PBL Methodology

My PBL Works Resources
https://my.pblworks.org/resources

Essential Project Design Elements

A Challenging Problem or Driving Question

The project is framed by a meaningful problem to be solved or a question to answer, at the appropriate level of challenge.

What question guides the student experience or what question are the students trying to answer with their work? 

Example: “Is democracy the most effective means of government?” 

A driving question should include:

• 1. • 1. 1. 1.  Who is responsible?(Individual/team/whole class) 

             2. The Audience(teacher/students in school/general public)

             3. The specific challenge or problem being addressed 

             4. Should be an 'open' question, allowing for multiple valid solutions.
                
                

• In many cases, the teacher will provide the overarching driving question, based on the state frameworks, while student teams will refine the question to be more specific. For example under the umbrella question, "How can forms of energy transform into another form?", one group might ask "How can energy from the sun's rays be captured to do useful work?" while another might ask "Are windmills practical?"

Learning Goals( content/process skills) – What do you want your students to learn, do, or accomplish during this project? Example: “I want students to interact meaningfully with adult professionals, understand how the democratic process works, and learn how to record and edit videos." This can include more traditional direct instruction by the teacher or self-guided technical skill learning from online resources.Goals are often based on the MA Frameworks or NGSS standards.

Products and Deliverables- What do you want the students to create? Example: “A two minute documentary film” "5 quiz review questions"

Required Materials /Tools/Skills- This will affect both materials on hand and any pre-teaching or embedded tutorials made available to students, such as know how to use:

• 1. 1. • Digital media tools such as Google Slides,  Google Drawings, WeMovie,  I-movie, or Canva

        • Collaboration tools such as Padlet, Google Docs, Jamboard, MilaNote, or Slack

        • Programming tools such as Scratch, CoSpaces EDU, MineCraft

        • Content sources such as Brilliant.org, Youtube, etc.

Qualities of Effective PBL:

Sustained Inquiry

Students engage in a rigorous, extended process of posing questions, finding resources, and applying information. This can include both independent research and more traditional direct instruction, as well as explicit instruction in project management

• Direct Instruction is still needed during PBL https://spencerauthor.com/direct-instruction-pbl/

• Staying on task during PBL https://www.edutopia.org/video/staying-task-during-project-based-learning

Authenticity

The project involves real-world context, tasks and tools, quality standards, or impact, or the project speaks to personal concerns, interests, and issues in the students’ lives.

Student Voice & Choice

Students make some decisions about the project, including how they work and what they create, and express their own ideas in their own voice.

Reflection

Students and teachers reflect on the learning, the effectiveness of their inquiry and project activities, the quality of student work, and obstacles that arise and strategies for overcoming them.

Critique & Revision

Students give, receive, and apply feedback to improve their process and products.  This is the foundation for building rigor which  seems to be such an important concept in today’s educational setting. Revision and reflection promotes a practice of quality. It allows the entire learning community to participate including community mentors, educators, and student peers. STEM relies on a formative learning experience that is a part of revision and reflection. It is the tinkering, remixing, and practice that is essential in both the PBL and STEM learning environment.

Public Product

Students make their project work public by sharing it with and explaining or presenting it to people beyond the classroom. – When, where, how, and to whom will students present their completed works? Example: “Students will present their videos to the local city council just before the primary election season.” Public Products should include digital media so that projects can be shared with an audience beyond the walls of the school.

Other PBL Components:

• Student Reflection- " The Wicked Soap Company was a experience and project that really combined a lot of elements of chemistry together while making the process of learning fun. We learned through all the different recipes we experimented with this semester. It was also a way to incorporate how it would feel to be in a business, letting others interested in that field in the future seeing if they would really like to go down that path or not. It was overall just a fun experience and a project that you can you could only get here at HTHMA. – Mikaela Cuevas" https://www.hightechhigh.org/hthma/project/wicked-soap-company/

• Teacher Reflection- "...The work groups did in this final stages of the project dwarfed that which was done individually and the workload was not divided evenly between groups. The machinists shouldered the majority of the workload and were completely overwhelmed by both the technical difficulty of the project as well as the sheer workload. Many of the machinists stayed regularly until 6pm at night, came in on weekends, and even came in during thanksgiving break to work. ..."

-Scott Swalley, High Tech High http://gritlab.org/apocalypto-reflection/