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8 Switches To Update Project-Based Learning In The 21st Century - 8 Switches To Update Project-Based Learning In The 21st Century by Thom Markham Here’s some simple math: 1.8 billion youth need to be educated for 21st Century life. What’s ‘good’ education? It’s important to understand that this is a global movement. This provides educators with a window of opportunity to share best practices around PBL and contribute to a worldwide, collaborative conversation on personalized learning, inquiry, and the way educators ‘hold’ students in their minds eye. This opportunity to help shape—not drive or direct, but shape—the outcome for PBL across the globe applies to U.S. educators as well, of course. Call it the NCLB hangover, but the end result is watered-down PBL, often supported by trainers and consultants, that isn’t designed to doesn’t change the equation between teaching and learning. It’s beyond time for U.S. schools engaged in PBL to shift their emphasis. How can U.S. 1. This is far too complex to reduce to a simple series of steps on a great graphic.
Assessment Assessment "Assessment is the process of collecting information on student achievement and performance. Assessment information provides the basis for sound decision making regarding teaching and learning." "The assessment process reveals what a student understands, knows and can do. What is Assessment? Evaluation "Evaluation is a judgment regarding the quality, value or worth of a response, product, or performance, based on established criteria and curriculum standards" "The evaluation process indicates the quality of performance based on the curriculum (learner outcomes)." What is Evaluation? Reporting "According to McTighe, reporting documents should distinguish between the following factors: "... each of these factors should be reported separately. Source- A Framework for Communicating Student Learning, (AAC) 1999. p.21" Reporting How are assessment and evaluation related?
Resources | Global Digital Citizen Foundation Put Your Plans Into Action Experience the new Solution Fluency Activity Planner. It’s your new best friend for project-based learning in the classroom. Start Planning Now! Bloom's Digital Taxonomy Verbs Poster This is a giant 18″X30″ PDF poster version of our popular Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy Verbs infographic. Download Now The Critical Thinking Workbook Check out the activities and games featured in The Critical Thinking Workbook—a guide for making critical thinking fun and engaging. Download Now The EQ Guide: Essential Questions What makes an essential question “essential?” Download Now Classroom Motivational Posters Share some inspiration and motivation with these colourful 11″ x 17″ classroom motivational poster files. Download Now Fluency Posters The skills of all the Fluencies, put together into one neat package! Download Now Solution Fluency QuickStart Guide This guide will help you get to know Solution Fluency skillsets so that you can develop them with students. Download Now Download Now
Resources for Getting Started with Project-Based Learning Just getting started with project-based learning (PBL)? Our curated list of resources for educators new to PBL should help you. Before you get started, be sure to check out Edutopia's PBL page, including information about the research behind effective PBL practices. You can also connect with Edutopia's community to learn and share PBL tips. PBL Defined and Clarified What the Heck is PBL? video What Should "Gold Standard" PBL Include? Stories and Examples My PBL Failure: 4 Tips for Planning Successful PBL, by Katie Spear (2015) Here are four lessons learned from a failed PBL unit: align with the school calendar, allow planning time, carefully create the topic and guiding question, and collaborate with peers. Other Tips From Teachers and Experts Bookmark this page to reference it for updates.
Project Based Learning: Involving Students Project Based Learning has the potential to increase a student's feeling of responsibility for, and control over, her own learning. Students who are allowed to define their own learning goals will be more engaged in learning. You can involve students in this process by helping them create their project assignment or project checklist. By working with learners to create individual project checklists, you and your students engage in a valuable discussion of learning goals, student interests, student and teacher expectations, personal strengths and weaknesses, and problem solving strategies. Individualizing Project Based Learning may be used with all learners: to give structure to those who desire it, flexibility to those who crave it, or to allow time for building skills that are personally challenging. Individualized checklists not only help learners target certain skills, but they also help improve metacognition, self-regulation, and motivation.
Want Better Project-Based Learning? Use Social and Emotional Learning Today's guest blogger is Thom Markham, a psychologist, educator, and president of Global Redesigns, an international consulting organization focused on project-based learning, social-emotional learning, youth development, and 21st-century school design. An unfortunate legacy of the cognitive model that dominates education is the belief that everything important in life takes place from the neck up. This belief is the primary reason that many teachers struggle with project-based learning (PBL). At its best, PBL taps into intangibles that make learning effortless and engaging: Drive, passion, purpose, and peak performance. Outside of education, the success of PBL is no mystery. These factors can be condensed into three bullet points: Caring relationships People perform better when they feel attended to. Organizational experts tell us to "search upstream in time and place" to identify the barriers to solving a problem. Step 1: Redefine rigor Step 2: Establish a "drive and thrive" culture
Differentiating Instruction For the Gifted How to Think About Differentiating Instruction There are many ways to shake up the classroom to create a better fit for more learners-including those who are advanced. In general, interest-based adjustments allow students to have a voice in deciding whether they will apply key principles being studied to math-oriented, literature-based, hobby-related, science-oriented, or history-associated areas. For example, in studying the American Revolution, one student might opt to write a short story about the life of a teenager during the Revolutionary period. Adjustments based on learning profile encourage students to understand their own learning preferences. Readiness-based adjustments can be created by teachers offering students a range of learning tasks developed along one or more of the following continua: Concrete to abstract. Strategies for Managing a Differentiated Classroom Final Thoughts Back to the Table of Contents References Tomlinson, C. (1995a). Tomlinson, C. (1995b). Credits
Building Parent Support for Project-Based Learning When a teacher, school or district tells parents, "We're going to do project-based learning," the response may vary. You're lucky if some say, "Great news! Students need to be taught differently these days!" But a more typical response might be: What's project-based learning?That's not how I was taught. Basically, they're asking for the what, why and how. What Schools and Districts Can Do Rather than begin by explaining what PBL is, start with the "why." Ken Kay, CEO of EdLeader21, made a good point about this when he spoke at BIE's PBL World conference in June 2013. To help make the case, have parents reflect on their own work. Another argument you could make has to do with student engagement. Technology is also an angle. Now that you've established the need, you can introduce the way to meet it: PBL. Explain what PBL is using concrete examples, not educational jargon. BIE's PBL Toolkit series and other books on PBL describe many different projects. What Classroom Teachers Can Do
Advocates Say Differentiated Instruction Can Raise the Bar for All Learners | Parents & Community | WEAC | Parents & Community | Wisconsin Education Association Council By Mary Anne Hess* A seventh grade boy spends his time in English class struggling to read at a beginner’s level. A girl at a nearby desk with her nose in the book could probably tackle a Harvard literature class. Seated in between is a youngster who’s a whiz at math but takes a whole period to write three English sentences because he’s much more comfortable in his native Spanish. That’s diversity, as any educator knows, and — in one form or another — it’s always been a part of American education. "In the United States our goal is to educate all comers," says Dr. Many other countries cull the academic haves from the have-nots at various rungs on the education ladder. Teachers have faced this dilemma since the days of the one-room schoolhouse, which mixed 6- to 16-year-olds in the same space. "But our choice isn’t between sending them down the hall or doing nothing,” Tomlinson argues. Teachers Can Benefit "It’s more engaging for the teacher, too. How Differentiation Works How? Carol A.
Learning by Doing: A Teacher Transitions Into PBL I have been a high school English teacher for 15 years. Every year, I try to do something a little different because I like learning from the process. After teaching AP Literature for a while, I became an AP Reader. Then, I presented at a national conference. The First Try To be honest, I had not heard the term PBL until the job interview. I wish I could say that it went well, but it did not. The next day, the students and I had a pretty good dialogue about the process. 6 Lessons Learned My school is on the 4x4 block, so I made the following changes in January, and I am happy to say that the projects became a lot better. 1. In order to be successful, the students have to know what is expected of them. 2. One of the great things about PBL is that it has differentiated instruction built into it. 3. I had students share their work with me through Google Docs so that I could see their progress on a daily basis. 4. This helps make a project seem like a goal that can be accomplished. 5. 6.
Technology Articles Within the four ways for differentiating instruction there are embedded several other learning strategies which are used in conjunction with each other. The Strategies: Readiness / Ability Teachers can use a variety of assessments to determine a student's ability or readiness. However, readiness is constantly changing and as readiness changes it is important that students be permitted to move between different groups (see flexible grouping). Varying the level of questioning (and consequent thinking skills) and compacting the curriculum and are useful strategies for accommodating differences in ability or readiness. Adjusting Questions During large group discussion activities, teachers direct the higher level questions to the students who can handle them and adjust questions accordingly for student with greater needs. An easy tool for accomplishing this is to put posters on the classroom walls with key words that identify the varying levels of thinking. Compacting Curriculum Reading Buddies
Critique Protocol: Helping Students Produce High-Quality Work Student: Wait, should I clear out this? Jodi: I numbered the lines in your tribute poems. When somebody is giving you feedback, they can name the specific line number. Student: I like stanza one, because it has really strong figurative language. Jessica: Because our students participate in critique protocol, they have the opportunity to really understand what quality looks like, and to define for themselves their expectations for achieving it. Elaine: Starting as early as preschool, the culture of revision and of learning together is better is what sets up students to be very proficient in their ability to receive critical feedback and to give critical feedback. Anne: I have a couple of your friends' work. Sylvia: Today in class we looked at our work to see if we could fix anything. Anne: What are our rules when we are critiquing and making our friends' work better. Student: Don't be like, "I hate your work." Anne: Very good. Student: Kind. Anne: Yes. We looked at one student's work.