly webcast and companion website. They also coordinate Youth Voices, an online space for students to share and discuss their work. Susan teaches at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in New York. Paul teaches at East-West School of International Studies in Flushing, Queens. This summer, they have been leading weekly conversations about how to engage students in responding to the Gulf disaster. Giving students a voice through online publishing is a key strategy, and they have considerable expertise to share about best practices for student publishing.

 

Tip: After the webinar, think about how you might connect with experts for your project. What kind of content questions might arise? Who in your community could be a resource? How will you get your students ready to make the most of their time with experts?

 

Activity 2: Think about the Anatomy of Your Project

 

This week, your main focus is to continue building your project plan. Many of you are off to a good start with a driving question and a project sketch (and maybe a catchy project title). Now is the time to get more concrete about what will actually happen when the project unfolds.

 

Think about your project as an arc. Right now, you’re in the planning phase—before students ever enter the picture. You’ve framed the project with an intriguing driving question and have identified key content that you plan to address. Soon, you’ll introduce students to the project. Ideally, this will happen with an entry event that hooks their interest and fires up their curiosity. Then they’ll dive into a variety of learning activities which will help them understand what they need to know to answer that driving question. This will lead to a culminating event where students share what they have learned with an authentic audience. Then to cement learning, students will reflect on the whole experience.

 

Case Study: To think about what needs to happen at each of these stages, let’s explore a video case study about one project. Watch the Edutopia video “Anatomy of a Project: Soil Superheroes.”

 

As you watch, look for ideas you may want to borrow. For example:

  • What will your project calendar look like? Soil Superheroes was a semester-long project. If you are planning a shorter project (smart idea if you’re new to PBL!), what needs to happen between kickoff and culminating event? How will you make the best use of class time? How much time do you expect students to spend outside of class?

 

  • What will students produce? Final product of Soil Superheroes was an informational yet entertaining brochure about bacteria. How do you want your students to share what they have learned? Do you want them all to produce a similar product, or would you prefer to leave room for more choice?

 

  •  How will you engage with experts and others in your community? Soil Superheroes brought in a university scientist as well as a cartoonist. Community members provided authentic feedback. What kind of expertise will your students need? Who could help?

 

  • Students working on Soil Superheroes saved their work-in-progress to folders on their school server. How could technology tools help your students stay organized throughout their project?

 

Resources for Activity 2:  Want to see an example of a completed planning form?

  • Buck Institute for Education shares examples of completed forms in its “Useful Downloads” section.  (NOTE: Free site registration is required to download documents.) 

 

Science Leadership Academy, a PBL school in Philadelphia, maintains a showcase of projects.

 

Here are more resources to help you map out what you’ll want to include in your project plan: 

 

Activity 3: Plan Ahead for Technology Tools, Experts, and Other Resources

The project planning form includes a section to list Resources Needed. Now’s the time to get specific about project materials, equipment, and community resources—including experts who can help students answer content questions. (This week's webinar should give you some ideas for how to connect with experts.)

 

At this stage, you also should be thinking about technology tools that will help your students accomplish what they need to do throughout the project.

 

How will you choose from the wide range of technologies available? Take a look at this excerpt from Reinventing Project-Based Learning. It prompts you to focus first on the essential learning functions you want to achieve—such as deep learning, reflection, or collaboration. Then, for each function, you will see suggestions for a variety of digital tools. The goal in planning for technology use isn’t to overwhelm students (or yourself!) with new tools. It’s to choose the right tech tools to enable your students to accomplish meaningful learning. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scheduled live event this week:

Twitter chat with Suzie Boss and Betty Ray 

Monday, July 19, 1 p.m. PDT/4 p.m.EDT

Twitter.com 

Hashtag: #pblcamp 

 

We'll check in and share how everyone's doing with PBL Camp and answering any questions you might have.  This is also a good opportunity to network with other campers. 

 

To join the chat: 

Log into your Twitter account and follow #pblcamp. Or use a service like Tweetchat.com which will present the chat in a neater format. You might also want to follow chat leaders @suzieboss and @bettyray.  

 

Chat transcript posted here.

 

Activity 1: Build Your Team

Teamwork is central to PBL, so it only makes sense to tackle project planning as a team effort. This week, form a project team with a few colleagues. You will be able to give each other useful feedback as you move ahead with project planning.

 

A) Best Practices for Building a Project Team: Planning Ahead 

Think about how you want to collaborate. Some of you may decide to design and implement the same project. Working together at the planning stage sets the stage for future collaboration with your classes. Others may prefer to plan your projects individually. That’s fine, too. You will still benefit from having teammates at this stage to give each other helpful feedback and review. The result will be stronger project plans—and a better experience for your students. Plus, you will be practicing the collaboration skills that you’ll want your students to use during project implementation.

 

Think about who you want on your dream team. Chances are, you’ll want to form teams with colleagues teaching at similar grade levels. If you’re planning an interdisciplinary project, look for team members with subject area expertise that’s different from yours. If you want to go deep in one content area, stick with team members from your discipline. If you want to bring in team members from outside PBL Camp (such as teachers from your own school), that’s fine, too. It’s up to you!

 

How will you find your teammates? Here are a few ideas:

 

B) Finding Potential Teammates   

 

1) Post in the Collaborators Wanted threads

 

 

 

 

2) Browse Wiki or #pblcamp on Twitter for collaborators 

 

3) Use Tools for Connecting:  A variety of tools will help you work together, including email, phone, and Skype. See Tech Tips, below, for more ideas.

 

C) Best Practices for Collaboration

 

Collaboration is a skill that gets better with practice. Here are a few tips to help you work together effectively.

Watch a video featuring a collaborative team of teachers from Forest Lake Elementary School. 

Think about: Which practices could you borrow or adapt if your project team members come from different schools?

 

Read and reflect on these Edutopia blog posts about teacher collaboration:

Taking the Plunge: Diving into a Collaborative Project

Make Project Planning a Collaborative Practice” 

Think about: What benefits do you expect to gain from working on a PBL plan with colleagues? What might be harder about planning this way?

 


 

NOTE: Activities 2-4 have to do with project planning. We suggest using the PBL planning form developed by the Buck Institute for Education. Download the Word version to your desktop if you plan to do the project plan yourself.  If you'll be working with a team on the project plan, you'll want to create a wiki page using the project planning template. (Tutorial

 

This week, we are going to focus on Page 1 of the planning form.  

 

Activity 2: Draft a Driving Question

In PBL, students work together to answer a real-world question or solve a challenge that matters to them.  As project facilitator, you will be guiding students to find out what they need to know. Starting with a Driving Question sets the stage for this inquiry-driven learning to unfold.  A good Driving Question is both interesting and open-ended—if you can Google the answer, it’s not the right question for framing a project!

 

Remember: This is just the first draft of your Driving Question. It’s likely to evolve as you continue planning and get feedback from your teammates. You"ll also want to be sure students have “buy in” to the Driving Question—they’ll need to care about answering it.

 

Want to learn more?   

Here’s a tutorial from PBL-Online that explains more about creating effective Driving Question.

 

We have started a wiki page to collect the Driving Questions generated by PBL Campers. There are a few here already—please add yours to the list. You’ll be able to borrow and build on each other's good ideas.

 


 

Activity 3: Identify Key Content

Good projects help students understand core content and develop important skills. Think about the “big ideas” of the subjects you teach and how they connect to your project idea. In math, for instance, the oil spill offers a real-world opportunity to think about large numbers, measurement, and estimation.  In science, a project on how birds are affected by ocean pollution could address ecosystems, habitat, and living systems.

 

Now is the time to consider which standards you will address through your project. On the planning form, fill out these two sections: (1) Content and Skills, and (2) 21st Century Skills.

 

Here are some resources to help you think about standards-based project planning.

 

 

 

 

Good projects also build key 21st-century skills, such as collaboration, critical thinking, or presenting information.  To help you think about which 21st-century skills your project will likely address, explore the framework developed by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills

 


 

Activity 4: Write a Project Sketch

At this early planning stage, you want to be able to describe your project in a few sentences. A project sketch will help you share your idea with others, such as potential team members, and invite feedback. It’s not yet a detailed plan, but it’s specific enough to talk about. On the planning form, add your project sketch to the section called Project Idea.

 

Tip: Get creative when you think about a name for your project. A great title will help you build buzz for the project and make it more appealing to students. Maybe you’ll decide to invite students to help you name the project. That way, it’s “their” project right from the start. 

 


 

Week Two Tech Tips: Tools for Collaborating

 

Continue using these tools from last week:

 

 

 

 

Ready to expand your toolkit? These tools will help you collaborate with team members:

 

 

 

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