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12 Results

Student Handouts

This checklist helps teachers prepare for project presentations before they start.

Student Handouts

This documents helps capture thoughtful feedback from the audience for student presentations.

Student Handouts

Explains PBL, details the project, addresses assessment issues, and informs parents how to help.

Student Handouts

This contract can be used by a project team to agree upon how they will work together.

Student Handouts

May be filled in by project team members to record agreements about how they will work together.

Student Handouts

This document helps a team organize what needs to be done, by which team member, and by when.

Student Handouts

This document helps a team keep track of project tasks, who is responsible for them, and by when.

Student Handouts

This document helps students organize their presentations with a specific audience in mind.

Student Handouts

This document helps students think about what they did in the project and how well the project went.

Student Handouts

This document can be used to help students reflect on how they worked, and on the project itself.

Student Handouts

This form may be used during a project to have students report on what their team accomplished on a particular day or week.

Student Handouts

This form may be used by students to track progress on a project and have them report on what they individually accomplished on a particular day or week.

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of videos, planning forms, rubrics, blogs, and more. Whether you want to learn about PBL, or find classroom resources, our materials will support your journey.

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Completing class projects can be fun for your students, especially if they know exactly what is needed. Creating guidelines can be time-consuming though, so we’ve made a way for you to do it in no time! To make a project checklist for your students, first choose the grade…

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January 29, 2016
Gold Standard PBL: Scaffold Student Learning

The term "scaffolding" has been used in U.S. education for a while now, and its meaning has gotten a little fuzzy. When originally coined by Jerome Bruner in the 1960s, it meant "a process in which teachers model or demonstrate the problem-solving process, then step back and offer support as needed." Now, it's often used more generally to mean "support provided to students to help them learn or do something" - which could include lessons, modeling, coaching, workshops, tools, or any other resources they might need. It's often linked with differentiated instruction, emphasizing the importance of employing the appropriate scaffold to meet individual student needs.

In our model for Gold Standard PBL, we use the more general sense of the word when explaining one of the Project Based Teaching Practices but we also like the original definition's "then step back" part. In PBL, after all, we want to encourage students to work independently from the teacher, to have voice and choice and a sense of ownership of the project and their learning. I talked about scaffolding in PBL on a Hangout with three of BIE's National Faculty members, Dori Berg, Jorge Valenzuela, and Georgette Baltierrez-Manohorathat.

We agreed that the teacher's role in providing scaffolding in PBL is not all that different, fundamentally, from what it is in traditional teaching; it's about meeting the learning needs of all your students so they can be successful. However, in PBL students might need scaffolding for non-traditional skills such as conducting inquiry or working with real-world experts, or for 21st century success skills such as problem-solving, collaboration in teams, or making presentations. Dori pointed out another difference; in PBL, the teacher typically plans scaffolding for the whole project in advance, to "make sure there's alignment from start to finish." While PBL teachers can anticipate much of what students will need to know and be able to do in order to succeed in a project, plans must remain flexible enough to respond to student needs as they emerge -- and to leave room for student voice and choice, which can take a project in new directions.

To plan the appropriate scaffolding for students, Dori has the teachers she coaches "break down the (targeted) standards and foreshadow where students might have some hiccups" in the project. Georgette, who teaches middle school special education, said she starts by looking at the prerequisite skills her students will need, including any elementary-level standards she might need to re-teach. Jorge made a recommendation along similar lines: connect scaffolding to students' background knowledge and check for vertical alignment with the knowledge students have gained in a lower grade. For example, for a project involving an engineering design challenge like building a catapult, a teacher might expect (and would need to check) that students in previous years have learned some concepts about simple machines, such as knowing what a lever, pulley, or screw is, but need a deeper understanding of the mechanism of compound machines - as Jorge said, it's now "identify vs. analyze vs. apply."

We discussed a useful tool for teachers to plan scaffolding for a project: BIE's Project Design: Student Learning Guide. This form captures a process for backward planning, from the major products in a project to the knowledge and skills students will need to create them, to the checkpoints for formative assessment, to the instructional strategies and resources that will give all students the necessary knowledge and skills to be successful. Our National Faculty members have facilitated teachers' use of this form in BIE's PBL 101 workshop - and our hangout guests agreed that teachers should have "several scaffolds in their toolbox" to complete the column for instructional strategies and resources.

To give a couple more examples of scaffolding in projects, Georgette described a middle school math project that involved building scale models for homes and planning a budget to furnish it. In addition to the required math skills, her special needs students were provided with scaffolds for social skills like communicating effectively with team members.

Dori told about a 9th grade English/Social Studies project, in which students analyzed the birth and death rates of various Asian nations and their implications for health care. Their final product was a video about the issue, shown at a school/community film festival. One of the ways the two teachers provided scaffolding was to create various stations in the classroom where students could choose what to work on. One of the stations - which they were sometimes coached to attend - was a teacher-led review of the concept of "population pyramids" which had proved challenging for some students. The teachers also conducted workshops almost every day, based on needs identified by students' exit slips from the previous day. For the students who needed more content knowledge or indicated they didn't understand a concept or task, the teachers asked them to gather for a five-minute lesson to get them up to speed before rejoining their teams on a project workday. The teachers' long-term goal is to get students to take ownership and be self-directed in meeting their own needs for scaffolding, but Dori noted with a chuckle, "we're still working on that."

To wrap up our conversation, I asked about common pitfalls teachers might run into when it comes to scaffolding in PBL. "Not knowing their students," said Jorge. "Build in time for pre-assessing what they know and don't know" then make sure to use formative assessment during the project to see if students are progressing. Dori backed up that point by offering wisdom gained from experience: "If a pop quiz reveals your lesson didn't rock (as you thought it did), allow yourself to step back before moving forward." Georgette had similar sage advice: "Everything is not going to go as planned, so be ready to adapt to meet the needs of students."

Do you have wisdom gained from experience about scaffolding in PBL? Questions?
Please leave a comment below.

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The term "scaffolding" has been used in U.S. education for a while now, and its meaning has gotten a little fuzzy. When originally coined by Jerome Bruner in the 1960s, it meant "a process in which teachers model or demonstrate the problem-solving process, then step back and offer support as needed."

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October 28, 2015
Project Based Learning with Students with Disabilities

Back in March, John Larmer, John Mergendoller, and Suzie Boss enhanced the Buck Institute's original Project Based Learning (PBL) framework, highlighting essential elements that lend themselves to deeper learning. Many of the original pieces are there, but this new model, Gold Standard PBL, gives equal billing to reflection as an important part of the PBL experience. While students have always been encouraged to reflect throughout PBL, I think its appearance on the Gold Standard Design graphic serves as a reminder for all of us when we are facilitating student learning.

So, with that in mind, I would like to reflect on our initial exploration of PBL as a vehicle to engage students with disabilities as we prepare them for career, college, and civic life. While not all students with disabilities will attend a traditional college, they all will experience a post-secondary life that will include academics, advocacy, and accomplishment. Last year, a group of exceptional educators embarked on a journey with me that would change the way we look at instruction; these teachers decided that PBL offers an approach that leads students toward a life after high school where content knowledge is just one aspect of the whole adult. There is so much more that our students require when they leave us. Mr. Larmer, Mr. Mergendoller, and Ms. Boss, in Setting the Standard for Project Based Learning, discuss the acquisition of "Success Skills" as an integral part of learning. It is this emphasis on critical thinking, collaboration, and self-management that provides even more opportunity for our students with disabilities as they strive toward independence in their post-secondary life.

Last year, we deemed that all kids "CAN PBL" when Onondaga-Cortland-Madison NY (OCM) BOCES students in 12:1:1 and 12:1:4 classes grew a community garden, created and distributed leisure activity brochures, fed the homeless, and educated fellow staff and teachers about autism. Others utilized technology to communicate the importance of animal habitats to zoo visitors, staffed a diner for fellow classmates, created posters promoting a balanced diet for the school cafeteria, and prepared families for a natural disaster. That is just some of what our students with disabilities accomplished in a few short months. It is important to note, however, as John Dewey stated, it's not the experience, it's the "reflection on experience" (1938) that elevates us to that metacognitive platform. To honor reflection as a part of the learning process, I invited the teachers involved to share in a "fishbowl" protocol. As I listened from the perimeter, the teachers spoke about what their students learned and the nature of transfer, a result of deep learning. Students were making content connections for days, even weeks, after products were shared with the public! As the reflection continued, the teachers recalled collaboration among students who were so prone to parallel play in the traditional teaching environment. Now, those students accomplished tasks as a team and celebrated together. They looked into each other's eyes and handed items back and forth, a feat that can be difficult for some children with disabilities. They helped each other if someone struggled. As the reflection continued, teachers shared how their students, so often marginalized and forgotten, became advocates through this experience. They became problem solvers, helpers, makers...

Reflection leads to planning next steps; so with this in mind, I look forward to year two. I look forward to supporting teachers as they design projects intent on facilitating academic proficiency and promoting advocacy while providing opportunity for rigorous inquiry for all of our students. And when those students have learned, they can revel in their accomplishments as they prepare for post-secondary life.

Do you have questions, advice, or stories to share about using PBL for students with disabilities or in Special Education? Please make a comment below!

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Project Based Learning with Students with Disabilities | Blog | Project Based Learning | BIE

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Back in March, John Larmer, John Mergendoller, and Suzie Boss enhanced the Buck Institute's original Project Based Learning (PBL) framework, highlighting essential elements that lend themselves to deeper learning. Many of the original pieces are there, but this new model, Gold Standard PBL, gives equal billing to reflection as an important part of the PBL experience.

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Misconception #1
PBL is the same as "making something," "hands-on learning" or "doing an activity."
Fact Check: PBL is often focused on creating physical artifacts, but the artifacts are not as important as the intellectually challenging tasks that led to them. For example, it's not truly PBL if students are simply making a collage about a story, constructing a model of the Egyptian pyramids, or analyzing water samples from a lake. These artifacts and activities could be part of a rigorous project if they help students meet a complex challenge and address a Driving Question. And not all "projects" involve creating a physical product. A broad definition of PBL includes projects in which students solve a complex problem and defend their solution in an oral presentation or in writing.

Misconception # 2
PBL isn't standards-based. It focuses on "soft skills" like critical thinking and collaboration, but doesn't teach enough content knowledge and academic skills.
Fact Check: Some projects in the past may have been guilty of being "content-lite" but PBL models today are different. In well-designed projects students gain content knowledge and academic skills as well as learn how to solve problems, work in teams, think creatively, and communicate their ideas. When planning a project, teachers should align the Driving Question, student products and tasks with important standards, and use rigorous assessment practices to document evidence of achievement. PBL marries the teaching of critical thinking skills with rich content, because students need something to think critically about -- it cannot be taught independent of content.

There is research to back up the claims for PBL's effectiveness, which you can find on Edutopia's Project-Based Learning page as well as the Buck Institute for Education's research page.

Misconception # 3
PBL takes too much time.
Fact Check: It is true that projects take time, but it is time well spent. A project is not meant to "cover" a long list of standards, but to teach selected important standards in greater depth. The key is to design a project well, so it aligns with standards, and manage it well, so time is used efficiently. Not all projects need to take months to complete -- some can be only two weeks long. And a teacher does not have to go all-PBL, all the time -- even one or two projects a year is better than none. Some teachers are concerned that planning a project takes too much time. PBL does require significant advance preparation, but planning projects gets easier the more you do it. You can also save planning time by collaborating with other teachers, sharing projects, adapting projects from other sources, and running the same project again in later years.

Misconception # 4
PBL is only for older students . . . or fluent English speakers . . . or those who don't have learning disabilities.
Fact Check: Elementary-age students benefit from engaging, authentic projects just as much as high school students. Teachers might have to manage a project differently with young children, but PBL can and is being done successfully in many K-5 schools today. To those who think young children are not ready for rich content, point out that knowledge plays an important role in early literacy. Content-rich projects, often based in science or social studies, build background knowledge that influences comprehension. Literacy skills can be taught in the context of the project. Projects can increase student motivation to read, write, and learn mathematics because they are engaged by the topic and have an immediate, meaningful reason to apply these skills.

Projects are effective for students learning English because reading and writing is purposeful and connected to personally meaningful experiences. ELL students also benefit from the peer interaction that a project involves. For students with disabilities, teachers can use the same support strategies during a project as they would use in other situations, such as differentiation, modeling, and providing more time and scaffolding. Since a project involves working in small groups, it gives teachers more time and opportunities to meet individual student needs. And projects can provide students who may sometimes feel "left out" with the chance to show their strengths and feel included in the classroom.

Misconception # 5
PBL is too hard to manage and/or it would not fit with my teaching style.
Fact Check: Although some teachers do find project work to be "messy" -- they aren't in total control of their students' every step -- they can use project management practices to make the work time productive. It is important to teach students how to work well in teams, manage time and tasks, conduct inquiry, and use formative assessment to improve their products. For teachers only used to direct instruction, it may be challenging at first to manage students working in teams and handle the open-endedness of PBL, but with more experience it gets easier. And teaching in a PBL environment does not mean giving up all traditional practices; there's still room for teacher-directed lessons, mini-lectures, textbooks, and even worksheets. PBL may not be for everybody, but most teachers who stick with it say they would never go back

So, next time you're faced with a PBL skeptic, see if a fact check helps clear up any misconceptions first. If they're still doubtful, encourage them to take a leap of faith and wait for the evidence -- which they'll see when they watch a well-designed, well-managed project in action.

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Debunking 5 Myths About Project-Based Learning | Edutopia

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PBL is the same as "making something," "hands-on learning" or "doing an activity." Fact Check: PBL is often focused on creating physical artifacts, but the artifacts are not as important as the intellectually challenging tasks that led to them.