Making Games: The Ultimate Project-Based Learning Gamestar Mechanic Part 6 of MindShift’s Guide to Games and Learning. As game-based learning increases in popularity, it’s easy to get pigeon-holed into one particular way of thinking about it or one way of employing it. This is true regardless of how teachers feel about gaming in the classroom, whether they’re for or against it. One common objection to game-based learning is that students will sit in front of screens being taught at. In previous posts in this series, I’ve argued that because games involve systems thinking, they contextualize learning. “Games are just simulators with an internal incentive structure (often dopamine based). However, virtual simulations of hands-on experience are not the same as tangibly engaging with the world. Fortunately, few people are calling for games to replace school as we know it. Just as there are many apps and platforms designed to teach kids coding, there are also many apps and platforms that make it easy for kids to design their own games.
Experts & NewBIEs | Bloggers on Project Based Learning: PBL Design Deep Dive –What Products, and How Many? When designing a project, teachers frequently ask, “Should my students/teams create:The same product with the same focus or topic?”The same product, but with a different focus or topic?”A different product with the same focus or topic?"A different product, but with a different focus or topic?” As you have grown accustomed to in PBL, there is no ONE “right” answer to this question. The “same product with the same focus or topic” is often a good option in the elementary grades, or in the secondary grades when the project has a narrow scope of content and/or short duration. One project that fit this bill was a math project designed to teach systems of linear equations and processes to collect, organize and represent mathematical data. The teacher asked the driving question, “How can we develop an evidence-based recommendation to the White Rock Marathon Committee regarding the use of MP3 devices?” I worked with a teacher once who wanted to “PBLize” his persuasive writing unit.
Project-Based Learning Through a Maker's Lens The rise of the Maker has been one of the most exciting educational trends of the past few years. A Maker is an individual who communicates, collaborates, tinkers, fixes, breaks, rebuilds, and constructs projects for the world around him or her. A Maker, re-cast into a classroom, has a name that we all love: a learner. A Maker, just like a true learner, values the process of making as much as the product. Making holds a number of opportunities and challenges for a teacher. What Do You Want to Do? The first step in designing a PBL unit for a Maker educator is connecting specific content standards to the project. Choosing, thinking, reflecting, and sorting possible projects should be a career-long process. Essential Questions With an appropriate project chosen, an educator can begin framing the learner's journey. Making requires partners. Finally, an educator can start thinking about individual lessons. Failure Is a Preferable Option Good projects require failure.
10 Practical Ideas For Better Project-Based Learning In Your Classroom By Jennifer Rita Nichols, TeachThought Intern Teachers are incorporating more and more projects into their curriculum, allowing for much greater levels of collaboration and responsibility for students at all levels. Project- based learning is a popular trend, and even teachers who don’t necessarily follow that approach still see the benefit to using projects to advance their students’ learning. Projects can be wonderful teaching tools. They can allow for a more student-centred environment, where teachers can guide students in their learning instead of using lectures to provide them with information. The increase in classroom technology also makes projects more accessible to students. Despite general agreement about the benefits of using projects and project-based learning in general, it must be noted that all projects are not created equal! This may happen fairly often because teachers are wary about being able to assign grades to the final assignments handed in to them by students.
What You Need to Be an Innovative Educator Innovation isn't a matter of will. Like most things worth creating, critical ingredients pre-exist the product. In the case of innovation in education, many of those necessary ingredients are simpler and more accessible than they might seem -- which is, of course, good news to an industry already up to its nostrils in oh my gosh for the kids we must have this for the kids yesterday for the kids admonishments. Whether you're innovating a curriculum, an app, a social media platform for learning, an existing instructional strategy, or something else entirely, innovation in education is a significant catalyst for change in education. If our data is correct, you're probably a teacher. And if you're a teacher, you're probably interested in innovation in the classroom, so let's start there -- with project-based learning, for example. Project-based learning is an example of innovation, but probably not the way you'd expect. PBL promotes innovation in education by making room for it. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Why English teachers should care about project-based learning: multiliteracies, assessment for learning and digital technologies. | There is impetus for pedagogical change in the English classroom. Bull and Anstey (2010, p.6) observed that, ‘literacy teaching and learning should respond to the rapid changes in literacy arising from increasing globalization, technology and social diversity.’ This transforming social, cultural and technological landscape necessarily brings with it a new set of opportunities and challenges for secondary English teachers. Three such challenges include the purposeful integration of digital technologies into the classroom, the use of assessment for learning practices and the emergence of new literacies. The reshaping of traditional teacher-centred pedagogy to a more student-centred, inquiry-based pedagogy may assist Australian secondary English classroom with meeting these new challenges. This study is designed to answer three questions: How are digital technologies used when project-based learning is introduced into the Australian secondary English classroom? Figure 1 Data Collection
CASES Online: Creating Active Student Engagement in the Sciences What is CASES Online? CASES Online is a collection of inquiry-based lessons to engage K-12 and undergraduate students in exploring the science behind real-world problems. Through CASES, you can transform your students into motivated investigators, self-directed and life-long learners, critical thinkers and keen problem solvers. Our cases are grounded in Problem-Based Learning (PBL), Investigative Case-Based Learning (ICBL), and related student-centered pedagogies. What's new in CASES Online? Materials for over 350 cases are now posted and we are continually working to publish more. CASES Online is a proud member of the Science Case Network, which supports science educators, learners, researchers, developers and professional organizations, furthering access and development of the use of cases and PBL in science education. Search CASES Online Search tips: Searching by Keyword alone is best (and is not case-sensitive) since many cases can work across disciplines and grade levels.
The PBL Academy High Tech High - Project Based Learning Seven Successful PBL Projects In March 2005 High Tech High received a $250,000 grant from the California Department of Education to disseminate project-based learning methods to teachers in non-charter public schools. As part of the project, High Tech High teachers have documented successful projects to share with collaborating teachers from local districts and across the HTH network. The current volume presents the fruits of these labors. The aim is simple: to offer practitioners useful, easily adaptable models of real projects. Read more... This New House How does human habitation affect the environment? learn more » Millionaire How can an idea be transformed into a product that could make us millions? learn more » San Diego Field Guide How can we be better environmental stewards of the San Diego Bay? learn more » Urban Art How do math and science influence artistic expression? learn more » Vietnam Project learn more » Drug Project learn more » Machines learn more »
Project Based Learning Science – Lesson Plans for PBL Putting together a PBL science plan can be enormously time consuming without excellent models. So here are hundreds of free detailed plans for projects for elementary, middle and high school students. The plans are sorted by discipline - astronomy and space, chemistry, engineering and architecture, physics, technology, and earth, life sciences, physical sciences, and... well, "other" for no clear fit. Most of the ones I've listed provide project overviews, guiding questions, procedures and activities, work product descriptions, grading rubrics, and questions for reflection. The first PBL project I planned many years ago was the creation of a butterfly habitat in the school garden by my 3rd graders. I think the planning took more time than the project, and I didn't have a lot of resources to help guide me. I found far more free PBL resources than I ever anticipated, and more than 300 free science-based PBL projects are listed below.