STEM Blogs PBL

This PBL was a year-long, student-led blog. Each student chose an opinion-editorial journalist to follow at the beginning of the semester, and then wrote one blog post per grading period to contribute to a whole-class blog. The students voted on their blog editors, and were put into teams with spaced out due dates so that their whole-class blog was more regularly updated (making it more authentic to readers/audience). Students were given time during class to interact with each class blog, reading articles, providing feedback, etc.

Students had to research the best avenues to create their blog and work together to pick the best platform and organization for their audience. After developing a list of what effective blogs need, many classes chose to create their blogs using Weebly.com, Google sites, and Wix.com. They gave the class editors rights to the site, and developed a system where students emailed the editors to submit their blogs. Each submission was given to me through Moodle for grading and to the editors through email for publication.

Blogging works well for Pre-AP English and AP Language and Composition students. This PBL could easily be modified for only a semester or even condensed to a single grading period. Inspiration for this PBL came from presenters at TCU's AP Summer institute.