Nuno Pedroso - Lisbon, Portugal by Nuno Pedroso

Who am I?

nuno_pedroso — 2017-10-22 19:10:17 UTC

Hello! I am Nuno Pedroso and I live in the center of portugal 30 km from lisbon. I am a professor of natural sciences at Pedro Pedra College in Lisbon - Parque das Nações.
This year I participate in a pioneering project that involves the 5 groups of the 5 year.

My School

nuno_pedroso — 2017-10-22 19:16:45 UTC

The Pedro Arrupe school has about 1600 students from ages 3 to 12 grade. It is a private school opened in 2010.
It is located in the northern part of the city of lisbon surrounded to the north by the river Trancão and to the east by the river Tejo. For this reason it has a strong connection to water and the sea.
This year we started an innovative project that involves all 5 classes of the 5th grade.

www.colegiopedroarrupe.pt

Module 1.2 -Why think PBL is not used more widely in our education systems

nuno_pedroso — 2017-10-22 20:01:17 UTC

In my opinion the PBL is still not much used in our educational systems because our (teachers) mentality is still very much attached to our training as students and also to our initial training as teachers. I think that for now nothing is preventing us from implementing and applying these more active methodologies in our classrooms. At this moment the Portuguese Ministry of Education is giving schools the chance to direct schools for this type of teaching, it is up to us teachers to have the ability to risk, change and leave our comfort zone.

Module 1.1 - What I hope to learn and what chellenges I anticipate

nuno_pedroso — 2017-10-22 20:28:50 UTC

In this course I seek to acquire knowledge, tools, ideas and partnerships to achieve PBL in practice in my classes and in the whole school where I work. I really believe that this is the correct way to change the way we teach.
For me the biggest challenge is to change the mindsets of the teachers and parents of the students.

Module 1.3 - Reflections on our current teaching practice

nuno_pedroso — 2017-10-22 20:32:51 UTC

This school year we started with the 5 classes of the 5th year working in a different way, without manuals, with only one laptop per student and one dossier. We formed a group of 9 teachers, one from each teaching area, dedicated only to these 5 groups. We have gathered this year's council every Wednesday and discussed the difficulties experienced and defined the strategies.Students are grouped into sets of 4 students and we have tried to implement active strategies that involve students in their learning. This course can be a valuable help in helping me and the remaining 8 teachers to implement teaching through multidisciplinary projects. Next month we will begin to implement a PBL that involves the disciplines of Natural Sciences, Portuguese, Visual and Technological Education and Music Education and culminating in a book and a documentary that is a mixed field guide with animal fables.

Module 1.4 - The component of a good PBL that I feel will be the most challenging to reali

nuno_pedroso — 2017-10-22 20:38:32 UTC

For me the most challenging key must be to create a problem that is connected to the real world of the students and that can drive the whole project in order to achieve the goals of the science curriculum.

Module 1.5 The Driving Question

nuno_pedroso — 2017-11-12 12:04:03 UTC

It is suspected that students in class Y school X have a body mass index higher than that recommended by the OMS. Imagine that you are a specialist technician to study and solve the problem.

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

nuno_pedroso — 2017-11-12 12:06:18 UTC

What are the physical and biological characteristics of the habitats of the River Trancão estuary?

The Colegio Pedro Arrupe-Lisboa, Portugal is surrounded to the north by the mouth of the river Trancão and to the west by the estuary of the river tejo. This project will be implemented in the classes of the natural sciences discipline and the discipline of Information and Communication Technologies of fifth year students, framed by the thematic unit on ecosystems, habitats and animals of the region that involves our school.

Module 2.2 - What is effective collaboration?

nuno_pedroso — 2017-11-12 12:12:00 UTC

Active students, involved and engaged in a common task. Students were challenged to build the classroom rules.

Module - 2.4 Finding collaboration partners outside the classroom

nuno_pedroso — 2017-11-12 12:14:39 UTC

My school is located in the capital of Portugal, Lisbon and as such has a certain facility in establishing partnerships with universities, research centers, museums, centers of living science, pavilion of knowledge, oceanarium. On the other hand it is possible to establish a network of contacts with the families of our students.

Module 3.0 - Identifying why you stuck with the problem/task and did not give up

nuno_pedroso — 2017-11-12 12:16:38 UTC

In my first year of teaching I taught 3 classes of the 12th year in the discipline of Biology. I had great difficulties because I had no teaching experience. My resilience, my hard work, the team work with my fellow teachers and the support of the school management allowed me to overcome these difficulties and overcome this challenge, in the end the students were able to achieve results in the national exams well above the national average .

Module 3.1 - Scaffolding for Student Ownership and Independence

nuno_pedroso — 2017-11-12 12:18:09 UTC

I believe that autonomy should be stimulated in students, but no one is born taught nor should students be expected to take great strides alone. We need to walk around to help them think and ask questions that will help them solve the problem project that has been put to them.

Module - 3.2 Developing Student Resilience

nuno_pedroso — 2017-11-12 12:19:16 UTC

In my opinion, what unmotivated the students is to assign tasks that do not arouse interest; tasks too directed by teachers; tasks too difficult for the age group of the students; hope that the students, alone, will be able to develop the project; demonstrate low expectations; not motivate students. I sincerely believe in this kind of methodologies and it seems to me that it will be the right path for these new generations.

Module 4. Assessment context

nuno_pedroso — 2017-11-12 12:20:20 UTC

In the College where I work the evaluation that we apply in this school year is the result of a joint work of the teachers of the science department. The evaluation of our students are based on different evaluation instruments, the written tests are only one of these evaluation instruments. These evaluation instruments are the result of a joint effort between the different professors of the science department.

Module 4.2 - Embedding Assessment into PBL

nuno_pedroso — 2017-11-12 12:22:59 UTC

Throughout the activity the students are constructing a self-regulation script, adding the different subjects that are being studied and at the end of the unit will be positioned about their knowledge about the various subjects

Module 4.3 - Peer Assessment for PBL

nuno_pedroso — 2017-11-12 12:24:25 UTC

My experience in peer review is based on oral presentations of works, concept maps, but also on the peer-to-peer presentation of the ideas that you plan to implement in the project you are going to develop, and in this way listening to the ideas that might improve the ideas you initially had, in the end make this presentation again for the students of the different classes