Change, Culture, Constructivism: The Importance of Process and ReflectionBarbara Bray, Coach, ConsultantGrace Cruz, High School Principal, MPIMark Hines, Technology Director, MPI

Goal:Broaden Teacher’s Professional Knowledge on designing and implementing Project Based Learning Strategies

Strategy

1 Day experience in the role of student

Activity: Create a PSA

Rationale:media richeasy topictransferabletime managedtied to vision

Before the day: Preload

Day’s agenda

Q2: What questions or comments do you have about the article(s) you read?

Q3: What are some strengths that you think you can bring to this process you are about to engage in? What do you hope to get out of this process?

1) When you start using video, editing time become a factor. Planning is sometimes not as fun as getting to work and actually doing. How to making planning fun? 2) I think collaboration is key for students. This gives them an opportunity to share and help one another. Making learning meaningful is important. 3) What is actually determined by the teacher, with student voice and choice so prevalent? In PBL, is what is to be learned directed somewhat by the teacher, or is it all up to the student--whatever is learned is all good? 4) I liked it. It gave a good example of PBL to help me understand exactly what it is. Its good for us to know there is a HUGE difference between a project and a PBL experience. 5) "Seven Essentials for Project-Based Learning" prompted me to revisit how we began our community inquiry and what changes I'd like to make next year or even as we continue this year. 13) I think the idea of PBL is very interesting. I think that the difficult part will be coming up with a good project idea, and then setting up the project. It seems the initial planning with be very time consuming. I am sure that once you have experienced the process, it will get easier. 14) I am a bit concerned about how I will be able to implement a project in an IB/AP course where the schedule is very structured for the assessment. 15) How PBL have the same effective impact on all subject areas taught at all levels.

C: I enjoy the fact that students take ownership of the development of project. The material is meaningful to them and thus they have a vested interest 20) It seemed pretty straight forward. 21) Projects in my classroom tend to be content driven and lacking in all of the essential elements. I would like to change my projects to reflect the ideas in the article. 22) how can a traditional instructor incorporate such an expansive philosophy in a regular high school english class 23) The information presented was a very informative. I'd also like to know what we currently do can be adjusted to fit the needs of our students. 24) I am curious to see how PBL can fit into my classroom. 25) Well written--love what they did! 26) How do I come up with a driving question? Do I need to devote a lot of in class time to running a project? How much scaffolding will my students need?I thought it was a good article, though. 28) 1. How do you know your project will work?2. How do you deal with the feeling that our students won't have enough knowledge to be successful in the project? 30) None, really. It all looks perfectly fine and makes a great deal of sense. 33) I'm wondering how we will work as a school to implement 21st century skills across the grade levels. 34) Enjoyed the PBL article, I was able to better understand the link between PBL and inquiry. It was also profound to read about the role of technology. Organizations tend to add (pile on) more rather than streamline and do away with unnecessary and redundant technology. This can make people feel overwhelmed, like oh no, there is one more thing to do, rather than feeling excited by the new possiblilities. 35) It is intriguing and meaningful for students when they can relate to the activities they are doing.

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Reflections at End of Day this day was not only useful but it was fun. I’m only sorry that we weren’t

able to learn some of the techniques that were used. This was a very thought-provoking experience.

It was an awesome opportunity to be part of this process–collaborating, selecting photos, background music, the speaking voice as a team. It was challenging to process the parts into a movie. I learned what specific steps to take to process a task with many voices involved

Today’s professional development was extremely valuable because we went through the process of collaboration, and each member of our team was engaged and involved. It would have also been beneficial to learn some of the technical aspects as many of us were not familiar with using iMovie, iPhoto, etc. We would have also been more meticulous if we had had more time

Collaboration works! We literally started with nothing, but then put our minds together and created something beautiful. Learning CAN the fun. Memorizing is a thing of the past. Experiencing is what we need to do.

I enjoyed going through the process. It was neat to experience things to the student’s eyes. Anxiety, fun, camaraderie and excitement. I also liked the chance to talk to other teachers about their experiences with project-based learning with your anxiety about it. Interesting questions and thoughts were shared

Resources and links here:http://project101.ning.com/