Project-Based Learning for Digital Citizens. It's award season, so I'm giving my students an award. A major award! I'm honoring them for stepping outside the comfort zone of the school system that they have been subject to for most of their lives, authoring their own learning, and in the process, enjoying it. However, this transition did not come easily, and it took them some time to adjust to this format. It's a format where they are no longer the recipients of their learning; now they're the authors. With this post and the audience that Edutopia reaches, I would like to share their work in hopes that you will steal, adapt or remix some of these approaches in your own classroom. I also attempt to make what they learn in this class relevant and applicable to their lives. Critical Thinking in Action My classroom procedures are rather unstructured as well.
Awards and Rewards And for all of their hard work and content creation, I am giving every one of them an award; however most of them wouldn't accept it. Shift Your Classroom: Small Strategic Steps. I’ve come to describe my shifted classroom as an inquiry-driven, project-based, tech-embedded environment. But that’s not where I started. For most of my teaching career, I’ve been a pretty traditional teacher (even now I slip back into that mode sometimes). However, as I went through the motions of trying to “teach” my students, something didn’t feel right. My students seemed to learn things only for the exam, were focused on the mark, not the learning that was supposed to be taking place. When the unit or semester was over, they dumped all their notes and assignments. Frustrating. My shift to a student-centred classroom has been a roller coaster ride, but well worth the work and effort (you can read about some of it here).
Teachers who are interested in shifting their classrooms often don’t know where to start. Start with one unit (1) Start with creating one inquiry unit in one subject. Sometimes you may not understand why certain things aren’t working. Talk about learning A Look Inside. PBL Mania … Online Planning Form, Free Webinar, Edmodo Community, Twitter Chat Night, New Conference, And More. Welcome to another post which is the start to a series I know you will enjoy. On Wednesday, January 25 I will be presenting a webinar on Integrating PBL and Technology for Ed Tech Leaders On-line.
It will be a must see webinar for anyone interested in PBL. I will also be presenting this topic in Chicago at the NICE Conference on January 28 and will soon be facilitating an ISTE online PBL course incorporating the NET-S standards. I have met many of you in PBL trainings I have conducted for the BUCK Institute (BIE). In order to celebrate, I have a fantastic series of articles that will be coming your way in the next two weeks here at 21centuryedtech.
In this post I will let you know what is coming up and also introduce you to an awesome free electronic PBL planning tool and PBL professional learning community from the people at BUCK (An outstanding PBL institution). Below, you will find some amazing tools and some great opportunities. EdTech Leaders Online Presents: Short Notes with Links. Why I love project-based learning. I love project-based learning. Why? Because my students do. Some of my favourite projects are the Biology 30 projects due at semester’s end. These aren’t the only projects we create throughout the semester; we also create a number of digital products too. However, these tend to be the most intricate and hands on. For the past week, my students have been sharing their projects. The topic for this particular project was body systems. One of my students created a Monopoly-type boardgame based on the nervous system.
Each of the different properties represented a different aspect of the nervous system. But the best part of his presentation, to me, was when he stated, “I really enjoyed doing this. Another student researched and created a model of the knee. A third student created two cakes — each depicted the brain. Powerful. This particular student chose this topic because her family has been deeply and painfully affected by depression. We also learned about hip replacements. Like this: Helping Parents Understand PBL. Internet Catalogue.