The Role of Questions in Teaching, Thinking and Le One of the reasons that instructors tend to overemphasize "coverage" over "engaged thinking" is that they assume that answers can be taught separate from questions. Indeed, so buried are questions in established instruction that the fact that all assertions — all statements that this or that is so — are implicit answers to questions is virtually never recognized. For example, the statement that water boils at 100 degrees centigrade is an answer to the question "At what temperature centigrade does water boil?" Hence every declarative statement in the textbook is an answer to a question. Hence, every textbook could be rewritten in the interrogative mode by translating every statement into a question. To my knowledge this has never been done. Thinking is Driven by Questions Thinking is not driven by answers but by questions. Questions define tasks, express problems and delineate issues. This is why it is true that only students who have questions are really thinking and learning.
Get to Know Nature | Science | Lesson Plan | PBS LearningMedia In this lesson, students learn about habitats and biodiversity by collecting data about the plants and animals that live in their community and by working together to create a nature guide for their neighborhood. First, they watch an animated video that models science process skills such as making observations and recording data, and then they practice these skills in a related outdoor activity. Students then explore the biodiversity near their school by participating in a biodiversity scavenger hunt. Finally, students work together to identify some of the plants and animals they found during the scavenger hunt, and collate their data in a nature guide. Time Allotment Three 60-minute class periods Learning Objectives Understand that biodiversity is the variety of living things in a given place.Show that there are many different kinds of living things in any area, and they exist in different places on land and in water. Prep for Teachers Supplies Media Resources Learning Activities 1. 2. 3. 4.
What Makes Project-Based Learning a Success? At one high school in Texas, where every class in every grade is project based, the answer is devotion to a consistent process, belief in relationships, and commitment to relevance and rigor. Results? Hard to beat. Thanks to an effective PBL model and a school culture that values relationships and autonomy, Manor New Tech students, teachers, and its principal, Steven Zipkes (right), are achieving impressive results. Credit: Zachary Fink There is a small town, about 12 miles east of Austin, Texas, where a high school devoted to teaching every subject to every student through project-based learning (PBL) opened five years ago. See more Schools That Work Watch the video: PBL Success Start to Finish Duration: 08:01 min. Manor New Tech was started with a $4 million grant from the Texas High School Project as part of an initiative to develop schools dedicated to science, technology, engineering, and math in Texas. No less important, though, is the school culture that supports it.
Project Based Learning I’ve been teaching using a project-based learning pedagogy since mid-2010 when I was introduced to PBL by my friend, Dean Groom. Since then I have had some wonderful learning experiences with PBL and I enjoy sharing both my successes and failures and experiments in learning on my blog. I thought it’d be helpful for other people if I put all of my PBL-related posts on one page, just in case you’re starting out and you want to see how another teacher is doing it too. If you have any questions, just post a comment below or send me a tweet on twitter My VERY first experience with PBL – and it was hard work and had serious issues! My post might help some of your PBL newbies feel less anxious, maybe! This is a reflection on my very first PBL experience with Year 10 – it looks at why it may not have been 100% successful.
The Socratic Method The Socratic Method:Teaching by Asking Instead of by Tellingby Rick Garlikov The following is a transcript of a teaching experiment, using the Socratic method, with a regular third grade class in a suburban elementary school. I present my perspective and views on the session, and on the Socratic method as a teaching tool, following the transcript. The experiment was to see whether I could teach these students binary arithmetic (arithmetic using only two numbers, 0 and 1) only by asking them questions. I had one prior relationship with this class. When I got to the classroom for the binary math experiment, students were giving reports on famous people and were dressed up like the people they were describing. "But what I am really here for today is to try an experiment with you. 1) "How many is this?" 2) "Who can write that on the board?" 3) Who can write ten another way? 4) Another way? 5) Another way? 2 x 5 [inspired by the last idea] 7) One more? X [Roman numeral] 14) Which, nine or ten?
Climbing the Project-based Learning Mountain 1. Start at a trail marker. The best way to plan a PBL is to start with one single standard in one subject. I usually plan around Math for my project-based learning activities. Sketch out a basic outline, then come up with a guiding question. 2. Do you know someone that’s done project-based learning before? 3. Before you begin project-based learning with your students, ask yourself what materials will make the project stand out. Continue to add materials and activities during a PBL as well. 4. Get your team members and other teachers on board before you start. Don’t get discouraged if the other teachers are reluctant to try project-based learning. 5. As a teacher you already know that not everything is going to go as you plan it. Enjoy the excitement and the chaos, because your students are enjoying learning! Try one of these Math PBLs! Hi there!
A Step-by-Step Guide to the Best Projects Manor New Technology High School in Manor, Texas, is a 100 percent project-based learning school. They are part of the New Tech Network of schools and their approach has yielded remarkable results, including a 98 percent graduation rate, with all of their graduates accepted to college. The success of their PBL approach is largely attributable to the fact that their process is designed to stimulate student inquiry. Additionally, their process can be applied to any project in any subject, which means there is a consistent approach across grades and subjects at Manor. We followed a sophomore world studies class through a three-week project called Controlling Factors, created by teaching partners Mary Mobley (English) and Michael Chambers (world history). Here is a breakdown of key steps, with some examples from Mobley and Chambers's project: What do you think about this Schools That Work story?
Free Lego NXT MindStorms NXT-G Robotics Challenges Tutorials At the request of Tasmanian teachers Miss Clare Neilson and recently retired Mrs. Juanita Airey, activities using Lego's NXT 1 MindStorms Robots have been developed for use in School-based 2-hour sessions. Some, but not all, will work with the new NXT 2 kit (click here for more information). The tutorials are presented as a series of Challenges, which are gradually being converted for Web use. Challenges with an "M" after the challenge number include mentor notes. First Challenge (NXT 1) - Building Robot 1.1 "TuftsBot" - click here. First Challenge (NXT 2) - Building Robot 1.2 "MiniBot" - click here. First Challenge (Apple videos) - Building Robot 1.2 "MiniBot" - click here. Challenge 2M - Teaching your Robot (NXT 1 & NXT 2) - click here. Challenge 2M (Apple videos) - Teaching your Robot (NXT 1 & NXT 2) - click here. Challenge 4M - Teaching your Robot to move, smile and speak (NXT1 & NXT 2) - click here. Challenge 10 - Building Robot 2 "DomaBot" (NXT 1 & NXT 2) - click here.
7th Graders Publish Their Own Textbook Mac Life wrote an article titled Super 7th Graders Publish Their Own eBook to the iBookstore. It explains the project in more detail. "Each student has to choose an organisms they wanted to study and were required to submit their topic for approval. Afterward, students had to write informative – but entertaining! – articles about their organism." Andrea collected work from 69 students and entered it into iBooks Author. iBooks Author is free but only works on Macs running 10.7 Lion or higher. iBooks Author is a fantastically powerful tool. There are some disadvantages to using iBooks author for crafting your own learning materials. Check out what Andrea and her students say about writing their book. I think the comment by CNEBBY in the Customer Reviews of Creatures, Plants and More sums up the project well: "This is an awesome example of what kids can do when they are properly motivated by a skilled teacher."
edutopia PBL Defined and Clarified What the Heck is PBL? by Heather Wolpert-Gawron (2015) In project-based learning, students show what they learn as they journey through the unit, interact with its lessons, collaborate with each other, and assess themselves and each other. Five Keys to Rigorous Project-Based Learning (2014) Well-designed project-based learning (PBL) has been shown to result in deeper learning and engaged, self-directed learners. Back to Top 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.
PBLU.org | Making Projects Click Is Google Making Us Stupid? Illustration by Guy Billout "Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. I can feel it, too. I think I know what’s going on. For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind. I’m not the only one. Bruce Friedman, who blogs regularly about the use of computers in medicine, also has described how the Internet has altered his mental habits. Anecdotes alone don’t prove much. It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of “reading” are emerging as users “power browse” horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins. Thanks to the ubiquity of text on the Internet, not to mention the popularity of text-messaging on cell phones, we may well be reading more today than we did in the 1970s or 1980s, when television was our medium of choice. But the machine had a subtler effect on his work. Also see:
www.inquiryhub.org Helping Students Make Better Movies on iPad (or any device) I’m gearing up for a film festival at the end of the month that celebrates the incredible talents and vision of the students in my community. The films are created by students in what is often an in-depth process. Starting with nothing more than an idea, students write story boards, scripts, choose film techniques, act, record, edit, process and polish until they have a video that depicts nothing less than the vision they started with. Of course, the basis for a great film is a great story. There is a nice video on filming techniques. Possible Activity: List 7 Camera Techniques that caught your attention. Now that students are becoming aware of camera techniques, have them apply that knowledge. What is the overall tone and mood of this clip? Here is a clip from The Avengers. Marvel’s The Avengers Beyond movie clips, movie trailers are fantastic for analysis. Smallville – Time After Time Related Posts: