Blog Assignment #9

What can teachers and students teach us about Project Based Learning?

The article Seven Essentials for Project-Based Learning begins by describing the difference between busy work and project based learning. The article then continues by stating what every good project needs. Every project needs to not only be meaningful, but it also needs to fulfill an educational purpose. Next, the article lists the seven essentials for project based learning.

1.  A Need to Know - This part is saying that the project should have an "entry event" so students will feel a need to know the information. This way the students can get excited about the project.
   
2.  A Driving Question - The authors of the article compare this part of the project to a thesis statement in a paper. Without a thesis, it is difficult to determine the main point of the paper. So without a driving question, it is difficult to determine the main reason for the project. The driving question is the most important part of the project.
3. Student Voice and Choice - This part is also very important. The project will be more meaningful to the students if they are allowed to choose what they will create, what resources they will use, and how they will use their time to work on the project.
4. 21st Century Skills - The project should provide opportunities for students to build 21st century skills. These are skills that will benefit the students later in life as they get jobs.
5. Inquiry and Innovation - We need to guide students in real inquiry which is where "students follow a trail that begins with their own questions, leads to a search for resources and the discovery of answers, and often ultimately leads to generating new questions, testing ideas, and drawing their own conclusions." With the technology available, students can do so much, and it is important that we do not limit them.
6. Feedback and Revision - This is important because it teaches students that most of the time, first attempts don't result in high quality work. We need to make sure that students understand the importance of quality work, and that it sometimes takes multiple revisions before something is considered high quality.
7. A Publicly Presented Product  - Student's work is more meaningful when it is presented to others, not just the teacher. Also, when students present their work to others, the students care more about the quality of their work. 

Project-Based Learning for Teachers is a short video that explains what PBL is. For it to be such a short video, it had a lot of information. The video explains what a driving question is and how students will work on that driving question. The video also has information about Common Core State Standards, Project Based Learning, and the skills that students will develop from PBL. The video describes PBL as inquiry-based, open-ended, problem-solving, and personalized. The video also instructs us to think of PBL as questioning, investigating, sharing, and reflecting. By using PBL, students will gain various skills such as collaboration skills, communication skills, critical thinking skills, and career and life skills. I think this is a great video for anyone to watch who is not sure what exactly PBL is.

Two Students Solve the Case of Watery Ketchup by Designing a New Cap is an article that includes a video about two students who used PBL to design a new cap for ketchup bottles. I think that this was a unique problem to address. Like these two students, I do not like having watery ketchup. However, as the students' teacher pointed out, one can simply shake the bottle to get rid of the watery part. The two students were convinced that they could find some other way to prevent watery ketchup. The students researched several ideas and even created a new cap using a 3D printer. After watching the video that accompanies the article, you can tell that these two students seemed to be very engaged and had a lot of fun working on their project.

The video PBL: What Motivates Students Today asks a few students two questions. One of those
questions asked students what motivated them to do good in school. One student said that he is most motivated when the teacher compliments him in front of the class. Another student said that he was motivated because if he didn't do good in school, then his parents would punish him. The other students surveyed in the video had the same response for being motivated to do good in school: so that they will be successful in their future endeavors. The second question that the students were asked was about rewards that work. One student said that in his classroom they have a color chart. Depending on what color the students are on they either receive money or have to pay the teacher money. The students can use their money at the end of the week to buy miscellaneous items. Another student said that their teacher rewards them with candy. A third student said that his teacher rewards them with "brownie points." Another student said that he would like to be rewarded with food, but when he was younger he enjoyed receiving rewards such as pencils, colorful notebooks, and stickers. The last student mentioned that her teacher rewarded them differently every day. I think that it is a great idea to interview students so teachers can discover what works and what doesn't work.

Many people do not think of utilizing PBL in a PE class. However, the article Project Based Learning in PE discusses a way that high school PE teachers can use PBL in their class. The teacher had his high school PE students create a physical fitness program for middle school PE classes. This required the high school students to know the standards of middle school students so that they could plan the fitness program accordingly. The students then collaborated to come up with different exercises for the middle school students. I think this is a great way to have students involved in PE, instead of just having them only do exercises. This idea would also be great for middle school students to make a fitness program for elementary students.