Prompt: You are contracted as a city planner for Ashe county and are tasked with redesigning the entire county to be more sustainable, environmentally friendly and have better infrastructure

Introduction

Student Reflections

"They should not have projects due at the same time as other class who are also doing a project. It overwhelms students having to do so much work at one time." - Anonymous

(What they liked about the course) "Engaging, exciting and informative projects and topics." - Anonymous

(What should the teacher stop doing?) "Should not have projects due at the same time as other class who are also doing a project. It overwhelms students having to do so much work at one time." - Anonymous

"I really liked the projects, I just wish some were shorter."

Teacher Reflection

This project took place during a global pandemic that seriously and heavily impacted the nature of our classroom, the education of our students, and the overall tone of the year. The pandemic also had a heavy impact on the project and how we facilitated it, logistically. Some of the ways that it impacted our project was our ability to convince Experts in their field to agree to speak with our students/work with them. In fact, it was difficult at times to even get a response. These experts were already quite busy adapting to their own changed circumstances and surviving the pandemic, many of them did not feel comfortable taking time away from that to speak with our students. While we contacted many professionals, we only heard back from a few, and unfortunately, were not able to secure any visits.

This project has been a very eye opening experience for me. I think a lot of the points in which I was 'dropping the ball' so to speak were ... brought to the forefront. I saw areas in my project design and facilitation that needed significant focus and improvement in order to serve the students in the best way possible. Clear communication of the expectations and requirements is one area that I plan to significantly improve for this next year.

I also think the next time i do this project in my class, I will improve it by asking students for more input on what the project should BE. Both times so far, I have struggled with student "buy-in", and I'm beginning to see a common denominator of the fact that I selected the topic of the project for them. I know that RootEd encourages you to allow students lots of input on what the project will be, and I think I've just been.... doing it wrong. Maybe I was reluctant to let go, or maybe I swayed the students too much towards what I personally thought was best. but either way, I have learned from this mistake!! I have some ideas for next semester that I think could be really cool and (hopefully) way more engaging, so in the spirit of eternal optimism.... I have some new thoughts/strategies about how to keep moving forward! 🙂

I have a new 'plan of attack' that I think I will be implementing...I will be breaking down the future projects into buckets, and students will be signing up to complete a certain aspect of the project. For students who do not sign up to complete any of the remaining portions, I will be giving them an alternative activity/assignment. If we are still virtual- I think I will be requiring all students to present their ideas in a zoom meeting that they schedule independently with me.

- Hannah Betsch

This project came to me as a spark of an idea after viewing a documentary with my students. My initial idea seemed solid and I was so excited to implement. Shortly into the project I realized my plan was not as well thought out as I had initially thought. Students struggled with having autonomy in the project and I struggled with scaffolding it for them.

Something I have struggled with is students constantly seeking help because 'they want to do it right'. Even with a rubric in place I have so many students would seem to just want me to describe the exact path to get an A. So I have trying to figure out a balance between helping them and letting them construct their own ideas without constant input from me. Another thing I would like to change in the future is having students work together instead of alone. I gave them the option to work alone or in pairs and almost all of them chose to work alone. I think online independent learning has become so prevalent in their academics that they prefer to not interact on their projects. In the future I would like to assign groups to get students working with people they may not normally interact with. Even if they do work alone on future projects I would like them to have more sessions of collaboration where they give each other feedback. While being flexible in the changes to the project throughout the semester was good I would prefer to have a more well-established plan before starting another long-term project. I also really want to do a project where students build something physical that would be used, but the issue I run into is lots of groups making the same thing. Overall I really enjoyed this CBL experience and it gave me a lot of ideas on to facilitate my next challenge better.

-Brian Armstrong