People often ask us how we create our projects for the Life Practice Model, or even, what our lessons plans look like in a Project Based Learning Environment. For anyone considering creating a full-time PBL learning environment in your classroom or school, we hope you'll find some valuable tips below.
"None of us knew everything, but we all shared everything we knew."
~Colby Ratzlaff, former TPLC student
Lesson plans in a Life Practice PBL classroom Project Based Learning, by nature, is an integration of various disciplines and content areas through the use of hands-on projects. With the Life Practice Model, students work in flexible groupings and have choice in how they carry out their research and creation of deliverables. While in a traditional classroom there might be daily lesson plans, the majority of planning on the teacher end is completed before the project even begins, so teacher-leaders are working from more of a "to-do" list rather than a Madeline Hunter style approach to daily learning. These to-do lists are adjusted daily, based on what the students are learning and needing to know. All efforts are made to predict what students' questions might be before the project is implemented, but it is inevitable that different directions, thinking, and interests will be introduced by the learners and by no means should a teacher attempt to squash these "jaunts." Indeed some of the most memorable learning can be gathered from allowing the students a good deal of freedom to "follow their noses." For this reason, teacher-leaders should also be prepared to adjust deadlines. As always, time/task management are important skills for all the learners in the classroom, adult and student alike. Deadlines in a Life Practice PBL classroom To help wrangle projects in toward deadlines, it is recommended in the Life Practice Model that a teacher employ a "soft deadline" and a "hard deadline" approach. Soft deadlines are set where students present their learning, receive and give feedback to others, then go back to work, finishing up perhaps two days to a week later. This creates the ability for students to learn how to self-evaluate and adjust and sharpen their learning, based on outside feedback. It helps to reinforce that 1) learning is never done and 2) we can always improve. Workshops for Supporting Deeper Learning Short workshops are often conducted at various points in the project, led by either the teacher, another student-expert, or an outside resource. During those workshops, students can opt-in or be specifically selected by peers or teacher to learn more about writing, technology, or another aspect of their learning. In these workshops, perhaps a more traditional style of Introduction, Activity, Evaluation method might be followed. School leaders should not expect to have teachers turn in their lesson plans on a weekly basis in a PBL environment as they do in a traditional school, as there may be very little to "turn in" once the project has begun. | How to Create a Project in the Life Practice Model Every project starts with the state standards. What is it that the kids *must* know for those darned tests? What question(s) can we ask the students to "hook" them deeply into wanting to know more about the topic? What scenario could be put before them to spark their imaginations? But we don't stop there. We plan for integrated content, skills development, and predict what struggles the students may have with particular concepts. We plan for what they will have produced to demonstrate their learning. We also realize that the learner will not always need to take a "final test" to verify that they have mastered essential and secondary skills and content. Optimal Ambiguity Optimal Ambiguity, a term from Alan November, exemplifies the paramount aspect of an effective Project Based Learning environment. The concept cannot be stressed enough. Students should experience struggle in the problem solving process and by no means should the teacher-leader be the source of information for the students' learning. Teachers are to be a resource, not the source. The teacher must create, allow, and even nurture an environment that's "messy" in the problem-solving process and where it's safe for the students to frequently hit road blocks and be wrong. However, this should never advance too far to where the students become overly frustrated. Knowing the difference and creating the Optimal State, is the art of teaching; of knowing each individual learner's threshold for frustration and helping them to stretch that tolerance during each learning opportunity. Students must feel this frustration, but they must also be able to perserve to prove to themselves that learning is a dynamic aptitude and that success comes from perseverance and impulsivity control. When a teacher makes a mistake and misjudges this level of Optimal Ambiguity, s/he must talk with the students and get their input for how to correct the problem. Mistakes by the teacher and students are inevitable and are part of the learning process. Each must trust and assist the other in correcting mistakes for the betterment of all. Click here for Life Practice Model Project Planning List |