PBL Unit Components:

• 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.

• Products and Deliverables- What do you want the students to create? Example: “A model prototype of an accessible playground ride” "A one-minute video about their project"

• The Entry Event- The entry event is an event that catches the interest of your students about a specific topic. This could be in the form of a phenomena, a video, a lively discussion, a guest speaker, a field trip, or a compelling scenario.

• An Essential/Driving Question – 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 driving question to be more specific. For example under the umbrella question, "How can students design a universally accessible playspace?", a group might ask "How can a swingset accommodate students with a disability?
  

• Required Materials /Tools/Skills- This will affect both materials on hand and any pre-teaching or embedded tutorials made available to students, such as knowing how to use Scratch, WeMovie, or I-movie.
  

• Voice and Choice – Students must have a voice and choice in their learning. This does not always mandate a choice on content, since this is often predetermined. It does allow for a voice and choice in method of learning, product outcomes , and an audience.
  

• Research/Project Management: Students need to be taught how to self-manage an extended project, using SCRUM, or other project management tools.
  

• Critique and Revision: 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.
  

• Audience & Exhibition – When, where, how, and to whom will students present their completed works? Example: “Students will present their videos to the SFUSD recreation department in November.”
  

• 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/

• See additional resources at

• High Tech High PBL Online course resources https://hthgse.online/?page_id=2355/#email3

• High Quality PBL.ORG: https://hqpbl.org/

• PBL Planning Forms: https://www.edutopia.org/stw-project-based-learning-best-practices-resources-lesson-plans

-( https://21centuryedtech.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/part-1-connecting-it-all-a-stem-pbl-common-core-series-a-goldmine-of-resources/)