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An Introduction to Project Based Learning - PBL Diary

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An Introduction to Project Based Learning - PBL Diary

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Teacher Academy : June 6th-July10th 2016

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I am currently a state secondary education teacher of English  to students age 16-18 in Athens, Greece. I have often used project work with my students, but not as extensively as I would like to. I hope to use it more effectively in the future .

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I teach EFL in a General Academic Lyceum or Senior High with about 450 students age 15-18 and 40 teachers. Provided that the school programme allows me, I can have access to a computer Lab equipped with a projector and a network of 12 PCs. So, it is possible to use web tools at school and work  in pairs with my 24-student classes. There is one more classroom and a library with a projector I can use  periodically. As long as there is collaboration with the principle and the other teachers projects can be feasible and effective.

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There is a difference between "doing projects" and Project Based Learning (PBL). The difference is captured quite nicely by this chart, created by Amy Mayer. I’ve saved the chart by Amy Mayer as a photo on my learning diary because it explains the difference between a project and Project Based learning and  it will help me to turn my projects into PBL

Three key words: 3 Cs :
- Critical thinking
- Collaboration
- Communication

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Why is PBL not used more widely in our education systems? What is stopping us from achieving what is outlined in the video? What are the biggest challenges we as educators face and who is stopping us from adopting the PBL approach in our classrooms?
In both videos PBL is presented  as the most effective way of learning, with meaningful tasks and a student hands-on  learning experience. Unfortunately, it  still sounds  ideal for our schools that are academic oriented and based on a strict and dense  national curriculum. How can we integrate PBL in these curriculums and  prepare our students for term exams? Who is suppposed to train the teachers?  PBL is often offered at the end of a school term as an epiloguet. I hope to learn how we can integrate PBL in our teaching time. It would be really great  to make it an integral part of everyday teaching without losing the focus on the cognitive part of education.!

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What type of skills & competences are developed in students as a result of PBL? This video is really worth watching, as it outlines with very concrete examples how students benefit when engaged effectively in the PBL approach.
PBL is an approach which enables students to analyze something, gain knowledge and then synthesize and use this knowledge to solve a problem. In this way they gain curriculum knowledge but they also enhance other skills and competencies (creativity, persistence, critical thinking, communication, collaboration) which will help them later on life to solve real life problems. More in this video

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An Introduction to Project-Based Learning

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1.3 P2P - Reflections on our current teaching practice

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1.3 P2P - Reflections on our current teaching practice

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When reflecting upon my teaching practice of English as a Foreign language to my 16-18-year-old students,  I would call it rather communicative and task based. I try to vary the lessons as much as I can so as not to get students bored by doing always the same things. So, I introduce a topic via a piece of  art, a song, a video, a moto or a word mapping trying to pre-teach certain key words before handing on an article to read with scanning questions. Then I give them specific questions for skimming the text in pairs. Or, a jigsaw reading in groups to share the main idea with the whole class. In the end, I give them an open-ended question, ask them to reflect and start an interactive activity, written or oral, in pairs or individually. After having practiced certain language structures orally and written, on a worksheet of exercises they are asked to work on a project in groups and present it in a justified way. Overall, a task based approach to teaching EFL with a project as an epilogue of what we have learnt and acquired. I have used PBL working with my 16-year-old students for two hours a week throughout the school year, based on an open ended question, such as, What does it take to have a European identity? How do we choose a career?

Subject topic: EFL                  Class: 22-24 students ,15-18   years old

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The question should be open-ended, engage and inspire students by creating curiosity, and be aligned to the learning goals you would like to achieve.The importance of the driving question to trigger critical thinking in students. More on this video

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1.6 P2P - Your PBL Design: Formulating your driving question

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1.6 P2P - Your PBL Design: Formulating your driving question

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Driving question: Why should we care for good schooling/education ?

Learning goal: is for teens to reflect upon the values of education.

Class : 22 students- age 16- will watch extracts of Malala's talk(video) in order to define their role in adding up value to the education of the masses.

Students will take notes and reflect on whether education is accessible or not and why to all youngsters around the world with a brainstorming activity, They will collaborate in groups to come up with their own voice and justify the need for youngsters to be educated. They'll have to come up with different ideas to show where this is true and create ways to promote education  for those who have no access to schooling by preparing a speech for the Parliament..

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Which of the 5 components ,or keys as they are called in the video, you feel will be the most challenging for you to realize and why.

I think that both effective collaboration and multifaceted assessment are the most challenging. I think each project requires a different rubric and, apart from this, it is difficult to combine this form of evaluation with "traditional" testing which is still required by our education authorities. As for connection with real worl, it takes a lot of effort, papers and formalities to achieve it.

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2. Developing effective collaboration for PBL 		 		 	

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2. Developing effective collaboration for PBL 		 		 	

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COMING TOGETHER IS A BEGINNING,

KEEPING TOGETHER IS PROGRESS,

WORKING TOGETHER IS SUCCESS

Henry Ford
At the heart of the PBL process is collaboration, be that as part of a group of students exploring the driving question
2.2 What is effective collaboration?

First of all, remember that a key goal of PBL is not the project but rather the process of building the project. Learning happens while working on the project. And one of the key things students should be learning as part of this process is effective collaboration. Therefore let's briefly look at what collaboration is and isn't.
Take a look at the video below and think about the questions raised by Deirdre Butler in regards to the work done in your classroom.

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FCS | Module 3 | Collaboration | Deirdre Butler, National University of Ireland

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2.3 Effective Collaboration for PBL inside the Classroom

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2.3 Effective Collaboration for PBL inside the Classroom

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Collaboration does not just happen, it needs to be learned and we can provide our students with the environment and the scaffolding to help them become effective collaborators. Take a look at the below video which identifies some useful tips to help scaffold the collaboration process for the students in the context of PBL.

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Structuring Collaboration for Student Success: Keys to PBL Series Part 3

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2.4. Reflecting on collaboration with 'real worl

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2.4. Reflecting on collaboration with 'real worl

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Reflecting on which people from your community you or your students could engage with?
I have already collaborated with people from the Chamber of Commerce, via Europe Directservice to talk about European rights, local entrepreneurs and local artist and parents for an interview and to talk to my 16-year-old students about entrepreneurship and career planning in the framework of two etwinning project in the previous year. One was "The Entrepreneurial Project" and the other "The Career Project" It has been quite beneficial for both parts.

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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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A key part of PBL is establishing a link to the "real-world". This link to the "real-world" can be established in different ways but one of the most powerful mechanisms to do this is by involving audiences or partners from outside of the classroom or even better outside of the school.
The first is about organising projects together with another class,
The second area to consider here is about involving people from the community in students' work. Getting professionals from the "real-world" to come and work with the students creates an entirely new meaning for their work.
Take a look at this video for two examples of successful engagement of outside professionals in the PBL work of students. Check for more on collaboration with local community here and here

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2.4.1. Reflecting on
collaboration with 'real world

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2.4.1. Reflecting on
collaboration with 'real world

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Reflecting on which people from your community you or your students could engage with? I have already collaborated with people from the Chamber of Commerce, via Europe Directservice to talk about European rights, local entrepreneurs and local artist and parents for an interview and to talk to my 16-year-old students about entrepreneurship and career planning in the framework of two etwinning

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A tool that can help you not only for forming teams but also for ongoing assessment of students' PBL work. The tool is called TeamUp . A brief introduction on this video
http://www.docurated.com/101-free-free-try-online-collaborative-learning-tools-teac

Edmondo, Kaizena (free, online, asynchronous collaboration) - “The easiest way to provide constructive feedback to your students. Speak instead of type. Use one of our curated Lessons to explain concepts, or create your own. Track and rate skills. Seamlessly add files from Google Drive.

Google Groups it’s easy to send a message to all the classes. The students can easily write to all the colleagues and nobody lost the messages.

https://kaizena.com/

Big Blue Button (free, online and a module for Moodle, synchronous collaboration) - a Virtual Learning Environment with interactive whiteboard, screen sharing, video and audio conference, chat, record sessions. http://bigbluebutton.org/

KAHOOT. It is a engaging way to give quizzes to students for formative assessment.
https://getkahoot.com

The other tool is TED Ed Lessons, great for flipped classes it allows you to create and make interactive video lessons by adding questions, deeper argument, discussions...
http://ed.ted.com/lessons

Meeting words, Tricider, Sticky Moose, google docs, padlet, FB

Mindmeister and make brainstorm together from different computers.
http://www.mindmeister.com/blog/tutorial-videos/

https://sway.com/

Pbworks Very practical indeed. Take a look at the link http://www.pbworks.com/