PBL - My Learning Diary by Margarita Dobreva

daisy63b — 2017-10-28 15:49:55 UTC

Hello creative teachers of Europe!

I am so excited to be one of you who are following this wonderful course; although our interaction will be mostly online, I do hope I can meet some of you in person in the near future... (y)
My name is Margarita, and I am from Lovech, Bulgaria.
I have been teaching English for 25 years now. Throughout the years I have been educating people from all ages, thus gathering the experience that helps me be one step ahead.
I have been working recently in the Specialised foreign language school in my town. It is ranked among the top Bulgarian schools due to our students' academic achievements and won prizes in national and international competitions. My students are 16-19 years old, and they are all simply amazing!
I deeply believe modern teachers should make efforts to cope with the demands of the 21st-century teaching/learning by constantly upgrading their ICT competences, among others. To enhance students' transversal skills towards successful leadership, I have initiated and coordinated the 3-year Erasmus+ project (between schools only) 'Forensics and Creative Theatre - FACT'. Together with my partners from Italy, Slovakia, Turkey, Romania and Spain, I ran a parallel project on eTwinning that has just been awarded the European Quality Label! I am currently coordinating another KA1 Erasmus+ project; it gave me the opportunity to meet some great colleagues during the structured course in Edinburgh a month ago.
Last but not least, the start of this school year is not only successful, but also a memorable one - my first grandchild, Konstantin, was born! :D

daisy63b — 2017-10-28 16:33:53 UTC

daisy63b — 2017-10-28 16:35:15 UTC

daisy63b — 2017-10-28 16:36:12 UTC

daisy63b — 2017-10-28 16:39:03 UTC

daisy63b — 2017-10-28 16:39:06 UTC

daisy63b — 2017-10-28 16:39:19 UTC

daisy63b — 2017-10-28 16:39:45 UTC

SFLS 'Ekzarh Yossif I' - Lovech, Bulgaria: an inspiring territory for outstanding students for three centuries

daisy63b — 2017-10-28 16:40:04 UTC

‘Creativity is intelligence having fun’ Albert Einstein

daisy63b — 2017-10-28 16:58:12 UTC

daisy63b — 2017-10-28 17:01:28 UTC

daisy63b — 2017-10-28 17:41:13 UTC

COURSE INTRODUCTION

daisy63b — 2017-10-28 19:07:03 UTC

A. Course Timeline & Participants
B. Your Learning Diary
C. The Learner Designer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0edRboC9vI
D. Alumni Group & Editorial Board
E. Netiquette, Copyright & eSafety
F. Course Introduction Test

1. What is PBL and why use it

daisy63b — 2017-10-28 19:21:35 UTC

1.1. What is PBL

Module 1

daisy63b — 2017-10-28 19:31:03 UTC

Learning objectives:
1. Understand what PBL is and isn't
2. Reflect on our own teaching practice and how this corresponds to a PBL approach

3. Identify different components of effective PBL and which of these will be the most challenging in our context

4. Develop a first idea for implementing a PBL approach in our context and formulate a driving question

Main activities:
1. Add reflections to your Learning Diary and share one post via a peer-to-peer activity
2. Draft your driving question/problem and provide feedback on your peer's questions/problems

daisy63b — 2017-10-28 19:50:09 UTC

Benefits of PBL:

daisy63b — 2017-10-28 20:02:58 UTC

1. Increased academic achievement
2. Increased application & retention of information
3. Building skills like teamwork, critical thinking, communication and collaboration
4. Sts show increased motivation & engagement in their studies
5. Sts learn from their own experiences
6. In-depth investigations of subject matter
7. Outside experts enrich & supplement teacher knowledge
8. Learning results in demonstrations & real tasks that provide challenges for sts to solve

LET'S GET STARTED ...

daisy63b — 2017-10-28 20:10:40 UTC

There is a difference between "doing projects" and PBL

daisy63b — 2017-10-28 20:15:32 UTC

Chart creator: Amy Mayer

The Main Course, not Dessert

daisy63b — 2017-10-28 20:21:49 UTC

"Doing projects" however, is often an add-on at the end of a topic that has been studied in class, in other words the learning of curriculum content happens before the project work even starts. The project is then the culmination of that work where the students apply their knowledge or delve deeper into the topic.

daisy63b — 2017-10-28 20:24:38 UTC

1.1. What is PBL? My answer about the resources and the two videos:

daisy63b — 2017-10-28 20:48:20 UTC

I am quite familiar with PBL but I have joined this course to learn new teaching tools (I am fascinated by the Learning Designer) and, of course, to share good practices with my peers.

The two videos and the other resources on PBL are informative and useful. The second one focuses on the benefits PBL provides for developing the most important skills required for the 21st century education: critical thinking, communication and collaboration. I will, however, add to those three skills creative thinking; the four of them known as the 4 Cs.
My peers' responses: https://padlet.com/teacher_academy/wywvc9twcssr

How do I take part in a peer review activity?

daisy63b — 2017-10-28 21:25:04 UTC

Peer review activities are marked with P2P in front of the activity name. The activity has 3 stages:

1.Submit your own work before Deadline 1. You can submit your work in the textbox that can be found on the activity page. Depending on the activity you can either write some text directly into the textbox, paste a link into the textbox, or attach a template using the "necessary file" browse button so that your reviewer can access what you would like to share. Make sure to click the Hand in work button and confirm again in the pop-up that you would like to hand-in your work.

2.Provide feedback to your peers by submitting your reviews before Deadline 2. You should receive an email informing you once you have been assigned some work to review. Go back to the activity on the course and you will see the names of the other course participant(s) with a + sign next to them. When you click on each of the + signs the work of your peer should appear. Below the work of your peer there is a textbox that you can use to provide some feedback, or again a "necessary file" browse button so you can attach your review in a document and submit it. Make sure to click the Review button and confirm again in the pop-up that you would like to submit the review.

3. Read the feedback of your peers. Your work will have been sent to some random other course participant(s) for review. Once they have provided you some feedback you will receive an email. Go back to the activity on the course and look at the feedback provided by your peers.

Peer Review Walkthrough

daisy63b — 2017-10-28 21:51:04 UTC

daisy63b — 2017-10-29 07:42:11 UTC

1.3 Optional P2P - Reflections on our current teaching practice:

daisy63b — 2017-10-29 10:37:07 UTC

Dear colleagues,
My name is Margarita and I work in a specialised foreign language high school in a small town in Bulgaria. There are three computer labs on the school premises, fast Internet connection, and 50 tablets that each teacher can use in their regular classes when needed. It means we have wonderful conditions to apply PBL in school.
My main goal as an English teacher is to enhance my students‘ 21-century skills: critical and creative thinking, collaboration and communication, team work, and most of all - to make them think out of the box. To get positive outcomes of the teaching/learning process, I often apply various strategies depending on my students‘ learning styles, level of English, age, etc.
Due to the expansion of technologies, it is no wonder that textbook activities are most of the time boring, and not so efficient. That‘s why I apply PBL as a successful tool to motivate students‘ natural curiosity and involve them in efficient team work. The flipped classroom method, as well as peer teaching/learning, and forum theatre techniques, are other efficient approaches that help me upgrade students‘ transversal skills, and keep them relatively motivated in class.

Here is an example of my first lesson plan created with Learning Designer. This tool is easy to navigate, and I love it! I will definitely use it regularly from now on.

This lesson plan is designed for 11th graders (age 17-18) who study English as a second foreign language in school. The class I am addressing has 24 students.

Here is the link to my lesson plan: http://learningdesigner.org/viewer.php?uri=/personal/daisy63b/designs/fid/78abe4b4024be7b5f581298d01f736cf4118d7e27452931a6158e5e604419101
Thank you for your reviews in advance!

Margarita Dobreva, Bulgaria

1.2 Why use PBL? - My response to this wonderful video:

daisy63b — 2017-10-29 11:35:43 UTC

I do agree with each proposition in this wonderful video! I have coordinated a 3-year Erasmus+ project between schools that has had the essence of this video at its core. The 'Forensics and Creative Theater - FACT' project was among the very first approved by the EC for funding exactly due to the major aim of our Strategic Partnership to develop pupils’ transversal skills in order to promote leadership in secondary education. To acquire this goal, I and my partners decided to use forensics (oratories, duos, and debates) and creative theatre methodology as teaching/learning/training tools. Our main target group involved 15-18 year-old pupils who were highly motivated to successfully carry out all their tasks. Their online collaboration resulted in a number of mutual outputs: skits, discussions on TwinSpace, performing the project anthem (the video is available at the beginning of my diary), collaboration on Celtx platform, regular communication in the students' Facebook group which is still active, and has over 400 members.
We have really worked hard to achieve our main goal and all our specific objectives, but now we can be more than proud and satisfied with our transnational synergy. Our innovative educational approaches have helped to a great extent the shift from the old paradigms of teaching to the new ones - the 21st century learner-centered multimedia environment, with the teacher as facilitator - in all the partner organisations.
I am currently coordinating another KA1 project with the firm belief that teachers should finally embrace PBL as the only alternative to cope with today learners' demands. Else, their students' reaction might be 'engage me or enrage me'. Please, find some time and read Marc Prensky's article with the same title: https://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0553.pdf

Propositions Project: 21st Century Skills

daisy63b — 2017-10-29 11:37:15 UTC

Introducing Project-Based Learning in Your Classroom - Rerun

daisy63b — 2017-10-29 11:44:48 UTC

Propositions Project: 21st Century Skills

daisy63b — 2017-10-29 12:58:31 UTC

Key propositions:

Students work enthusiastically through the project challenges;
PBL completes critical thinking to its next stage - to put things together in a new, different way; students are being in a solution mode, creation mode;
Persistence is one of the key dimensions of problem-solving; barriers are going to occur, but if students have a well-defined final goal, they will be well-motivated;
Creativity (innovation) is entwined with problem-solving; this century is about identifying problems, and the only way we can come up with a solution is to be creative;
Communication and collaboration are often effective as extracurricular activities; working with other human beings is the reality of the world students are entering, and, first and foremost, PBL is revising that;
Disadvantaged students' ideas could still be a positive thread throughout a project; their peers' appreciation can boost their self-confidence;
Information literacy is important (pros/cons); students have to find themselves in the real world how to solve factual contradiction on the Internet;
Media literacy: students live on the Internet; because of their lack of experience, they don't see the contours that a more sophisticated thinker will notice. That's why their analytical skills have to be developed in school;
All teachers should use technology as a means to an end;
Flexibility and adaptation: students need to learn how to have honest intellectual disagreement without hurting others' feelings and emotions;
Life and career skills involve: initiative and self-direction (the teacher is increasingly invisible to the process); social and cross-cultural skills (in diverse groups of individuals - rich diversity of thinking); productivity and accountability (common problem: lazier students often piggyback on the more motivated and conscientious students, yet they are still a part of a high-quality product);
Assessment at the end of the process students shouldn't get the same grades because it would be unfair for those who have worked hard. Possible tricks that can help a teacher: reflection at the end of the work; peer assessment of the various stages during the process; the teacher should keep their eyes and ears open;
Leadership and responsibility: 21st- century skills are actually leadership skills. If students have acquired them in school, they will be looked to for being organised, having a direction, for having set up their channels of communication, for having a creative approach, and never giving up when things get hard - THAT'S WHAT LEADERS DO!

PBL - Rerun Course Selfie

daisy63b — 2017-10-29 15:52:33 UTC

Hi there,
I am excited to be in this wonderful group! I am an English teacher and my students are 16-19 years old. I have a lot of experience in PBL; however, there is always more to learn and I am sure the course provider will meet my expectations!

Question of the week: What can you do to give your students a creative mindset?

daisy63b — 2017-10-29 15:55:09 UTC

My answer: I always encourage my students to think outside the box, and keep stimulating their natural curiosity; the outcomes are more than satisfactory

Driving questions

daisy63b — 2017-10-29 16:07:56 UTC

1.5 The Driving Question

daisy63b — 2017-10-29 16:20:16 UTC

Non-Googleable Question 1: “What does it mean to be a healthy eater?” Turn the question into a non-Googleable question.

My response: I love pizza but my mum never makes such at home? Does she really love me?
Non-Googleable Question 2: “How are airplane wings constructed?” Turn the question into a non-Googleable question.
My response: Soggy hawks can’t fly well; why can wet airplanes fly?

PBL | Creating a Driving Question

daisy63b — 2017-10-29 16:21:08 UTC

Teaching Critical Thinking Skills Through PBL

daisy63b — 2017-10-29 16:27:05 UTC

by John Mergendoller

1.6 Optional P2P - Your PBL Design: Formulating your driving question

daisy63b — 2017-10-29 17:02:19 UTC

My driving question: Showing empathy is a stylish conduct. Do you perceive yourself as someone who would tolerate bullying?

Learning objectives in module 2:

2017-10-29 20:02:01 UTC

Understand how different types of collaboration can be used in the context of PBL
Develop a series of strategies and activities to promote effective collaboration between students
Develop a series of strategies and activities to promote effective collaboration with actors outside of the classroom

2. Developing effective collaboration for PBL My contribution:

2017-10-29 20:07:06 UTC

I have selected this photo from my Erasmus+ project 'FACT'because it represents effective collaboration! My student (the boy) had been working online with his peers from Turkey on a piece of music. They played their violins together for the first time in front of the full theatre hall of the Romanian partner school!

The picture I selected for collaboration in action

2017-10-29 20:10:17 UTC

2.1 Twitter Chat: 30th October, 18:30h

2017-10-29 20:15:30 UTC

Please add the hashtag #PBLcourse to all the tweets you send. Otherwise the other participants may not find your tweet.

MODULE 2 - Developing effective collaboration for PBL

2017-10-29 20:51:29 UTC

'Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, working together is success' Henry Ford

2.2 What is effective collaboration?

2017-10-30 09:43:14 UTC

A key goal of PBL is not the project but rather the process of building the project; learning happens while working on the project
One of the key things students should be learning as part of this process is effective collaboration.

Collaboration | Deirdre Butler, National University of Ireland

2017-10-30 09:51:06 UTC

Questions raised by Deirdre Butler:

2017-10-30 10:03:37 UTC

Collaboration is not simply dividing students (Sts) into groups; it goes beyond that :
- What exactly are Sts doing?
- Are they actually working together?
- Are they giving feedback?
- Have they shared responsibility?
- Are they actually making substantive decisions about the content, or the process, or the product?
- Are they working independently?
- Is their individual task dependent on the other Sts for its successful completion?
The teacher should be aware of the above issues and think about what skills (s)he would like to develop in their Sts ( for example, the skills of negotiation, feedback, listening, concensus, etc.)
We have a shared understanding, or a metalanguage, that we can begin to use to talk about learning experiences.

21st Century Learning Design Rubrics:

2017-10-30 10:15:23 UTC

a useful tool to self-assess if our learning activities are truly collaborative or not

21CLD Learning Activity Rubrics

2017-10-30 10:31:48 UTC

Think about a typical lesson you teach and answer the four questions in the self-assessment questionnaire below:

2017-10-30 10:33:01 UTC

1. Do your students have shared responsibility for tasks? - Yes.
2. Are your students required to work in pairs or groups most lessons? - No.
3. Do your students have to make substantive decisions when working together (decisions that will impact the result of their joint work)? - Yes.
4. Is the students' work interdependent of each other (in other words can they only succeed together)? - Yes.

2.3 Effective Collaboration for PBL inside the Classroom

2017-10-30 10:48:18 UTC

5 Strategies for Fostering a Collaborative Culture in a PBL Classroom by James Fester

2017-10-30 10:49:40 UTC

5 strategies by James Fester

2017-10-30 10:51:13 UTC

Make sure team members know what is expected of them
Create norms and roles where appropriate
Monitor progress constantly
Celebrate even little successes
Give students ways to informally develop cohesion

Teaching Group Work: Building Student Collaboration and Agency:

2017-10-30 10:55:20 UTC

- Scaffold group work in younger grades by assigning roles
- Designate roles to encourage interaction and divide up responsibilities
- Develop tasks that require multiple contributors to make collaboration essential
- Encourage students to look for real-world opportunities to work together

Structuring Collaboration for Student Success

2017-10-30 11:07:36 UTC

Tips for structuring collaboration for student success:

2017-10-30 11:21:05 UTC

Teach the kids how best to work together;
Offer tools to help kids manage time and tasks;
Use tabletop directions to keep kids focused;
Facilitate learning by moving among groups.

Forum theatre techniques:

2017-10-30 11:47:24 UTC

Please, have a look at the video :)

My contribution to 2.3.: FORUM THEATRE TECHNIQUES

2017-10-30 12:03:44 UTC

I often use Forum theatre techniques in my regular classes, and my students (16-19 years old) love them. One possible option: a few students have to act out a scene in front of the class. The topic can be either suggested by me, or by them; the important thing is that it should be engaging, else, the whole activity will fail. So, let's say, they have to act out a fight between a teenager and his/her parents.The actors are free to use their imagination to make a lively show (my only task meanwhile is to make sure their language is decent) :) Those who are watching the scene are encouraged to stop the action when they think it is necessary, and to suggest a different action. It is also possible that the actors themselves want to stop the action, and ask for help. Thus, someone else from the class can step in and take over a role, or even introduce a new character.

What are the advantages?
1. Students practice their communication skills in a foreign language (I teach English)

2. They become more confident in front of an ‘audience‘

3. They learn while playing

4. Such activities develop the 4Cs – collaboration, communication, critical and creative thinking.

2.5 Collaboration Tools

2017-10-31 13:59:20 UTC

2.4 Finding collaboration partners outside the classroom

2017-10-31 14:02:21 UTC

If you remember back to Module 1, 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.

As part of this we explore two different types of collaboration with outside actors. The first is about organising projects together with another class, where students collaborate not only with their immediate peers but with students at another school. For this type of collaboration there is simply no way around the eTwinning network, an online network of more than 400,000 teachers in Europe and beyond, designed so that you can easily find project partners and organize joint projects. At the core of eTwinning's pedagogy stands the PBL approach so if you are not yet part of this network, make sure to check out the below video to see how the PBL approach of running an eTwinning project can benefit your students' learning. You can also find a great getting started walk-through of eTwinning here.

As a concrete action here we would encourage all of you, new or old eTwinners, to use this course community of learners to find like-minded colleagues who you could run a project with. For this purpose you will find in the Forum under Module 2 a special category for finding project partners.

eTwinning portal

2017-10-31 14:06:59 UTC

1.3. Optional P2P - Reflections on our current teaching practice:

2017-10-31 14:58:46 UTC

(1) Rita Duarte Brojo Correia, Lisbon
I'm an English Kindergarten Teacher working at a Private School in Lisbon. This school approves the PBL way of teaching/learning and is already implementing it.

I work with another kindergarten teacher, since our school is bilingual, which means that the children are exposed to two different ways of teaching. In the classroom, children learn to communicate both is English and Portuguese.

My classroom is small but it has several learning corners that the children can explore freely. From math, writing, art, games, play dough, cars, animals, playhouse, etc. children have a variety of options that help them develop different skills. It’s a group of 25 children and they are 4/5 years old.

Our approach is focused on the idea of learning by doing. As a teacher, my role is to support the children’s learning processes and also create situations/activities/materials that will facilitate and promote these learning situations. Children have a lot of time to play and explore the materials, but also to improve their problem-solving and collaboration skills. They are faced with several day to day life situations and they use their communication skills to try to solve them. As a teacher, I’m always there for the children and I help them find ways to solve their “problems”.

The school believes in and follows the PBL approach and adjusts it to the different grades.

In kindergarten, the most important PBL keys are real-world connection and student driven. The project has to be about something that is real to the children, and that doesn’t mean it can’t be a fictional situation. The driving question has to mean something to the children and has to drive them to want to know more about it. If the project feels real to the children then we will be able to learn a lot from it because the children will relate to it.

Working with such small children can be very challenging because what was really interesting to them yesterday might not be that interesting today. I address these situations with different strategies. For example, I always ask for the parents’ collaboration in the project. With the help of their families, children can do some research for the project; they can find new/different questions and ideas; they can bring new information and share it with the classroom, etc. Another way to keep them interested is by making sure that the project keeps evolving and that there’s always something new to add or to find answers to.

In kindergarten, the best way to find out about our students needs is through observation, and not so much through specific assessments. The way children play and interact with others gives me a lot of information and helps me set goals according to their needs.

With this course I hope to learn more about project learning and how it can influence children. I will be focusing on this age group (4-5 years old) and the subject topic will be “Dinosaurs” since my children have been showing a lot of interest on this theme.

My review:
Dear Rita,
You are already a PBL star to me! (y) I enjoyed reading your post because I can 'feel' the enthusiasm and dedication to your young learners :)
Congratulations for being such a creative teacher, and keep improving your competences and skills for the others' benefit!
Best regards,
Margarita Dobreva, Bulgaria

(2) Gabi Petrichei, Romania: Reflections on my teaching
My classes are mostly teacher controlled, but I encourage students to communicate as much as possible, involving them in various tasks.I'm not sure how to introduce the PBL approach yet, that is why I am still learning, waiting to find answers.
At times, I have to deal with the fact that my students don't remember completely notions studied previously, so I am still trying to find an approach that willmakethem learn and remember easily. I am trying to motivate them my relating content to real-life situations and by using music.
My review:
Dear Gabi,
I have just finished coordinating an Erasmus+ project, and I had a wonderful partner from Dumbraveni, Suceava! Their school had had no experience in projects before that; yet, the outcome was fantastic! The Romanian coordinator has learned English during these 3 years, and the students (15-19 years old) have gained a lot of self-confidence by acquiring important 21st-century skills. This is what PBL is all about: to encourage people to go beyond the horizon, and make their dreams come true! :)
I think this course provides us with all the knowledge and tools that inexperienced colleagues should take advantage of. You took the right direction, and I am sure you will do miracles in the future :)
Good luck! (y)
Best regards,
Margarita Dobreva, Bulgaria

Reviews on my post made by:

CHRISTOS CHACHOUDIS date 31-10-2017 00:56: Hi I am Christos from Greece and I think you made a very good job!
Paola Tona date 31-10-2017 18:34: I think this is a great job. I really like the flipped classroom methodology and I think it's very stimulating for the kids.

1.6 Optional P2P - Your PBL Design: Formulating your driving question

2017-10-31 15:26:05 UTC

(1) Exercise of CHRISTOS CHACHOUDIS
I am Christos from Greece and I teach Maths and Sience in at Alonnisos High School. My students are kids with special educational needs so I try to make learning a project of discovering/finding. Because we don't have all the necessary equipment, like pc, our class, sience lab and many others, the projects we make is rather simple and as progressive as our equipment can provide. Most of my students have educational problems so I have to help them by forming lesson in their educational needs. They learn in their special way and I try to make our lessons experientially. So i give them tasks in order to mobilize their curiosity to work and collaborate to discover new "useful" things for their life. We usally work in our class and sometimes we can go to the pclab to find info on the web, or design a project using pc programs. We make boards of knowledge, card of memory and some other staff. I wish i had the time and the equipment to make more..."My driving question would be an effort to learn the measures of area and measurement of the known shapes: triangles, squares, rectangles." How big is your house? What is the shape of your room? What if you would buy a new house, how big would you like your room to be? Can you measure your room/house? "
My review:
Dear Christos,
Your name is as special as the kids you teach! I am currently teaching 16-19 years old students with a lot of potential, but I used to teach SEN kids as well. So, I do know how important it is to make a small step at a time, but still trying to make those kids' life easier! I admire teachers with big hearts as yours! Keep on moving; teachers can make a difference :)
Margarita Dobreva, Bulgaria
(2) Exercise of Adela Gabriela Muresan
I wrote about how to rewrite a poem using PBL>My learning diary is here...https://padlet.com/muresan_gabriela_adela/nnubtggitpuvand my learnig designer http://learningdesigner.org/viewer.php?uri=/personal/adela.muresan/designs/fid/a1a3973ae90ac738def7f5c29163a25454185fe4c3125f41decc0363eca18c01Our poem.docx
My review:
Dear Adela,
I am a bit lost with your response to this activity :) Well, we had to publish an open-ended question to our students that can't be answered by using Google. Obviously, even kids can nowadays Google questions they don't understand. It means, your activity is definitely Googlable :D ( I like inventing new words). Anyway, any effort that involves students' attention and interest is worth practicing! Good luck with your teaching adventure, and best regards from Margarita Dobreva from Bulgaria (y)
Peers' review on my driving question: Showing empathy is a stylish conduct. Do you perceive yourself as someone who would tolerate bullying? Margarita Dobreva, Bulgaria

Comments (1)

Hello Margarita.
My name is Serena and I am a primary school teacher in Italy.

Your driving question certainly engages students, since the topic is generally so crucial to them.

To answer it students will need to gain knowledge, understanding and skills.

It is a non-googable question.

In my opinion it should be more open-ended. For example using "How would you perceive...." Have a good work. Serena
Comments (2)
Review made By Ercília Gonçalves Costa date 01-11-2017 20:20
I think that is an excellent question.

Tool for Teaching: TeamUp

2017-10-31 15:51:34 UTC

2.5. Collaboration Tools:

2017-10-31 17:10:43 UTC

My tribute to the exhaustive list :)
WOW! I am impressed by all the tools that have been shared so far; I hope I can have enough time to try some of them... However, if you need modern tools for a collaborative classroom, I would deeply recommend to you Office 365: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/office/default.aspx. All you need to get started is a valid school email address. My school community uses Office 365 to work collaboratively on the cloud for a year now.

Some of the collaborative tools mentioned by my peers in exercise 2.5.:

2017-10-31 17:13:06 UTC

TeamUp: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIqxZJf-6I8; http://teamup.aalto.fi/

Eduscrum: http://eduscrum.nl/en/

Moodle: https://moodle.org/

Wiser me: http://app.wizer.me/ ; http://blog.wizer.me/how-to-assign-worksheets-to-students/

Pindex: http://www.pindex.com/

Dotstorming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M2keRMCr_c

Popplet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxLDsWHsQ1g

Kahoot: https://www.weareteachers.com/best-of-teacher-helpline-12-ways-to-use-kahoot-in-your-classroom/

Quizlet: https://quizlet.com/

Remind: https://www.remind.com/

Play/decide: http://www.playdecide.eu/getinvolved.html

Survey Monkey: https://pt.surveymonkey.com/user/sign-in/

Qizizz: https://quizizz.com/

Genially: https://www.genial.ly/

StoryJumper: https://www.storyjumper.com/

Trello: https://trello.com/

Lino: http://linoit.com/users/linoit-com/canvases/How%20to%20lino

Vocaroo: https://vocaroo.com/

EmergingEdTech: http://www.emergingedtech.com/2014/05/20-excellent-free-tools-for-interactive-collaboration-experiences-in-the-classroom/

New technologies and 21st-century skills (a list of tools): http://newtech.coe.uh.edu/category.cfm?typename=collaboration&typeid=9

Google drive: https://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/drive/

Google classroom: https://edu.google.com/k-12-solutions/classroom/?modal_active=none

Socrative: https://www.socrative.com/

Bubbl.us: https://bubbl.us/

Piktochart: https://piktochart.com/

Adobe connect solutions: http://www.adobe.com/products/adobeconnect.html

Edupad: http://www.edupad.com/itooch/education-apps-tablets-smartphones/

Scrumy: https://scrumy.com/

Grammarly: https://www.grammarly.com/plagiarism?network=g&utm_source=google&matchtype=e&gclid=Cj0KCQjwvuDPBRDnARIsAGhuAmbSMUms2VbnKuGqgYZjm7Tf9HHQmKicDgv3NHj3TnfLwo2CZvKGKhkaAtCdEALw_wcB&placement=&utm_content=56705358486&utm_campaign=Search&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=turn+it+in+free

LearningApps: https://learningapps.org/

Adobe Spark: https://spark.adobe.com/

Sway: https://sway.com/

Toontastic 3D: http://mobile.softpedia.com/apk/toontastic-3d/

Office 365: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/office/default.aspx

PEER REVIEWS

2017-10-31 17:19:27 UTC

2.6 Optional P2P - Building your PBL Learning Design

2017-10-31 17:24:05 UTC

In Module 1 you identified a class you could use to experiment with a PBL approach and defined a driving question. Make sure to revisit your driving question and possibly refine or change it based on the feedback of your peers. As a reminder, the final output of this course should be a Learning Design that outlines a PBL approach that you can implement in your classroom.
In the Course Introduction you will have already come across the Learning Designer, the tool that we ask you to use for this activity. As we will be reviewing each other's work and to ensure some consistency it is important that you use the Learning Designer tool to present your PBL approach.

As a first step, if you haven't done so yet as part of the Course Introduction, create an account on the Learning Designer and take a browse through the tool to familiarize yourself. For an introduction to the tool see here.
Next comes the first step of creating your PBL Design: Create a new Learning Design and at the top you will see some general fields to be completed.
In the field "Name" add your Driving Question or a shorter title representing your PBL approach. In the field "Topic" add the curriculum topics that you would like to address as part of the implementation.
In the field "Learning Time" fill-in your anticipated time for what you are planning. Don't fill-in the "Designed Learning Time" field as this is automatically completed as you add TLA's (Teaching and Learning Activities) later on.
In the field "Description" again add your driving question together with a short and general overview of what students will be doing as part of the investigation of the question.
In the field "Aims" outline what you anticipate to achieve with your PBL approach and what you hope will be the final product of students' work.
In the field "Outcomes" you can add a selection of pre-defined learning outcomes by clicking on the + sign and then adding a short description for each. You should have already defined these as part of your driving question in Module 1.
Finally, add your first TLAs to your Design. These should focus on collaboration and could be about setting up groups using the TeamUp tool (see section 2.5) and then helping the groups to become a team through a team-building activity such as the Chop-Stick Challenge (see section 2.3). These TLAs don't need to be the first TLAs of your Design. Later on, as you add more TLAs you can still move them around.
Once you have completed the above steps, click the Share button to receive a shortened URL (the technical error that prevented this before has now been fixed), paste it into the peer review text box below, add the link to your Learning Diary for some context as well as some contact details in case your reviewer has some questions, and then make sure to submit your work before Deadline 1 which is Wednesday 15th November at 23:59h CEST.
Finally, once you have been assigned another participant's work, provide some feedback to them before Deadline 2, Wednesday 22nd November 23:59h CEST. IN ORDER TO ACCESS YOUR PEER'S LEARNING DESIGN, MAKE SURE THAT YOU ARE FIRST LOGGED INTO THE LEARNING DESIGNER. Please provide feedback to your peers using the following questions:
1. Are the description, aims and learning outcomes clear and aligned? Do they fit to each other? Can you identify further learning outcomes based on the description and aims?
2. Is it clear what the teacher and students are doing as part of the collaboration TLAs? Do the collaboration TLAs build student's collaboration skills or scaffold the process of working together?

MY SELFIE

2017-10-31 17:38:35 UTC

Hi there,
I am excited to be in this wonderful group! I am an English teacher and my students are 16-19 years old. I have a lot of experience in PBL; however, there is always more to learn, and I am sure the course provider will meet my expectations!

Learning Diaries and Learning Design:

2017-11-01 07:15:37 UTC

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScxRVtJL5o0nD8uZtzUJqXSprKpoUArHRIo1S-TlfrvQHcqPw/viewform

2017-11-01 07:43:30 UTC

Next to developing collaborative skills of students, another key part of PBL is for students to take ownership of tasks, initiative at solving problems, and most importantly to stick with these tasks and problems until they have come to a satisfactory conclusion. In other words, we try to develop a student-driven environment in which the energy and persistence of what is happening in the classroom does not primarily come from us but from the students.

3. Developing student-driven activities for PBL

2017-11-01 07:47:38 UTC

''IT'S NOT THAT I'M SO SMART, IT'S JUST THAT I STAY WITH PROBLEMS LONGER'' - Albert Einstein

MODULE 3 - Developing student-driven activities for PBL

2017-11-01 07:50:13 UTC

Key essences of this module:

2017-11-01 07:53:40 UTC

Getting students to develop grit and resilience to stay with a problem or project even though they have failed previously is one the most difficult parts of PBL and at the core of developing a student-driven environment.

The learning objectives for this module are:

2017-11-01 07:54:47 UTC

Understanding the importance of scaffolding the PBL process so that students increasingly develop independence and ownership over the tasks;
Understanding the importance of a positive environment and mindset for building student confidence and resilience;
Developing a range of activities, strategies and tools that facilitate an entrepreneurial mindset and entrepreneurial skills

Starter activity:

2017-11-01 08:02:01 UTC

Briefly describe a situation in your professional or personal life where you were first unsuccessful but because you stuck with it you succeeded in the end. Finish by identifying why you stuck with the problem/task and did not give up.
My entry:
Margarita Dobreva, Bulgaria

I have always considered myself an innovative professional, aspiring to make a difference. In my 25-year teaching career I have been looking for solutions to my students‘ learning problems. This is how I devoted my free time to activities that stimulate their motivation, key competences and skills. PBL seemed to be the answer I had been looking for.

I decided to apply for bilateral project with an enthusiastic colleague from Belgium. Despite our tremendous efforts, our project was not approved for funding. That fact let her down, and she declined my offer to give it a second try. So, I started looking for other reliable partners for the 2014 call. And that was the biggest challenge I had ever faced so far: the introducing of the Erasmus+ programme. No one from my new contacts, some of them (unlike me) with a lot of experience with the Comenius programme, was quite sure what to do. So, I started to read all the available resources that could help me tune with the new programme. As a result, our project ‘Forensics and Creative Theatre‘ was among the very first ones, approved for funding. Three years later our project won the European quality label, and that makes me feel not only proud, but also happy that I didn't give up trying.

Now I feel satisfied and energised because the outcomes of my persistence have proved me right.

3.1 Scaffolding for Student Ownership and Independence

2017-11-01 08:35:57 UTC

Scaffolding for Student Success

2017-11-01 08:38:22 UTC

Scaffolding builds on the understanding that students:
- learn in many ways;
- build new knowledge based on prior experiences and knowledge;
- and need to be supported in learning when they cannot achieve on their own.
Technology can provide flexible, unobtrusive scaffolds for learning.
The use of any scaffold, including technology, must be combined with effective instruction for building a shared understanding for supporting every student.

Facilitating Learning in a Student-Driven Environment

2017-11-01 08:51:43 UTC

Tips for rigorous PBL:

2017-11-01 08:52:46 UTC

Give students voice and choice in the process;
Let the students seek answers independently;
Make time for reflection and revision;
Have students track their own progress.

Discussion:

2017-11-01 09:01:59 UTC

My entry to 3.1.

2017-11-01 09:20:29 UTC

Margarita Dobreva, Bulgaria
Letting students jump into the deep end is like pushing someone who can‘t swim into a roaring river. A teacher should provide ‘life jackets‘ for their students at the beginning of the learning process, and step by step, through scaffolding their knowledge and skills, teach them how to ‘swim‘ successfully. Later on, when they become independent 'swimmers', the less motivated students will opt for the safety of the river flow. However, there will be those special ones, who will start swimming upstream...

3.2 Developing Student Resilience

2017-11-01 09:42:00 UTC

What is resilience? It comes from the Latin resilire, “to bounce back”. Resilience refers to the capacity to return to good mental health after challenging and difficult situations. It is not one specific thing, but a combination of skills and attributes that help to solve problems, cope with challenges, adapt and bounce back when things don´t go as planned. Resilient people learn from their mistakes, they look at their failures and mistakes as lessons to be learned from, and as opportunities for growth.

Working in teams and pursuing a complex question or problem over a longer period of time as part of PBL will require student resilience. We know that it is possible to develop resilience in our students through a combination of setting out the right environment, building positive relationships, and offering space for independent decisions. Take a look at the video below developed by course moderator Kornélia Lohyňová for a series of strategies to develop student resilience and see here for a nice video focussing on building confidence.

How Resilient Are You?

2017-11-01 09:45:51 UTC

Self-assessment test

'How to build resilience of students' by Kornélia Lohyňová

2017-11-01 09:47:55 UTC

Tips from the video:

2017-11-01 10:01:02 UTC

1. Always build from strengths: select activities that students like; then it will help them to do the things they don't like;
2. Ensure that every student gets a chance to be successful in your class;
3. Give students opportunities for meaningful contribution; they need to see relevance in their learning and actions;
4. Encourage them to seek knowledge and be creative;
5. High expectations for pupils' performance are important as they help them understand that they are able to be successful;
6. Show students that you care; create supportive environment;
7. Encourage students to know each other and develop positive social relationships with each other;
8. Support cooperative learning projects in which all students must contribute to the final learning product;
9. Avoid focusing on failure or negative behaviours;
10. Praise more than criticise; praise for success can be given in public but criticism should be given in private;
11. Support helping, sharing, cooperating, collaborative problem solving and treating others with respect and courtesy;
11. Enable students to be more open-minded; encourage them to help each other and build positive beliefs in their abilities;
12. Teach by example; enjoy your time spent with your students!

TASK 3.2.: Identify how we as teachers can weaken our student's confidence and independence

2017-11-01 10:18:26 UTC

In my opinion, the easiest way to discourage my students is to give them tasks they cannot perform because of lack of previous knowledge. By losing confidence in their abilities, they will be reluctant to make further efforts. Furthermore, if I keep demonstrating I am superior than them (and make them follow my instructions without letting them experiment on their own to find an alternative solution to a certain problem), they will become dependent learners, with few chances to cope with real-life issues.

3.3 An Entrepreneurial Mindset

2017-11-01 10:41:26 UTC

The characteristics explored in the previous sections, such as resilience, initative and ownership, are all part of an entrepreneurial mindset. For students to take ownership of the PBL process and move their own and their peer's learning forward, they need to have an entrepreneurial mindset.

Question of the week: It is important to develop resilience of our students, but what about teachers? We should be role models for our students

2017-11-01 11:08:39 UTC

My answer:
That's a very tough question to answer, really ... Decision makers always focus on students' educational needs, but few dare discuss teachers' resilience problems in the long run. Do I always feel motivated, or am I able to perform my duties immaculately in each of my classes?! Well, I think the answer is more than clear to all my peers in this group. J However, I do my best to be my students' role-model, despite my personal resilience shortcomings.
Online test about resilience: https://www.verywell.com/quiz-how-resilient-are-you-4008851?quizResult=f54d7a63

2017-11-01 11:13:06 UTC

Entrepreneurial mindset

2017-11-01 11:21:21 UTC

Voting mentimetre

2017-11-01 11:51:29 UTC

Famous Failures

2017-11-01 11:56:09 UTC

Curiosity: The Fuel of Development

2017-11-01 11:57:30 UTC

The Power of Positive Attitude Can Change Your Life

2017-11-01 11:59:46 UTC

3 tips to boost your confidence - TED-Ed

2017-11-01 12:00:58 UTC

11 Ways to Think Outside the Box

2017-11-01 12:02:18 UTC

3.4 OPTIONAL P2P - Building your PBL Learning Design

2017-11-01 12:06:52 UTC

2017-11-01 12:12:43 UTC

Let's continue working on our PBL Learning Design. For module 2 you added all the key background information for the Design and already added some TLAs (Teaching and Learning Activities) focussing on collaboration. For this module we would like you to continue adding TLAs to your Design, with a focus on scaffolding for student independence and ownership, building resilience and an entrepreneurial mindset in general. For example, you should include a TLA where students reflect about their own work and how they can improve it, thereby supporting independence and ownership over the learning process. After adding these TLAs your Design should ideally provide opportunity for students:

to identify the questions they would like to pursue (within the context of your Driving Question)
to make choices on all key project-related aspects such as resources used, products created, use of time, etc.
to take significant responsibility and work independently from the teacher, but with guidance if necessary
to reflect during the project about their own work and learning

With the final steps in mind, you can also already add further TLAs that ensure you have engaging starter activities for your PBL as well as ensure clear and effective links between TLAs. This will help you for next week where we will add formative and summative assessment TLAs into our Design as well as ensure the Design is well-rounded.
As usual, please submit the link to your Learning Design, a link to your Learning Diary for context, as well as some contact details in case your reviewer needs to contact you. The deadline to submit your work is Wednesday 15th November at 23:59h CET.

For the reviews use the four criteria above as guidance on providing feedback. Feel free to comment on all aspects of the Learning Design ready so far or only the TLAs focussing on this module's topic. Make sure that your feedback is positive and helpful with concrete suggestions on what and how it could be improved. The deadline to submit your reviews is Wednesday 22nd November at 23:59h CET.

3.5 Apply for Next Week's Teachmeet

2017-11-01 12:15:16 UTC

Next Wednesday 8th November at 18.30h CET (Brussels Time) we organize an online Teachmeet. A TeachMeet is an informal way of sharing ideas amongst teachers. It's similar to a webinar except that you, the participants, are the speakers.

What is a MOOC?

2017-11-01 13:05:02 UTC

Success in a MOOC

2017-11-01 13:06:15 UTC

2.6. Step one:

2017-11-02 08:01:49 UTC

My PBL Learning Design - HANDED IN
Shortened URL: https://v.gd/Mof6On
My driving question was: Showing empathy is a stylish conduct. Do you perceive yourself as someone who would tolerate bullying?
I decided to group this lesson plans' exercises around the two contradictory (for a greater impact on students' mindset ) concepts in my driving question: empathy vs bullying
Name: Showing empathy is a stylish conduct
Topic: Bullying at school
Learning time: 160 (a regular class in my school is 40 minutes)
Number of students: 24
Description: Dear students, during this week's session you will work in 4 groups of 6. While performing your individual and group tasks, you will have to reflect on the key question: Do you perceive yourself as someone who would tolerate bullying?
Tip 1: to get better learning results, you are deeply encouraged to take notes about your findings / conclusions on your personal blog. You can also create a diary, using Padlet for that purpose: https://padlet.com;
Tip 2: start collecting images of violence (domestic, road, verbal violence), child abuse, school bullying, as each group is supposed to create a poster on that topic at a later stage.
Aims: To develop safe and tolerant relationships in the classroom; to enhance students' moral system towards a responsible overall perspective
Methodology: online research, individual and group work, real-life examples, discussions, debates, class survey, oral and written production
Final outputs: posters, essays
Outcomes:

Knowledge: getting familiar with such concepts as empathy, tolerance, civic behaviour, respect;
Analysis: class survey about bullying;
Evaluation: making a personal judgement based on preset tasks;
Affective learning outcomes: upgrading students' attitudes, motivation, and moral values;

2017-11-02 08:46:58 UTC

Shortened URL: https://v.gd/Mof6On

My Learning Diary: https://padlet.com/daisy63b/idc9f98jbo9t

Dear colleagues,

You will find a detailed information about my lesson plan on my diary. Thank you in advance for your constructive reviews.

Margarita Dobreva, Bulgaria

2.6. Step two: Feedback on my peers' PBL Learning Designs

2017-11-02 08:51:48 UTC

Provide some feedback to them before Deadline 2, Wednesday 22nd November 23:59h CEST. IN ORDER TO ACCESS YOUR PEER'S LEARNING DESIGN, MAKE SURE THAT YOU ARE FIRST LOGGED INTO THE LEARNING DESIGNER.

Are the description, aims and learning outcomes clear and aligned? Do they fit to each other? Can you identify further learning outcomes based on the description and aims?
Is it clear what the teacher and students are doing as part of the collaboration TLAs? Do the collaboration TLAs build student's collaboration skills or scaffold the process of working together

Assigned tasks for review:

Exercise of Imen Tekaya: https://v.gd/R9fwHr

Dear Imen Tekaya,
I am not an IT specialist, but your topic seems quite interesting for a PBL. However, why don‘t you try to make it look even greater? You MUST enter the exact time for each of your planned activities. Furthermore, by adding some extra TLAs, you can achieve the scaffolding effect of the process, and obtain wonderful final results. Why don‘t you attach some online resources to flip your classroom?

I would deeply encourage you to watch the video about how to create a lesson plan by using Learning Designer, and make your lesson plan look fantastic!

Kind regards,
Margarita Dobreva from Bulgaria

Exercise of Serena Santomaso: https://v.gd/2r6Lvw

Dear Serena Santomaso,
I love the topic for your PBL learning design since it can engage your young learners in a creative 'trip' around your city. Since it is only your draft, I don't know how you are planning to proceed, but you will definitely manage to scaffold your activities in the best way possible.
I would like to make some suggestions: (1) your designed time of 1200 minutes is unrealistic; you cannot spend 20 hours on a single project within your school curriculum, so you'd better reconsider it; (2) why don't you start with an online activity, let's say, an advertising professional video about your region? Add an attachment, and let your students get an idea what the landmarks are; at their age they might lack experience when it comes to sightseeing; (3) I myself wouldn't opt for a 90-minute discussion with young kids; you can shorten it for a greater effect.
Finally, I'd like to congratulate you on your choice for final outputs and outcomes. With some final touches, you can make a wonderful PBL in your classroom!
Kind regards,
Margarita Dobreva from Bulgaria

2.6. Step three: Received reviews

2017-11-02 08:54:26 UTC

Comment 1: Review made By Serena Santomaso date 04-11-2017 18:41

Hello Margarita. My name is Serena. I am a primary school teacher.
I have found your project really interesting, well designed and full of great ideas.

The description, aims and learning outcomes are clear and aligned.

It is clear what the teacher and students are doing as part of the collaboration TLAs and surely student's collaboration skills will be improved.

I have especially appreciated the subject of your project. I think it is really important and relevant to make students of that age face the issue of bullying and to analise empathy as a resource.

My compliments.
Serena

Comment 2: Review made By DAVID NAVARRO date 05-11-2017 21:55

Hello Margarita, I'm glad to have seen your diary and learning design because you have done a great job.

The topic of your learning design “Showing empathy is a stylish conduct” is perfect to prevent violence at school. The aim is clear and it’s well organized in four stages from definition till self-refection.

Paying attention to your work makes me know that I need to improve mine and use those ICT tools properly because they are really powerful to organize PBL methodology.

I think that participating in this optional P2P activity is important because I can find people like you. Thank you!

David, Spain

“Blackout” Period

2017-11-02 09:06:17 UTC

In the Teacher Academy, we are always looking for ways we can improve our services to you. For this reason, we have introduced a “blackout” period of 1.5 weeks at the end of each of our courses, during which the course will not be accessible.This “blackout” period is a designated time during which we – the Teacher Academy team – will focus our attention on assessing the work of course participants where needed, dealing with any possible issues (plagiarism, missing final course activities/reviews, technical aspects), and preparing the course certificates. During this period, the course will not be accessible, but all your work on the course is saved and will become available again at the conclusion of the blackout period. After the “blackout” period, certificates will be awarded to those who have finalised all required course activities. The course will remain open for those who would like to benefit from the pedagogical content but there will be no moderation on the course, and therefore no certification will be awarded anymore.

Using Project-Based Learning To Flip Bloom’s Taxonomy For Deeper Learning

2017-11-04 15:21:04 UTC

Certification

2017-11-04 15:40:16 UTC

You will receive digital module badges for every completed module of the course as well as a course badge and a course certificate upon completion of the full course. All badges can be exported to the Mozilla Badge Backpack.

Course Moderators

2017-11-04 15:41:27 UTC

Kornélia Lohyňová

What is a Badge?

2017-11-04 15:57:57 UTC

Mozilla Backpack

2017-11-04 16:17:57 UTC

MODULE 4 - Assessing PBL

2017-11-04 16:28:05 UTC

I have subscribed; have you?! :)

2017-11-04 16:33:54 UTC

THE ROOT OF THE WORD "ASSESSMENT" IS FROM THE LATIN "ASSIDERE" WHICH MEANS "TO SIT BESIDE"

2017-11-06 17:50:06 UTC

As the quote above suggests, assessment should be about "sitting beside someone", providing feedback and helping them to improve. Assessment should not only be about giving a grade at the end but it should be an on-going process, where teachers and students alike assess their learning as they work on the projects.

The learning objectives for this module are:

2017-11-06 17:52:28 UTC

1. Understanding the difference between formative and summative assessment

2. Understanding how assessment can be embedded into PBL activities

3. Understanding what a rubric is and why it can help us assess PBL

4. Develop a finalised and rigorous PBL implementation Learning Design

Hellooo Margarita!!

svenetopoulou — 2017-11-06 18:45:31 UTC

You' ve done a great-great job here! Well-done!
ps. it's a small world!
Sofia Venetopoulou- Greece

Starter activity:Are you free to assess students in any way you want? Or do you have to follow a strict testing system with regular standardised tests every few months? What types of assessment are common at your school/in your country? Do you collaborate with colleagues when it comes to assessment?

2017-11-06 18:45:35 UTC

My reflection:

While formative assessment aims at monitoring the learning process by giving some feedback, the summative assessment just tells you if a student has achieved a certan learning goal or not, because of which I find it rather outdated. Unfortunately, I mostly use summative assessment since in my country there is a norm that regulates how many grades per subject we are to assess a student per term (our school year is divided into two terms). So, I grade entry tests, end-of-unit tests, term tests, etc. And that‘s a pity because I spend a lot of time checking tests instead of using my potential to foster students‘ communicative skills instead. I often collaborate witn my colleagues, especially when it comes to set the criteria for the entry tests, to make sure we keep the same high level of standard in foreign language teaching.

4.1 Teachmeet - Wed 8th Nov

2017-11-06 18:51:23 UTC

Join us for our course Teachmeet on Wednesday 8th November at 18.30h CET (Brussels Time). 12 course participants will be presenting their ideas about PBL.

A TeachMeet is an informal way of sharing ideas amongst teachers. It's similar to a webinar except that you, the participants, are the speakers.

The 12 speakers have been selected from the numerous applications received last week. All speakers get a maximum of 3 minutes each to present their idea, tool, resource, etc.

Join us as a participant on the Teachmeet via this link here. The event will be recorded and the recording will be shared here on the course soon afterwards.

4.2 Embedding Assessment into PBL

2017-11-06 19:16:50 UTC

Assessment as part of PBL should not only come at the end but should be seen as a learning activity that is embedded throughout the PBL process. It should become a standard feature of any scaffolding activities you might plan for your PBL implementation. Such type of assessment is known as formative assessment.

2017-11-06 19:18:21 UTC

2017-11-06 19:23:27 UTC

2017-11-06 19:26:16 UTC

In the video below, one of the teachers mentions the "quick-check" technique which simply uses a thumbs up approach to assess if students are progressing.

Tips from the video

2017-11-06 19:33:42 UTC

Build assessment into the project flow;
Build in chances for self and group assessment;
End project with a product or performance;
Present work to an audience beyond the class

There are many more such simple formative assessment techniques so share any other such techniques that you are aware of or can think of in the Tricider below

2017-11-06 19:52:42 UTC

My entry:
My favourite way to check students' comprehension of the covered material is to apply peer instruction. This way I can have a better idea if my teaching strategies have upgraded their skills, or I have to do further practice for deeper understanding.

4.3 Peer Assessment for PBL

2017-11-06 20:03:25 UTC

The process of peer assessment or peer review can be a powerful learning activity for the reviewer and the reviewee.

Dylan Williams, Professor of Educational Assessment at the Insitute of Education in London

2017-11-06 20:08:28 UTC

2017-11-06 20:10:06 UTC

2017-11-06 20:14:05 UTC

The Ladder of Feedback

2017-11-06 20:23:38 UTC

The Ladder of Feedback is a tool for providing communicative feedback about an idea, a plan, or a behavior. The idea or plan is presented to the group. Then the group moves through the following steps (moving from one rung of the ladder to the next):

Step 1: Clarify

Ask clarifying questions to be sure you understand the idea or matter on the table. Avoid clarifying questions that are thinly disguised criticism.

Step 2: Value

Express what you like about the idea or matter at hand in specific terms. Do not offer perfunctory “good, but,” and hurry on to the negatives.

Step 3: State concerns

State your puzzles and concerns. Avoid absolutes: “What’s wrong is . . .” Use qualified terms: “I wonder if . . .” “It seems to me . . .” Avoid criticizing personal character or ability and focus on ideas, products, or particular aspects.

Step 4: Suggest

Make suggestions about how to improve things. This step is sometimes blended with step 3: people state concerns and then offer suggestions for addressing them.

There is no set time limit for this process: It can be done in a few minutes or over the course of an hour.

4.3. Share your experiences with peer assessment in the padlet below, either as someone participating in peer assessment type activities like on this course or as a teacher organizing peer assessment activities with your students.

2017-11-06 20:54:28 UTC

My entry:
Peer assessment has it pros and cons, depending on the context it is applied to. For example, in this online course, it may vary to its extremes – either neutral and discouraging, or critical and meaningful. As for my classroom reality, it is often subjective, hence not so efficient, because students tend to be less critical to their friends, or rather stern with those who they don‘t like so much. Therefore, peer assessment does not always achieve the desired outcome, which is why it has to be alternated with the other assessment methods.

4.4 Creating & Using Rubrics for PBL Assessment

2017-11-06 20:57:06 UTC

Rubrics are grading tools that can be used for summative as well as formative assessment and they are also a very useful tool to help students with self- and peer assessment. While they can be used for grading, they should in fact be seen as a learning resource that is used by students throughout their work. Rubrics lend themselves especially well for PBL because they can capture a complex range of criteria in an organized and clear way.

2017-11-06 21:03:35 UTC

2017-11-06 21:09:33 UTC

2017-11-06 21:11:51 UTC

You can also find quite a number of ready-made rubrics that are relevant for PBL here. If you register on the BIE website you can download the rubrics as pdfs or Word documents so you will be able to adapt or translate them according to your own needs. On this page you can find some more rubric examples, mostly in Spanish but also some in English.
Finally, give the Rubistar tool a try, adapt an existing rubric or create one from scratch that you could also put to use in your PBL activities, and then share it in the form below. Your rubric can be in your own language. In order to get the link of your rubric you need to register on Rubistar and after finishing your rubric click on the "Make Available Online" button, then click on "Click Here to View or Print Your Completed Rubric" and finally copy the URL from your browser and paste it in the form below. That way we will collect a series of interesting rubrics and you can get a feel how others are approaching rubrics. You can see other participant's rubrics via this link here.

2017-11-06 21:13:53 UTC

This will be very useful for you once you start implementing your PBL design next school year but please note that the above activity is not obligatory. It is not essential for you to have a full rubric ready as part of your Learning Design. It is perfectly fine for you to also prepare a rubric after the course has finished.

2017-11-06 21:14:26 UTC

PBL Course Participant Rubrics

You can see the responses to this form and the rubrics here: https://goo.gl/581Nhp

4.5 P2P - Your PBL Learning Design

2017-11-06 21:16:17 UTC

In the last 3 weeks you have:

identified a class and subject with which you want to implement PBL
identified a driving question and received feedback on it
created a PBL Learning Design and received feedback on the design, which so far includes
- aims, learning outcomes, short description
- activities that support group work and the development of collaborative skills
- activities that scaffold for student independence and ownership

We hope that the feedback you received so far was helpful and that you have used it to improve your driving question and activities on your design.

In this final week we ask you to embed numerous assessment activities throughout your design. The activities should be short and immediate such as those explored in section 4.2 but some also more comprehensive and in the form of peer assessment. They can be formative or summative and would ideally make reference to a rubric.

As a final step, make sure to finalise your design with further activities (TLAs) so that it becomes a rounded and rigorous design that follows as much as possible the features of an effective PBL as identified in the Project Design Rubric by the Buck Institute of Education. The criteria used for the driving question and TLAs in the previous P2P activities were based on this rubric. Make sure that your final Design will help you to implement PBL in your classroom next school year but at the same time is clear enough for an outsider to understand what you are planning to do.

When you have finalised your Design, make sure to submit it in the text box below, together with a link to your Learning Diary, your name and contact details so that your reviewer can contact you in case they have issues in accessing your work. The deadline to submit your final Learning Design is Wednesday 15th November, 23:59h CET.

As usual, please also provide feedback to 2 of your peers on their final Learning Designs by Wednesday 22nd November, 23:59h CET. Use the Buck Institute Project Design Rubric to guide your feedback. You can go through each of the rubric categories and identify to what extent the design corresponds to this but please also address aspects not specifically mentioned by the rubric such as collaboration and assessment. Please make sure that you include fair, encouraging and helpful feedback that allows the author of the design to improve their design. Of course also make sure that you take into account the context of where the design will be implemented. For an example of the type of feedback that you should provide see here.

4.6 Course Self-Assessment

2017-11-06 21:19:48 UTC

As a final step on this course we ask you to self-assess your own work as part of the course. This should help you understand to what extent you have managed to successfully participate in the different areas of the course and it will also help us understand better the areas of the course where you have felt less engaged in or were struggling to complete. Your answers in this self-assessment do not impact your completion record of the course and will not influence if you receive a certificate or not, so please be honest. Of course we will also be launching soon a separate and more comprehensive course evaluation where you can provide us with specific feedback on the course.
I answered to all the questions with ''Strongly agree''

What is a rubric?

2017-11-07 15:35:47 UTC

A rubric is a grading tool that lays out the specific expectations for an assignment. A rubric is an assessment tool to:

save grading time;
improve student feedback;
promote student self learning.

Analytic rubrics:

2017-11-07 15:43:23 UTC

A rubric resembles a grid and consists of 4 parts:

description of the assignment;
performance criteria;
range scale;
individual description

Before you begin:

consider the course level objectives;
provide relevance.

So, how do you build a rubric?

first, you have a title; then - assignment or a task;
performance criteria (dividing the assignment into chalks); the students will thus know the importance, or value, of each criteria;
range scale (eg. exceptional/average/poor quality);
individual descriptions within the group (they describe what must be accomplished to achieve each level)

Why would you create a rubric? Simply because rubrics:

2017-11-07 16:08:07 UTC

convey timely feedback;
make evaluations more objective;
bring structure to your grading;
provide transparency to the student (they know exactly what is being assessed, and the grade values assigned to each component prior to the assignment;
encourage student self-evaluation (they can self-check their own work to mark the progress).

In short, students can perform an assignment according to the grade that they wish to earn. Rubrics lessen grade frustrations and students will appreciate the transparency.

2017-11-07 16:43:43 UTC

2017-11-07 16:49:17 UTC

My Rubric on Essay Assessment

2017-11-07 19:23:21 UTC

PBL Course Participant Rubrics

2017-11-07 19:27:00 UTC

2017-11-07 19:37:10 UTC

2017-11-07 19:39:12 UTC

Example PBL Design Peer Review Text

2017-11-07 19:45:27 UTC

Teach-meet: 08.11.2017

2017-11-08 20:02:39 UTC

Wonderful presentation by Eva Toth, Hungary!

2017-11-08 20:05:31 UTC

Well done, Stefania Altieri from Rimini, Italy!

2017-11-08 20:07:40 UTC

Our amazing moderator - Kornelia Lohynova (y)

2017-11-08 20:11:15 UTC

Kornelia Lohynova, you rock, as usual <3

2017-11-08 20:13:50 UTC

Hi Margarita!!

2017-11-09 13:50:13 UTC

You have done a GREAT JOB!! Thanks

Fun ideas to do assessment

2017-11-09 15:32:10 UTC

Peer Assessment

2017-11-09 15:47:35 UTC

CCSS (Common Core State Standards)

2017-11-11 09:59:35 UTC

The ''4 C's'' Rubrics

2017-11-11 10:08:06 UTC

''The students have spoken...''

2017-11-11 10:12:16 UTC

53 Ways to Check for Understanding

2017-11-11 10:24:54 UTC

4.5 P2P: My work handed in

2017-11-11 16:14:04 UTC

Dear colleagues,

I do believe that encouraging students‘ empathy from an early age is a powerful resource to make a difference in the contemporary troublesome reality.

This PBL design has been created to support the Pink Shirt Day which our school annually participates in with a number of activities. Thus, for example, last February we joined the campaign "School without Violence" held by the "Civic initiatives - Lovech‘‘ NGO, in partnership with the Municipality‘s Local Commission for Combating Delinquency of Minors. Our students supported tolerance by making a flashmob in the shape of a heart. You can watch a short video here: https://www.facebook.com/sgilovech/videos/1364655073609379/

I am planning to test my newly acquired skills in PBL in roughly 3 months‘ time – the week before next year‘s Pink Shirt Day (February 28, 2018). https://www.pinkshirtday.ca/about/
For that reason, I will highly appreciate any commentaries on my Learning Design that will help me further improve my TLAs.

While reviewing my LD, please, pay attention to my attachments; especially the video in the second activity in TLA 1. I would like to know what your reaction to that video has been. It is really important to me since I used to be Grigor‘s form teacher, and his bravery has had an enormous impact not only on a local and national, but as you can see, on an international level, too. I am happy to tell you that currently he is an excellent student at university, and is competing again for the Bulgarian men‘s wheelchair basketball team.

Challenging my students to brood on their peer's real-life example makes me believe that this project will engage them on a personal level, and thus further motivate them to create some fantastic outputs, and achieve the desired outcomes.

Here are the links to:
(1) My Learning Design: https://v.gd/Mof6On

(2) My Learning Diary: https://padlet.com/daisy63b/idc9f98jbo9t
In case you need to contact me, don‘t hesitate to do it via my email: daisy63b@gmail.com

Kind regards,
Margarita Dobreva, Bulgaria

Question of the week:

2017-11-11 16:49:25 UTC

To put it in a nutshell, why PBL?

2017-11-11 16:50:01 UTC

My response:

2017-11-11 17:06:33 UTC

Due to my newly acquired competences, I already know how to assess my students' work (I carefully checked all the suggested resources).
Now I know what has been the missing link between my teaching approach, and my students' important feedback - rubrics...
I have already added some assessment techniques to my Learning Design.
I simply love this course! <3

4.5 P2P: Review of my colleagues' work

2017-11-11 19:14:10 UTC

1. Exercise of Stefania Altieri:
Learning Diary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb59R5uHrtg&t=104s
Learning Scenario Template:
My response:
Dear Stefania,
I attended the Teach-meet on November 8, and was impressed by your presentation! Your work as a teacher is outstanding - congrats!
However, I am a bit puzzled how to assess your work for 4.5. Unfortunately, you haven't provided neither a learning diary (your YouTube presentation is wonderful but it cannot function as a diary), nor a learning design that complies with the Bulk Institute Design Rubric. Although you mentioned there is a collaborative rubric to reflect on your eTwinning project, you actually didn't attach it. Sorry, but I can hardly leave any further commentaries. You didn't provide your contact details, and I can't discuss the above issues directly with you. Please, keep in mind that I might be completely wrong with all these reflections here, and, actually, you have demonstrated creativity in action. I would recommend a consultation with Ms Kornelia Lohynova for clarification.
As for your eTwinning project, I find the learning activities and the goal well aligned, and I am sure it will be a great project! Good luck with it!
Kind regards,
Margarita Dobreva, Bulgaria

2. Exercise of Antonella Petrini:
Learning Diary: https://padlet.com/avenusitita/rurqvqiyp8qe
Learning Design: https://v.gd/5SjSM9
My response:
Dear Antonella,
I have read your learning diary, and I am pleased to have found out that we are colleagues; I also teach English in a secondary school. Your reflections on your graders made me smile since I often encounter the same problems with mine, the most serious being their lack of motivation. Luckily, the two of us joined this amazing course to find answers to our problems in school.

As for your learning design, I have noticed some shortcomings that you might take into consideration in order to make a perfect lesson plan. To start with, you haven‘t formulated your driving question (the one that we had as a task in 1.6., and later on - 2.6.). So, you can replace the name ‘PBL COURSE‘ with it. I also noticed the mismatch between the learning and designed time (just correct the 60 minutes to 540). The description section is absolutely exhaustive, and I have a clear idea what you are planning to do; however, don‘t you think it might be better to shorten it to a simple instruction? You can always explain the tasks in details in the classroom. Perhaps you didn't pay attention, but you put no outcomes; it takes few minutes to add those.
Your TLAs are well designed, and the activities are clearly scaffolded to achieve your final goal. I especially like the time planned for students‘ collaboration activities. Assigning a personal role to each member of the groups is a great idea, really. However, why don‘t you try to flip your classroom , thus giving more independence to your students? Your presence throughout the project would be a minus. Are you sure a PP presentation is the only option for a final product? Perhaps your students can use a great number of other tools (to their liking) to present their opinions on the matter.

Last but not least, the topic of your project is very important, and I do like your idea to invite stakeholders from outside your classroom to participate in the discussions/debates with your students. That will definitely make your project more visible to the community, and the impact will be much greater. As an afterthought, you may further add innovation and creativity to your project by simply encouraging your student to create models that can apply directly to your school (or their homes, etc). Thus, they may come to absolutely new solutions.
The rubric you are going to use is perfect, of course; you might also add few short peer -, and self-assessment approaches such as he KWL Chart ( what do you know, what would you like to know, and what have you learned?), or some others, like those enumerated in ’53 Ways to Check for Understanding‘.

Fingers crossed for an enjoyable and rewarding time with PBL!
Kind regards,

Margarita Dobreva, Bulgaria

4.5 P2P: Reviews received

2017-11-11 19:14:42 UTC

1. Review made by Isabel Nunes, date 14-11-2017 17:48
Dear Marguerita,
I think that your project is focused on teaching students specific and important knowledge, understanding, and skills.Important success skills are explicitly targeted to be taught and assessed, such as critical thinking/problem solving, collaboration, and self-management.

The central problem or question is framed by a driving question for the project, which is: ¬open-ended and it will allow students to develop more than one reasonable answer, Besides is understandable and inspiring to students.

Students and teachers engage in thoughtful, comprehensive reflection both during the project and after its culmination, about what students learned.

I think that you can improve your project by letting the students have some voice in some decisions. For instance, why not let them choose how to present their reflection? They could draw paintings, make vídeos, build an ict product...

The vídeo is a great tool to work about. Technologically it would be better to edit it again, because it has some mistakes.

Congratulations for your work

Isabel Nunes

2. Review made by Irina Ignat, date 14-11-2017 21:31
Dear Margarita,
Thank you for your prompt reply. I particularly like your diary and the suggestion for Pink Shirt Day that I want to do with my students as we face some bullying in our school.

As for your design, I can say that I am truly impressed. It is very well thought and planned. I like the topic and the driving question - quite intriguing. The instructions for students are clear, so are the goals you have set for them.

I also appreciate the reverse brainstorming, having them research for empathy, which finally leads them to the opposite concept, maybe a better way of making them understand what a terrible thing bullying is.

The questions asked to students are well put, involving the school psychologist is a good move as it is a specialist in the matter and ensures visibility, as does the essay in the school magazine.

I have a question: how would you ensure the collaboration and team-building among the members of the group? Have you planned a nice socialising game-like activity for them?

I consider your design well structured, with student driven activities that foster inquiry. I have some things that I could change about my plan considering your model.

All the best,

Irina, Romania

And... something to brag about :)

2017-11-11 19:27:44 UTC

An email received by The Teacher Academy team said: ''One interesting Learning Diary we saw in Module 3 is that of Margarita Dobreva, which was singled out because of its nice reflections''.

THANK YOU, dear Teacher Academy team! <3
I feel deeply honoured!

Lessons Learned:

2017-11-12 07:52:11 UTC

A MOOC (a massive open online course) is a response to the challenges in education in the time of information overload. It is a free way of learning in a digital world; it supports lifelong networked learning. Participants create networks by engaging with each other; new ideas develop and different points of view coexist;
The PBL approach offers the tools needed for teaching 21st century skills;
A teacher should capture their project idea in the form of a challenging driving question;
A series of strategies and activities should be developed in the context of PBL to promote effective collaboration between students, as well as with actors outside of the classroom;
21st century learning design rubrics are useful tool to self-assess if learning activities are truly collaborative or not;
While applying PBL, one should keep in mind James Fester‘s 5 strategies:
- Make sure team members know what is expected of them;
- Create norms and roles where appropriate;
- Monitor progress constantly;
- Celebrate even little successes;
- Give students ways to informally develop cohesion.
Collaboration tools are great to flip one's classroom;
A teacher should try to develop a student-driven environment in which the energy and persistence of what is happening in the classroom does not primarily come from them but from the students by:
- understanding the importance of scaffolding the PBL process so that students increasingly develop independence and ownership over the tasks;
- understanding the importance of a positive environment and mindset for building student confidence and resilience;
- developing a range of activities, strategies and tools that facilitate an entrepreneurial mindset and entrepreneurial skills.
Technology can provide flexible, unobtrusive scaffolds for learning;
A teacher should develop resilience in their students through a combination of setting out the right environment, building positive relationships, and offering space for independent decisions;
For students to take ownership of the PBL process and move their own and their peer's learning forward, they need to have an entrepreneurial mindset;
A teacher should fuel curiosity, boost confidence, encourage thinking outside the box, and stimulate positive attitude;
Assessment should not only be about giving a grade at the end but it should be an on-going process, where teachers and students alike assess their learning as they work on the projects. The process of peer assessment or peer review can be a powerful learning activity for the reviewer and the reviewee;
The Ladder of Feedback is a tool for providing communicative feedback about an idea, a plan, or a behavior.

Stefania Altieri's eTwinning Scenario

2017-11-12 12:49:43 UTC

2017-11-12 13:17:54 UTC

Stafania contacted me via Facebook, and I could enjoy her lovely learning diary :)

2017-11-12 16:38:20 UTC

2017-11-12 16:44:45 UTC

2017-11-12 16:45:13 UTC

2017-11-12 16:45:34 UTC

2017-11-12 16:46:04 UTC

2017-11-12 16:46:25 UTC

My feedback:

daisy63b — 2017-11-16 17:26:19 UTC

Dear all,
This course was recommended to me by an expert from my NA since I am currently coordinating a KA1 project. To be honest, I was rather reluctant to join the course because of the hectic time it had been scheduled for. Anyway, I decided to take it (because I checked, and noticed, there was an option to leave it at any time). I didn't have much expectations at first, so I missed the first week (when module 1 was introduced) , as well as the second one. However, I am not the one who will surrender so easily, so I started working seriously from October 28. Then, I was truly impressed by the meaningful input offered to all of us. I managed to cover all the assignments in less than two weeks just because I was eager to learn more... And here I am; a teacher who gained a lot of experience due to the hard work of all the amazing experts who are behind the course, but also because of the wonderful ideas, reviews, and teaching materials shared by my colleagues . So, what are my advantages from this course? First of all, I realised how important it is to use rubrics for (self)assessment. Then, I came across so many incredible online tools that could ease my life as a pedagogue. Last but not least, I have learned how to make my learning designs attractive to all the participants in the TLAs.

Because of what I have mentioned above, I would like to express my deep gratitude to the administrator of the course - Mr Benjamin Hertz (I checked his expertise in the field, and I was truly impressed); to the course moderation team: Kornélia Lohyňová, Nair Carrera Martinez, Benjamin Hertz, but especially to Ms Kornélia Lohyňová ‘s dedication to our progress; to the Teacher Academy Pedagogical Advisory Board - Anne Gilleran, Danguole Rutkauskiene, Daniella Tasic Hansen, Diana Laurillard, Diego Rojas, Hannah Grainger-Clemson, Luis Fernandes, Madeleine Murray. You, guys, are wonderful experts, who have been working really hard to make a difference in our global future! Thank you!!!

I have also had the chance to interact with my peers from so many countries. I tried to give a helping hand to those, who had underestimated the importance of reading the Course Introduction page, where everything was set quite clearly :) . I also came across an old friend of mine from Greece. I have made new friendships via frequent interactions on the FB group. I was nicely surprised to find out there are colleagues from my school who joined the course on their own.
I would recommend the following
(1) The course team should require a level of B1 in English (at least) for avoiding misunderstanding;
(2) It would be great if all the participants had the chance to reply to their peers' reviews;
(3) Mixing all levels of teaching is a bit frustrating; I would personally like to interact with teachers who share my own experience (i.e. English teachers from secondary schools);
(4) Getting credits from such a MOOC would be another plus.

To put it in a nutshell, I am really sad to have finished this course; it has given me so much personal satisfaction to follow it! However, lifelong learning has become my destiny, and I am looking forward to the next rewarding course of the Teacher Academy's Pedagogical Advisory Board!

All my respect, and thumbs up, for this wonderful course!

Summative Vs Formative Assessment

daisy63b — 2017-11-21 09:03:57 UTC