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INTRODUCING PBL IN YOUR CLASSROOM

" One of the major advantages of project work is that it makes school more like real life" S.Chard

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THAT'S ME!

Hi! my name is Rosalba and I teach English as a foreign Language in a secondary school in the South of Italy. I'm eager to learn about new strategie and approches in order to increase my students motivation and envolvement

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THAT'S MY SCHOOL

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The school is quite big, there are almost 1000 students aged from 11 to 13. We have a great school orchestra

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4.6 Webinar Flip your Students role in PB Lessons
PB lessons step by step
1. Challenge scenario;
2. Learning missions;
3. Giving resources;
4. Digitally connected outcomes;
5. Assessment
http://stopandlearnenglish.blogspot.it/

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4.5 My PBL
https://v.gd/sGNBkm

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1.3 Reflections on our current teaching practice

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1.1 What is PBL
" In PBL learning results in demostration of performance" L. D. Harrand)
"We put kids in a position where they need to use the knowledge they get" ( S. Papert).
I think that these two quotations taken from the video ' An Introduction To PBL' really give the idea of what PBL is: a teaching approach that should allow students to create something that demonstrates what they have learnt.
I also found a very interesting explanation of what really is PBL in the article 'Main Course, Not  Dessert' by J. Larmer and J.R. Mengendoller.
A main course project:
is intended to teach significant content:
requires critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration and various forms of communication:
requires enquiry as part of the process of learning and creating something new;
involves a public audience......
"IF WE WISH TO PREPARE A GENERATION OF STUDENTS WHO CAN SOLVE REAL-WORLD PROBLEMS, WE MUST GIVE THEM REAL-WORLD PROBLEMS TO SOLVE"

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1.2 Why use PBL
I think PBL is an approach demanding the involvement of several figures inside and outside the school system; as it is said in the video 'Proposition Projects: 21st century skills', "it's a large scale, multi-month, multi-disciplinary...
What has stopped me, till now, from achieving what is outlined in the video is my lack in professional experience with this kind of approach. I think school should promote updating courses for all Teachers before introducing PBL. Very often updating and professional ddevelopment are up to the single teacher.
In my opinion, one of the biggest challenges we have to face is to prepare our studets cope with real-world problems and PBL is the right kind of approach to PBL1 Of course I'm here to learn and and to be more confidet about PBL so as to help my students to set their minds " ...in a solution mode.... in a creative mode".

21st CENTURY SKILLS  are prerequisites for 21st CENTURY WORKPLACE

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1.4 Components of Good PBL

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....and a fantastic girl volleyball team - they both won several competitions.

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MODULE 1: WHAT IS PBL AND WHY USE IT

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There are 2 ICT l labs,but most of the computers don't work; almost every classroom is equipped with an IWB, but due to security and technical problems we couldn't use most of them this year. Let's hope for the best next year.
I have 6 mixed-abilities classes made up of 20-23 students, most of them with a troubled, socio-economic background which affect their school performances. That's one of the reasons why I want to improve my knowledge with new teaching methods and strategies.

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3 Developing Student-driven activities for PBL

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3.1 Scaffolding for Student Ownership and Independence
1. Give students voice and choice in the process
2. Let students seek answers independently
3. Make time for reflection and revision
4. Have students track their own progress.
('Facilitating Learning in a Student- Driven Environment', Video)
What is scaffoldimg?
SCAFFOLDING.
provides students with the right support they need to partecipate in learning, complete challenging tasks or learn a new concept;
encourages students to continuously grow and develop to a level that is just about thei current level;
is a way to gradually shift the responsability for learning from the teacher to the student;
helps learners to become more independent.
( Scaffolding for Students Success, Video).

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Dotstorming: "Students should jump into the deep end and learn through their failures. Providing them too much support makes them depending."

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That's the quote I always start my first lesson expecially with first year classes. I try to explain its meaning asking my students to go back, with their mind, to the time they learnt to ride a bike; I ask them to think about how many times they fell off their bike before they were able to ride it properly. I encourage them to do the same with their learning but they get discouraged very often and feel frustrated .

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3.2 Tips to make students resilient

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4.4 Assessing PBL
What is a Rubric?
A rubric is an assessment tool that saves grading time, improves students feedback, promotes student self Learning.
A rubric ia a grading tool that lays out the specific expectations for an assignment.
Why using a rubric?
A Rubric conveys timely feedback, makes evaluation more objective, brings structure to your grading, provides transparency, encourages students to self-evaluate, lessens grade frustrations.

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How can an entrepreneurial mindset be cultivated?
Give your students a challenge that is relevant for them; let them investigate, collaborate in teams, make decisions, create and solve real life problems, give students freedom of choice and responsabilities; encourage them to manage risk, allow them to fail and learn from mistakes.... That's PBL method!!!
( from the video: Entrepreneurial Mindset)

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3.4 WEBINAR  Developing Entrepreneurial Skills
Do you allow your pupils to fail?
Do you organize entrepreneurial activities in your classroom?
Does your school support entrepreneurial activities?

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3.3 An Entrepreneurial mindset

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3.2 Developing students Resilence
Identify how we teachers can weaken our students'confidence and Independence. Use your own and others'reflections to help you create a classroom environment that supports students to become confident and independent.
From my own experience - and mistakes - I've learnt that my students'confidence weakens when:
they get bad grades without feedback;
I say to a student stuck before an activity: "Come on it's very easy!":
I interrupt them to correct their pronunciation;
I give difficult and demanding tasks without  detailed instructions...
I Always try to avoid those mistakes in order to create a classroom environment that can help my students to improve teir character, to make tm more resilient, to be able to persevere through setbacks.
For example, before giving them back their graded homework, I write down the most common mistakes and ask them to correct; I praise them and encourage to avoid repeating it in their next activity

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1. REAL-WORLD CONNECTION: "When students know that what they're doing in the classroom has an audience outside the classroom, it helps them deepen their thinking on it" T. Duenwaled
2. CORE TO LEARNING: involves the way students learn the content not what they know at the end
3. STRUCTURED COLLABORATION: "It refers to allowing the students to work together, but giving them a structure within which to work". P. Ertmer
4.STUDENT DRIVEN: The teacher becomes a facilitator, he"...gives hints not answers" P. Ertmer
5.MULTIFACETED ASSESSMENT: It refers to the assessment being integrated throughout the entire PBL unit

https://padlet.com/rosalba_cerrone01/ftmd1qo2imtk

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1.5 Driving question
It is the guiding principle for the entire PBL process.

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How to write a challenging question or problem for a PBL unit.
"You might think about the interests of your students and find ways to connect those interests to the learning standards in the form of a challenging question" ( from the video " PBL/ Creating a Driving Question).
A driving question MUST BE: engaging, open-ended, aligned to your learning standards and - according to J. Mergendoller - non Googleable

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1.6 Your PBL Design: Formulating your driving question

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2 Developing Effective Collaboration for PBL.

Share a picture that shows or represents collaboration for you

This photo shows my students' hands working together to assemble the organelles to make a 3D plant cell. This was part of our CLIL project ' In and out the cell'. They were great!

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2.2 What is effective collaboration?
Watching the videos and reading all the materials given I definitely can say that Collaboration is not just splitting students into groups. , Collaboration occurs when students in a team share responsabilities, make decisions that will impct the result of their work, when their work is interdependent. So we can say that Collaboration is a working practice whereby individuals work together to achieve a common purpose.

2.3 Effective Collaboration for PBL inside the Classroom
"Creating a culture of independent learning, like the planting of a garden, is something that takes time and constant attention"
( James Fester)
Ideas for activities to develop effective collaboration
An activity I often use, both to check vocabulary and to create pairs is to ask my students to pick a flashcard( it may be a picture or a noun) from a box and then move around to find a mate in order to match the picture with the right word.

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2.4 Finding Collaboration partners outside the classroom

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2.4 Finding Collaboration partners outside the classroom

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How etwinning impacts on learners - video
" eTwinning motivates children in a way that a normal classroom can't... they have a real audience for their work ..."  Professor Marilyn Leask
" The Amazing thing is that children don't even realize they've been Learning" Maureen Gauld

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Community Partners: Making Student Learning Relevant - video
"A kid who learns how to interact with the community is somebody who feels very comfortable going out in the community throughout life" Sarah Segal
" As we engage our kids with the community we engagé our community with the kids" Brent Emmais.

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2.5 Collaboration Tools
To share materials with my students I use the school online register because I find it safer as parents got the access password from the school office. Sometimes we create whatzapp groups but the greatest problem is that most of my students haven't got an Internet connection!
Anyway, thanks to this course and to my peers, now I have plenty of tools to find uot and suggest to my students Impari. checkthis.com, doodle, prezi, dropbox....

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Involving the community
Last year at school my students took part in several projects engaging local organizations. For example third year students worked on a history project about World War II and representatives from the local veteran assosiation were invited to tell their war experiences in a conference held at school. The town police officers were invited to have seminars bout road safety while digital experts had some lessons about cyberbullying. So thinking about the PBL activity I'd like to carry on with my students, I think I might ask for support to the manager of the local Arceological Museum and the people in charge for the local policies and tourism.

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2.6 Building your PBL Learning Design

https://v.gd/sGNBkm

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4.3 Peer Assessment
A method that guides students to geneate kind, thoughtful, and effective feedback is the ladder of feedback.
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During peer assessment activity, the teacher:
1. ensures Ladder of feedback is properly applied;
2. controls each students is receiving useful feedback;
3. allows time for revision.

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3.5 Developing your PBL Learning Design
Continue add TLAs to your Design with focus on scaffolding for student Independence and ownership, building resilience and entrepreneurial mindset in general
https://v.gd/sGNBkm

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4 Assessing PBL
Padlet: My assessment context
In my school we have regular standardised tests at th beginning of the school year and at the end of the first term; for the assessment of those tests we follow a shared rubric created after discussion among colleagues. Besides those two tests, I have to give my students a written test every month or at the end of every learning unit; I'm free to choose the activity I want to give and the skill I want to assess. Of course, with the written tests I Always give activities to assess comprehension and production, while with the oral test I assess my students'speaking and interactive skills.

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4.2 Embedding Assessment for PBL
Dotstorming: Formative assessment techniques. Identify simple formative assessment techniques that can be easily embedded into PBL
I usually assess my students' learning through open-ended questions, short quizzes or games at the beginning of the lesson as a warm-up so that I can determine what should be my next step. I think other useful and fun formative assessment techniques are hand signals and response cards - I'm thinking of having my students create their own cards using emoticons or any image they like- . The Four Corners technique will be really appreciated by my students as it allows them to stand up and move around. I'd also like to create a class padlet where students can add their reflections, maybe this best suits my older students.

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4.3 Peer Assessment for PBL
Why using peer assessment?
" ... Formative peer assessment has benefits for the person who receives feedback and also for the person who gives the feedback, because.... students are able to do it in a context of somebody's else work which is less emotionally charged than your own. ... Also their own work improves because their're much clearer about what a good work in that task looks like. " Dylan William

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4.3 Peer Assessment for PBL
How you can integrate peer assessment in your Learning Design. Share your experience with peer assessment.(Padlet
I don't use much peer assessment in my classes but sometimes I flip roles with my students; I ask one of them to come to the blacboard and explain to the class a topic we've already studied giving examples and activiies to do - as a real teacher- ; at the end the class gives feedback for their classmate lesson.
I found the peer assessment activity on this course really interesting; in some cases I found the feedback really useful to re-direct and improve my project, some other times they were simple appreciations.