# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
There are many educational technology tools available to use in your English classroom - and they're increasing at a rapid rate.

Whether you're a seasoned tech classroom user or new to the idea, below are a few handy tools for you to get your teeth into. It's not an extensive list but these five are easy to use and a good introduction to what's available. If you have any other suggestions, please do share them in the comments section below.

Google Drive

Google Drive is a free online storage cloud that has Google's version of Word, Powerpoint and Excel built into it. It allows students to create documents for free on the go. They can access and edit these documents on a tablet device or computer from various locations with their Google account login. They can share the documents they are working on with other students and can even work in one document at the same time to co-create pieces of work. They can also share the document with their teachers while they work or once they've finished to get instant feedback.

Teachers can help students with the creative writing process by getting them to share their stories as they write so you can feedback live without stopping their creative flow. You can give them quick and easy targets through the chat facility or highlight specific sections and create a comment - they have to respond to these otherwise the comment alert won't disappear. You could also get students to co-create a presentation with one another on an element of the social or historical context of a text you're studying, for example. Once finished, they can share the document with you, close down their computers and come up one at a time and simply click on their presentation now housed in your drive for instant feedback.

Edmodo is a free social learning platform for students, teachers and parents. It looks a little bit like Facebook so it is a familiar format for students to use. But before you run for the hills, it is very different to Facebook in that it's completely controlled by the teacher and specifically designed for educational purposes - one of my classes has affectionately named it "Fakebook". It has a shared timeline as a homepage where you and your students can interact and you can allow students to interact with one another, if you wish. Both teachers and students have a library where they can store documents and share them with others if they want to. The teacher can set assignments, students hand in assignments and teachers feedback on the work all within Edmodo. Two particularly useful functions are the quizzes and polls, and there's also a built-in grade book that houses your teacher-assessed grades and quiz results for each student.

It really is a very useful all-round tool. You could consider saving essential documents - such as mark schemes, poems being studied and teaching presentations - in the class library to give students easy access to these at any time. You could also post photos of classwork completed by groups of students or individuals so all the students can see it for best practice. You could schedule weekly spelling tests - set as multiple choice quizzes - through Edmondo which will automatically collate the results so you can easily see trends within the class's performance.

Screen casting

There a loads of tools out there that capture your computer or device screen and allow you to record your voice while you do so. Two that are often used are ScreenR which is free and Explain Everything, which is quite cheap. The idea is that you can take a picture of your computer or device screen and then set your voice against the website or pre-prepared powerpoint. If you collate these in one place, you have a bank of instructional videos.

A simple way to use this tool is to create short instructional videos to help your students study independently or revise a topic. For instance, you might create clips outlining different writing styles or perhaps your team can work together to create clips on themes you all think are important. You could get students involved and ask them to prepare a short videos explaining poems that you have been studying as a revision tool.

One way to collate the videos created by a screencast tool is to start a YouTube channel and upload them all there. This is simply your own YouTube home page - you can style the background, upload profile information and follow other channels of interest. You can also create playlists within your channel to organise videos into topics and allow students to find them easily. If creating your own videos is not for you then you can create playlists of videos that are already out there that relate to the topics you are studying.

What about creating a channel for your department? Create a playlist for each topic on your curriculum map from myths and legends to war poetry and creative writing. All you would need to do is to drop in videos of your choice. The videos could be created by your students, staff or just found from educational sources around the web. The clips could help students get more from the topic or encourage them to read and research around the subject - a wonderful resource for years to come that you can regularly update.

Blogging

There are many blogging platforms around but the two that are most popular are Wordpress and Blogger. If you're looking for the easier of the two then Blogger from Google is the one. If you want a more sophisticated platform then Wordpress is probably a better choice. A basic blog allows you to have a rolling front page of updating posts and static pages accessed via tabs, often along the top of the page. It is a great record of the year for the students to look back over.

Get your students to create their own blogs and use them as digital portfolios for the year, posting up their best work. Getting feedback from a real audience as well as peers, parents and teachers is a great opportunity for development. How about creating a blog for your class? You could update the main page with homework tasks, recommended reading and updates from your classroom. Try creating a post with a task or question based on the topic you're studying and get the students to use the comments facility to respond. They could even extend their answers by responding to one another's comments. You could use the blog as a record of lessons by uploading presentations and photos. If a student is ever absent, this is an invaluable tool to enable them to keep up.

I hope you find some of these tools a beneficial to use as I have over the last year and a half.
Sarah Findlater has worked in London schools since she began teaching. She has been KS3 coordinator for English, head of languages and communications faculty (English, media and MFL) and is now an assistant headteacher. She can be found Twitter @MsFindlater.
This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. Looking for your next role? Take a look at Guardian jobs for schools for thousands of the latest teaching, leadership and support jobs.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Five top technology tools for the English classroom

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
There are many educational technology tools available to use in your English classroom - and they're increasing at a rapid rate. Whether you're a seasoned tech classroom user or new to the idea, below are a few handy tools for you to get your teeth into.

# data[].attributes.body
This could work well when teaching English conventions.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Reciprocal Teaching | Classroom Strategy | Reading Rockets

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Reciprocal teaching refers to an instructional activity in which students become the teacher in small group reading sessions. Teachers model, then help students learn to guide group discussions using four strategies: summarizing, question generating, clarifying, and predicting. Once students have learned the strategies, they take turns assuming the role of teacher in leading a dialogue about what has been read.

# data[].attributes.body
The research part could work as part of a writing unit.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Are you interested in getting your students involved in service learning? The teachers we've talked to agree that the key to making service learning work is to encourage students to come up with their own project idea-or find one that they truly support-and to connect that project to the curriculum in multiple ways. To inspire you, here are seven cool service learning projects that teachers have shared on our site:

1. Invite students to research a local landmark, such as a historical site or community park.

After researching the history of the site and touring it in person, encourage students to brainstorm ways your class could improve the landmark for visitors while maintaining its historical integrity.

2. Sponsor a service learning craft club.

Members can put their talents to work making decorations for school events as well as for the wider community. Invite club members to share any special skills-such as sculpting or needlepoint-with the rest of the group.

3. Make measurement practice meaningful.

Have students put together coffee, tea, or hot chocolate mix for local workers who make a difference in your community, such as nurses, firefighters, or police officers.

4. Beautify your school.

Encourage students to study the origins and key players of an artistic movement, such as street painting, and then inviting kids to create their own works of art inspired by the movement.

5. Take your recycling program to the next level.

Ask students to create video or audio podcasts discussing the importance of recycling and waste reduction. Post the podcasts on your school website for the wider community to learn from.

6. Study the art and culture of an impoverished nation or one that is in crisis.

Invite students to make their own artwork inspired by that country, then auction off the pieces and donate the proceeds to a charity in the struggling nation.

7. Start a gardening project with a younger classroom.

Have your students take the lead on planning and researching the garden and then presenting the information to the younger kids. Your students will learn leadership skills in addition to creating a spot to promote relaxation and nutrition at your school.

Question for you: What kind of service learning projects do you do in your school?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
7 Creative Service Learning Projects - WeAreTeachers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Are you interested in getting your students involved in service learning? The teachers we've talked to agree that the key to making service learning work is to encourage students to come up with their own project idea-or find one that they truly support-and to connect that project to the curriculum in multiple ways.

# data[].attributes.body
Literature circles sounded neat.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Cooperative Learning has been proven to be effective for all types of students, including academically gifted, mainstream students and English language learners (ELLs) because it promotes learning and fosters respect and friendships among diverse groups of students. In fact, the more diversity in a team, the higher the benefits for each student.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Learning Authentically in the Language Arts Classroom

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Across the land, English and Language Arts teachers are under increased pressure to meet challenging objectives set by state curriculum standards. To meet these thinking, problem-solving and communicating standards, it pays to involve students in seeing how these skills are practiced in the world of work outside of school.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I knelt beside my sons' toy closet, hauling out a strange menagerie of action figures. Here was a headless Tauntaun from Star Wars. There was the Smog Monster from Godzilla. How about the empty robe of a Nazgul from Lord of the Rings, or the Pokemon that kids call Gyarados but that most adults couldn't name-let alone describe?

"What are you doing with all those old toys, Dad?" asked my youngest son.

"Teaching descriptive writing," I replied cryptically.

Twenty-four hours later, I arrived in Chicago at the Annual Convention of the National Council of Teachers of English, towing that huge suitcase full of weird action figures. I met PBL teacher Cindy Smith there, and the two of us presented "Using Inquiry Projects to Teach Language Arts."

Cindy and I have collaborated over three years in her project-based-learning classroom, and we'd come to the NCTE convention to share eight of our projects and inquiry experiences.

Despite the lateness of the hour (last session on Saturday) and the location (it was on a half floor that most of the elevators didn't stop at), we had 30 or 40 educators at the session, and we dived right in.

Police Sketch Artists

For the first inquiry experience, I asked the teachers to pair up. One partner would be a police sketch artist, drawing a picture of a culprit who had committed a crime. The other would be the eyewitness who saw the perpetrator. The two partners sat back to back so that the sketch artist couldn't see the perpetrator, one of the toys withdrawn from my rolling case and handed to the eyewitness.

The room filled with a sweet buzz of laughter and discussion as the eyewitnesses struggled mightily to describe what they held, and the artists struggled mightily to draw what they heard. After they were done, we compared the toys to the drawings and discussed which descriptive strategies had worked and which had not. We talked about the challenges inherent in describing anything-and the teachers all had ideas, because they all had just struggled to create clear descriptions.

I use this "Police Sketch Artists" inquiry experience to introduce students to description. The activity immerses students in a playful atmosphere of experimenting, testing, trying. They have to describe and draw before they can even think about writing. I ask the artists, "What descriptions were most helpful to you, and why?" I ask the eyewitnesses, "What was the biggest challenge in describing, and why?" The answers flow, with many unique insights, and everyone is ready to learn, because everyone is engaged.

Photojournalism Project

After this experience, Cindy launched participants into a photojournalism project, asking the driving question, "How does a picture capture the history of your community?" In her class back home, she had asked students to work with our local library and historical society to find photos that contained evidence of the way the city developed. Students could also take digital cameras into the community to take their own present-day pictures. Afterward, they had to assemble a photo-essay of both historical and current photos and write a composition that described what the photos showed.

Cindy presented a sample collection of these photos and asked teachers to use them to tell the story of Burlington, Wisconsin. Whenever a teacher offered an observation, Cindy asked the person to provide evidence from the photo to support the claim-just as she had prompted her students. Below, I have included sample answers from some of the participating teachers.

Comment 1: It's cold where you come from. Look at all the snow.
Comment 2: Your city was around in 1882, according to the caption.
Comment 3: Not a lot of diversity there. All white, all men except the little girl on the balcony.
Comment 4: Your city is not in a dry county, since that's a saloon.
Comment 5: It also says "Groceries" and "Provisions." So this place looks kind of like an outpost in 1882.
Comment 6: Why is the building so narrow?
Comment 7: It's on Main Street. They're going to be building more storefronts like that.

Comment 1: The caption says the photo's taken from the top of the Malt House, looking at the J. Muth Saloon on Main Street.
Comment 2: The street doesn't look very main. Look, the saloon is the only storefront.
Comment 3: A malt house is part of a brewery.
Comment 4: (From me) In fact, that was the Jacob Muth Malt House.
Comment 5: Mr. Muth has a business on either side of Main Street. He was quite the businessman in your city.

Comment 1: Now there's a grocery store next to the saloon. You can't get your meat and eggs in the saloon anymore.
Comment 2: And it's not J. Muth's Saloon anymore.
Comment 3: This is 1911. That's about 30 years after the first photo. Maybe Mr. Muth is dead.
Comment 4: It looks like they finally put up another storefront on Main Street.
Comment 5: Yeah, but it's not narrow like the other one. Maybe the land there wasn't quite as valuable as Mr. Muth thought. Location, location, location.

Comment 1: Uh, oh. What happened to the windows?
Comment 2: Maybe somebody got slid along the bar and crashed through, like in the old Westerns.
Comment 3: The old saloon's looking pretty sad in 1957.
Comment 4: (From me) And by this time, the Jacob Muth Malt House has been sold for back taxes to a local community theater. I'm actually a member of that theater group, which still puts on plays at the Malt House.
Comment 5: So, Main Street really didn't turn out to be the center of town.

Comment 1: That's the place now?
Comment 2: It's still a saloon. Imagine that-for 130 years, that building has had just one use.
Comment 3: The grocery store next door is gone. Just a parking lot.
Comment 4: I like the dentist office next door.

Of course, I didn't write down these comments word for word as they were spoken, but you get the general sense of how the conversation went. With just a few prompts, teachers who knew nothing about Burlington provided some really interesting insights into the history of the city. They used their visual literacy to explore through inquiry. And they "experienced" a project they could use in their own classrooms.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Blog post: Using Inquiry Projects to Teach Language Arts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I knelt beside my sons' toy closet, hauling out a strange menagerie of action figures. Here was a headless Tauntaun from Star Wars. There was the Smog Monster from Godzilla. How about the empty robe of a Nazgul from Lord of the Rings, or the Pokemon that kids call Gyarados but that most adults couldn't name-let alone describe?

# data[].attributes.body
Some neat ideas

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
by Linda Torp and Sara Sage

To educate is to take seriously both the quest for life's meaning and the meaning of individual lives. . . . Through telling, writing, reading, and listening to life stories-one's own and others'-those engaged in this work [teaching] can penetrate cultural barriers, discover the power of the self and the integrity of the other, and deepen their understanding of their respective histories and possibilities.

-Witherell & Noddings (1991)

As we work with educators around the country, we have come to appreciate the power of story. Strong connections develop when we relate how teachers organize problem-based learning (PBL) experiences and how students respond to them. Our partners are enthusiastic and thoughtful PBL practitioners from whom we learn a great deal. We'll begin with their words-their stories.

At Elementary Schools

One important story is unfolding at Westgate Elementary School in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Educators there have used PBL for a number of years, examining how it works best with young students and adapting the process to a point where their school community-administrators, teachers, students, parents, and businesspeople-enthusiastically support the method.

In one problem, 1st through 5th grade students investigated difficulties their former principal was having maintaining a healthy flower garden at home. Students examined soil and plant samples from her garden, read about how to grow healthy plants, searched the Internet, contacted local experts, and conducted experiments on growing plants under different conditions.

Several students had difficulty with adults who wouldn't take them seriously when they tried to find information to help them investigate their problem. Michael, a 4th grader, called a local plant nursery for information about watering plants. The person answering the phone said, "Just don't give them too much water," and then hung up.

Students discussed his dilemma. Andy suggested that Michael should have called back and asked, "How much water is too much?" or kept the person on the phone by saying, "Wait a second," or something similar. Eventually the group located an individual who would answer questions to their satisfaction. Students learned something about perseverance and differences among adults.

Teachers at Westgate are excited about how students are learning, and students are excited about their learning. Here are their comments:

The way they're doing their experiments and thinking about their experiments before they just rush into doing them-they're reading them over and predicting and deciding whether they're going to be helpful or not-they've definitely surpassed my expectations at this point.

-Linda Zakarian, 1st/2nd grade teacher

I saw the kids learn a ton of information about plants, and they know that if they're going to have a garden, they need to really read directions, and they need to know some conditions of sunlight and water. They got out of it what I wanted them to get out of it. They're much more knowledgeable about plants, but I didn't have to do it from a textbook. . . . I've learned to constantly push the kids to keep thinking. If they come up with one answer, don't stop there, because the likelihood is there are at least five more answers.

-Melissa Rabin, 3rd/4th grade teacher

[Things have to work together] like the sun and the water. You have to know if it's going to rain or not, and you have to know where to plant your flowers so they get the right amount of sun or shade they need. I think it's weird that sometimes things don't need very much sun but they need a lot of water.

-Richard, 4th grade student

Both students and teachers enjoy the authenticity of PBL, as shown in these comments:

I like PBL because it's challenging and fun, because you're learning something new. Every problem's a little different 'cause you're going for different goals in the solutions.

-Cal, 4th grade student

Some kids question when you're teaching basic skills: "Why do we have to learn this? When are we ever going to do this?" [With PBL] you're showing them a reason-a specific, real-life situation. I'm teaching them basic skills, but I'm giving them a reason.

-Linda Zakarian, 1st/2nd grade teacher

Ruth, a student in Zakarian's class, said she liked the plant problem because she could help the former principal solve a real problem. Ruth's mother echoed her daughter's excitement:

Ruth talked a lot about the plant problem; we discussed it a lot. I was impressed with the sources they went to for information, phone calls they made; [they even went] as far as getting an analysis of the soil-that they would think about that. Also, I could see on her face that she was very thrilled that she was able to find out information that an adult was very interested in . . . but also that she just received this level of respect from an adult. It really boosted her confidence. . . . I think problem-based learning empowers children to be real active participants in the world around them when they get the opportunity.

As we interviewed students, we found they identified other skills they had worked on during PBL experiences. They described how they helped each other locate and understand information in the plant problem:

[I use a highlighter pen] if there's a picture there with a whole bunch of things. . . . You can highlight [some parts] so you won't need to keep reading it; it tells you what you're reading.

-Jennifer, 1st grade student

Some of the people [in my group] looked at pictures and got a little information; then if I read and found something, I would think: Would that make sense? Is it important or not? Sometimes it would be important for this but not important for this . . . like all the stuff I read in this book about seeds-I found that animals help scatter seeds; that is important. But the picture was showing a bird taking a cherry, so I wasn't sure [if that was important] because [the principal] might not have any of those kinds of trees.

-Kristen, 2nd grade student

Students completed a pre-test and a post-test in which they were asked to develop instructions on how to grow plants successfully. For her pre-test, Andrea, a 3rd grader, drew four pictures, with little accompanying information (mentioning seeds, sun, and rain). On a post-test in May, however, seven months after completing the plant problem, Andrea wrote instructions that included 10 necessary components for healthy plant growth: "soil, seeds, water, fertilizer, sun, rain, carbon dioxide, respiration/breathe, chlorophyll/food, and space to grow" (all spelled correctly). Andrea, by the way, is a special education student.

Many members of the learning community at Westgate report that they can spot by their behavior students who have had several experiences with PBL. These students are better at dealing with conflicts in the lunchroom or on the playground. They also approach learning differently in the classroom, asking more questions and refusing to let go of issues until they are satisfied they understand the issues thoroughly, even to the extent of assigning themselves homework. Christine Ortlund, another experienced PBL teacher at Westgate, mentions that many students now don't just ask to learn by solving problems, they actually demand it.

At Middle Schools

An essential part of the middle school story is to find engaging, authentic problems where students are placed in roles and situations that hook them-at this age, they are typically interested in everything but academics. Middle school researchers stress the importance of relating middle school curriculum to issues of student concern and interest (for example, Beane [1993]). One former team of middle school teachers-Karoline Krynock and Louise Robb-realized the power of incorporating student interest through problem-based learning:

If you give them [8th grade students] a role of power, then they really buy into this. We've done two problems where kids have been put in the position of making recommendations . . . about school district policy to school board members, a superintendent, and a principal. And [the students] walked away from that saying, "We could say something. We had something to say and adults listened to us. . . . We may have actually done something for our school-something that's really going to directly affect us."

-Karoline Krynock, Mason, OH; former science teacher, Barrington Middle School, Prairie Campus, Barrington, IL

Sage, Krynock, and Robb (2000) detail one problem the latter two researchers designed involving prairie restoration on their school campus. About this problem, students said:

It's not just something for school-it went farther than that. It was, like, for the town.

-Sherry, 8th grade student

I like this more than a regular English class-more than just going in and getting reading stories and doing grammar.

-Mike, 8th grade student

It [PBL] got more interesting. We just started working with a solution, and it was less boring than sitting in a classroom listening to a speaker.

-Roger, 8th grade student

Another problem required students to design a mass transit system from Chicago to Northwest Indiana "over, under, or through 57 miles of Lake Michigan" (Krynock & Robb, 1999). These open-ended problems not only pique student interest but also teach the curriculum. The two teachers (Krynock & Robb, 1996) conducted classroom research showing that their PBL students learned as much or more content in a problem designed around the issue of possible genetic causes for aggressive behavior than did students in a more traditional genetics unit. Krynock says that her students learn more "real science" in PBL than in any other teaching method she has used.

Dealing with authentic problems helps students think about ethical aspects of issues they might not have otherwise considered. At the end of a PBL experience dealing with HIV/AIDS, Krynock reported that her class felt a strong obligation to educate others to reduce fear surrounding the disease. She was surprised and impressed by their maturity and empathy in considering how an HIV-positive student might feel and their subsequent desire to be proactive in providing education to their peers:

Even if we had read a hundred short stories and memorized a million AIDS pamphlets, I don't know that they would have learned the valuable lessons they learned from the short [time] we spent examining this problem.

-Karoline Krynock, Mason, OH; former science teacher, Barrington Middle School, Prairie Campus, Barrington, IL

Lisa Nicholson, a special education teacher at Burr Ridge Middle School in Burr Ridge, Illinois, has found that PBL is an effective strategy to use with a wide range of students. Nicholson coteaches several problems-one is on deer overpopulation in their area, and another is HIV-positive middle school students. She says that although all students benefit from the real-life problems the teachers have presented in PBL, special education students are particularly well suited to the approach, because they often don't want to learn or they have difficulty learning unless they see a reason behind the lesson. PBL also allows students to use the learning style that is best for them. Furthermore, they can demonstrate their knowledge through many different assessment formats, such as oral presentations, debates, and posters.

At High Schools

Consider this problem designed as a precursor to reading To Kill a Mockingbird:

Students are members of the Alabama Historical Society, which has been contracted to research a family's background during the time period of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. What was going on in the family during the time period of the novel? How reliable is the information the historical society uncovers? If controversial information about family members arises, who needs to know-or not?

-Yolanda Willis, language arts teacher, East Aurora High School, Aurora, IL

Even though her students normally enjoyed this book, Willis reports that PBL enhanced this American literature unit:

I think the kids were more into what they were doing; it seemed more relevant to them, especially with the social studies teacher [an expert on the 1930s] coming in and talking with them. . . . What really grabbed them . . . was when I brought the guy in who said that the original person the students were researching had lynched his grandfather. So then it became more of an ethical problem-the kids had to go back to their problem statement and decide: "Maybe we shouldn't even be doing this." Before that, it was: "Okay, we'll do this; we'll do all the research and make all the pictures." But when [that ethical dimension] came in, they were like, "Wow!" It really blew them away.

Teachers can design PBL problems around interdisciplinary issues as well. Another teacher relates this story of student empowerment:

There's a metamorphosis that you cannot even begin to contemplate. I listened to one girl who was being interviewed by the [Chicago Tribune] on the phone. Crissy said, "I never knew I could do all this; I didn't know I was such a good thinker; I didn't used to be able to get up in front of people and speak. . . ." I love to see the depth of their thinking and hear realizations that they're operating on a different level. . . . I like to see the metamorphosis in staff that is the audience for their exhibitions. Administrators are seeing kids differently. Other teachers are saying, "Yes, kids can do." I've always believed kids can do anything, but it's so exciting to see that happen.

-Ellen Jo Ljung, language arts teacher, Glenbard West High School, Glen Ellyn, IL

Real-life problems can become PBL problems, as shown in these examples:

Bernard Hollister, a former social science teacher, co-taught a PBL course, Science, Society, and the Future (SSF), for seniors at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA). One year, SSF students started with a problem Hollister designed around lunchroom waste in U.S. schools. As he put it, students began "stripping away the layers of the onion" when they discovered that lunchroom waste was only the tip of this problem. The real problem seemed to be flawed methodology and strong political motivations in the congressional study they were using.

Also at IMSA, science/physics teacher David Workman has used PBL for a number of years. One problem unit in his integrated science course revolved around finding the best possible design for retention/detention ponds in the immediate school vicinity. Severe flooding had occurred in the community in the previous year. In this course, students investigate "problem platforms," which expose physical and biological problematic contexts-such as pond life or habitation on Mars. Such exposure allows student involvement in several different PBL experiences.

John Thompson, an IMSA science/biology teacher, uses PBL in several science classes. For a predator unit in his ecology class, Thompson focuses on the central issue of wolf reintroduction into natural habitats. Each year he updates this core problem to reflect a current real-world scenario.

A science/chemistry instructor, Richard Dods, has developed a biochemistry course around realistic problem scenarios, such as learning about isoenzymes by diagnosing, as cardiologists, the source of chest pain in the character Miles Silverberg from television's "Murphy Brown."

High school students participating in PBL clearly enjoy the strategy and find PBL beneficial in preparing them for their future:
I like Comm-Tech [a communications technology course] because it's a class where you take all the material you've learned and you use it. . . . Other classes teach you what to learn; this class teaches you how to learn. I think I'll actually use this class when I move on into computer science and electrical engineering; it teaches you how to solve problems on the job.

-Don, student in Ellen Ljung's class, Glenbard West High School, Glen Ellyn, IL

[PBL] is a different approach to education. Instead of: "Here's a sheet of vocabulary words, memorize them," you could say, "Well, this happens, you know-why? Now go find out. See what you can find out about the why or the how of something. . . ." There's usually not one right answer. There can be more than one answer, or there isn't one; you form a new question and go from there.

-Cindy, student in John Thompson's ecology class, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, Aurora, IL

The skills I learned in [John Thompson's] ecology class have been helpful both in terms of the research and studying that I've done for my college courses and also the research that I've done for my own research career. . . . That series of thought processes that takes you from complete ignorance to a knowledge that's focused and can answer a specific question is a very useful thing to know, and it's a very difficult skill to learn, I think, in most school settings.

-Elizabeth Pine, former IMSA student, 1993 Westinghouse Science Talent Search Competition award winner

At Universities

PBL is a fast-growing strategy in both undergraduate and graduate education. In working with undergraduates, we are finding a variety of courses and disciplines that apply PBL. As two examples, the University of Delaware and Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, have committed to using PBL across disciplines and levels.

Several professors at Samford University are using PBL in teacher education. Becky Atkinson and Martha Ralls of Samford teach a middle school course with Joy Brown, a local middle school principal. They begin their course for prospective middle school teachers with the problem "Our Unique Students," in which the preservice teachers create profiles for a typical class of 25 middle school students (Atkinson, Brown, & Ralls, 2000). Using fictitious but realistic student profiles, the education students then move on to such problems as "Team Goals and Mission" (creating and communicating yearlong goals to students and parents), "Different Strokes" (considering the special needs of a diverse student population), and "Active Learning" (selecting, implementing, and evaluating active teaching strategies in an actual middle school classroom with experienced classroom teachers as mentors). PBL benefited not only the students but also the instructors. Here are instructor comments:

I was amazed at watching PBL in action; watching them process the problems-whether we were trying to facilitate their processing or not, it was just remarkable. It's so powerful. I was a little envious that my own teachers haven't been through this training. . . . In the end they [Samford students] learned what middle school was like. The goals of the course are to have them appreciate and differentiate middle school from elementary and high school; the course goals were accomplished. They learned it heart and mind.

-Joy Brown, principal, Robert F. Bumpus Middle School, Birmingham, AL

I didn't feel like I had to know all the answers, but I felt as though I needed to at least have stumbled across the same questions the students had. So I found myself thinking, OK, what if I'm a 20-year-old, and I've never had a child? I was remembering how I was when I was first teaching. . . . So I learned that I don't always have to have the right answer as long as I have fully explored what the questions could be.

-Becky Atkinson, adjunct instructor of education, Samford University

[The best thing I saw about this PBL experience was] interest. They were engaged; their eyes lit up. They were on a search for the answer; they wanted to know. This was real life-it was interesting; it challenged them. I had been through this class many times before; this level of interest was unusual.

-Martha Ralls, professor of education, Samford University

Carol Dean, assistant professor of education at Samford University, teaches a foundations course to preservice teachers in which she uses current education problems in the news as the basis for PBL in her class. The problems focus on issues like teaching as a profession, tenure for K-12 teachers, vouchers, and school funding. In one recent problem ("No Lottery! Now What?"), Dean (2000) asked students to consider the school funding situation in Alabama, where a state lottery proposal had just failed. Students, in small groups, responded to a real call for letters in the local paper by crafting a plan to improve equitable funding to schools.

Also at Samford University, George Keller teaches a section of a problem-based course, Scientific Methods, required for all nonscience majors. His students work on "hot topic" problems like the science behind low-carbohydrate diets, genetically altered foods, the necessity of various vaccines, strategies for reducing the rate of HIV/AIDS in intravenous drug users, and so forth. Keller sees PBL as a way to offer students a new approach to science:

I think the biggest thing is that [PBL] is a new way to present science that isn't fact, fact, explanation, fact, fact, fact-they see that science is a process. . . . It's a different way of thinking about science, of appreciating both the power and the limitations of it.

-George Keller, associate professor of biology, Samford University, Birmingham, AL

At the University of Delaware, Deborah Allen, Linda Dion, and Hal White (2000) work with a peer facilitator program to assist in large undergraduate PBL classes in the basic and applied sciences, humanities, and the social sciences. Peer facilitators-students who have already taken and done well in the various courses-work with one or several small groups to facilitate discussion, problem solving, and group communication. In White's Introduction to Biochemistry course, peer facilitators report a statistically significant increase in their library research, writing, communication, and problem-solving skills from the tutoring experience (Allen, Dion, & White, 2000).

Several colleges and universities are applying problem-based approaches in undergraduate mathematics courses. At Indiana University South Bend, Morteza Shafii-Mousavi, associate professor of mathematics, and Paul Kochanowski, professor of economics, have cotaught the freshman level course Math in Action: Social and Industrial Problems for several years (Shafii-Mousavi & Kochanowski, 1999). Students, in small groups, work with various community organizations and businesses each spring to help solve a real problem. Recent issues included examining the efficiency of food preparation and distribution in an area school district, analyzing the survey results of a gifted program in another district, maximizing the usage of a property surrounding a mall, and determining the optimal mix of fund-raising activities for a local nonprofit organization.

Students in this course report some of the following benefits (Kochanowski, Sage, & Shafii-Mousavi, 2000):

Seeing how math problems apply directly to life problems.

Learning computer skills with math.

Learning about graphs and how data fit into them.

Using their creative sides and other skills besides math.

Putting a project together from material learned in class.

Applying math tools to real-life problems.

Being able to demonstrate knowledge instead of taking a test.

Directly applying knowledge for someone, which made the procedures "stick."

In a similar mathematics course taught at the University of South Carolina Spartanburg, a longitudinal study comparing 68 sections (problem-based and traditional sections) showed the median success rate (considered the number passing as a percent of initial enrollment) was 75 percent for problem-based sections and 56 percent for traditional sections (Ulmer, 1999).
* * *

Stories from teachers, students, parents, principals, and researchers are powerful. But what is this thing called problem-based learning? What do we know about PBL? What do teachers and students do in PBL? How can you design problems for your class? How can you write your own PBL story? You'll find these questions and others addressed as you investigate PBL in this book.

Endnote

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What Does Problem-Based Learning Look Like in Classrooms?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
by Linda Torp and Sara Sage To educate is to take seriously both the quest for life's meaning and the meaning of individual lives. . . . Through telling, writing, reading, and listening to life stories-one's own and others'-those engaged in this work [teaching] can penetrate cultural barriers, discover the power of the self and the integrity of the other, and deepen their understanding of their respective histories and possibilities.

# data[].attributes.body
Have students write to a local leader regarding a change they think should happen. This could be to their parents, a school official, or the mayor and beyond.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Project Based Learning: Start Here | Cult of Pedagogy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Maybe you’ve always wanted to try PBL, but you just haven’t gotten around to it yet. Here’s a set of beginner-level resources to get you started.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Constructivism is an educational philosophy that became popular in the early 1990s. The basic framework of constructivism is that students create their own learning; that is, we can't teach students to learn - they have to learn for themselves. Using this framework, teachers take on the role of facilitator, and each student learns what he or she needs to. This fits in well with the new Bloom's taxonomy where creating becomes the most powerful rung on the taxonomy ladder. Constructivist learning also fits right in with multi-level instruction and flipped learning.

Constructivist theory posits that there is no learning unless learners have created it from experiences; therefore, when using the constructivist approach, you are also creating a more engaged classroom that is student centered. Here are a few techniques that I use to make my classroom more constructivist.

Vocabulary
Instead of giving students a vocabulary list, give them an interesting reading. Have students decide what vocabulary words to learn and have them make flash cards with the vocabulary words that they need to learn. I use an electronic flash card creator for this task called Quizlet ( www.quizlet.com); however, you can use paper index cards just as well. The advantage to Quizlet is that students can download their saved work and have access to their vocabulary words any time.

Reading
After students have read, instead of asking them comprehension questions, have students create the questions themselves. I divide students into groups and challenge them to come up with higher-level, critical thinking questions instead of the questions that are spelled out easily in the text. Although it is common for teachers to ave students do this activity in intermediate levels, I think it is more powerful in the beginning levels. A good resource for questions is: http://www.mrcoley.com/pdfs/LC_Questioning_Packet.pdf. (Note that these questions use the older Bloom's taxonomy, but the prompts are a great way to practice student-created questions.)

Sample Activity Speaking and Writing
Materials -
Interesting pictures
Index cards
Post It Notes

Teach questioning skills by using pictures and have students make critical thinking questions about the pictures. I use this site to find good pictures: http://www.pinterest.com/selsmith479/writing-picture-prompts/

An activity that you can use with the pictures is to print out a series of pictures and let each group choose the picture to work with. It is very important, in a constructivist classroom, that you not tell students what to do but rather facilitate based on their choices. Once each group has decided on a picture use the following steps for beginners.

Note: Always model the activity with a picture that you chose, with all the steps, before asking students to do this.

1. Have a blank card attached to the picture have students find five objects in the picture that they don't know. Give them the words and have them write the words on the blank card.

2. Have groups identify the vocabulary. Use structured questioning. At the beginning level just start with:

a. What is this?
b. Where is the ________?

3. Have students request help when needed for identifying vocabulary.
When you have a minute, we need your help.

Here is a example for a picture located at http://imgfave.com/view/2484067?r=pin

4. Ask them to write three questions with answers that are not easily found in the picture.

Is the cat sitting on a rock?
for example, is a lower order question.

But why is this cat sitting on a rock or How did the cat get on the rock? is an example of a higher order question.

Although the grammar will likely not be perfect, most students have enough critical thinking skills in their native language to come up with good questions. The problem they have is expressing the question in English. This is where the teacher as facilitator becomes important. As a teacher facilitator, you can choose to help with the language or not, depending on the level. Usually at beginning levels, I help a lot with expression and at the higher levels, I encourage the groups to figure it out by themselves.

5. Once they are finished with writing the questions, have students post the picture somewhere in the classroom along with their questions.

6. Give students Post It notes and have them walk around the room looking at the pictures while asking and answering them on the post it notes which are attached to the picture. The teacher-turned-facilitator can help with language and vocabulary. Finally groups take their pictures back with all the input on the post it notes and write a story together.

This is the type of activity that engages students, allows them to make choices about the language they will want to learn and has the teacher facilitate expression of the language.

Engaging students in learning what they need to know, allows them to take part in their learning. In the constructivist classroom, the teacher models activities that are interesting and engaging and facilitates learning. How are you facilitating a constructivist classroom?

Reference
http://www.exploratorium.edu/ifi/resources/constructivistlearning.html
http://www.calpro-online.org/eric/docs/brown/brown01_06.pdf

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Susan Gaer Constructivism is an educational philosophy that became popular in the early 1990s. The basic framework of constructivism is that students create their own learning; that is, we can't teach students to learn - they have to learn for themselves.