Good
Evening, Everyone!
For my first blog, I thought it would be a great idea for my first blog post to introduce myself. My name is Sabrina Bieber, and no, I am not related to Justin. I am a fourth year Concurrent Education Student at Brock University in Saint Catharines, Ontario, Canada! My teachable subjects included English and Chemistry; I am hoping to teach between grades 7-12 as I am enrolled in the Intermediate/Senior Stream. My blog post officially start today as I have been told in my EDUC4P19 course that I have to write posts based on the content we reviewed in the previous sessions. Based on the topics I talk about, I will critically analyze a trait or aspect that I found interesting and would like to share with all of you!
For my first blog, I thought it would be a great idea for my first blog post to introduce myself. My name is Sabrina Bieber, and no, I am not related to Justin. I am a fourth year Concurrent Education Student at Brock University in Saint Catharines, Ontario, Canada! My teachable subjects included English and Chemistry; I am hoping to teach between grades 7-12 as I am enrolled in the Intermediate/Senior Stream. My blog post officially start today as I have been told in my EDUC4P19 course that I have to write posts based on the content we reviewed in the previous sessions. Based on the topics I talk about, I will critically analyze a trait or aspect that I found interesting and would like to share with all of you!
After
reviewing "Chapter One: Toward a New Story of Curriculum, Instruction, and
Assessment" in Interweaving Curriculum and Classroom Assessment I
found the curriculum of project based learning to be quite compelling. As we
enter the 21st century of education, I am finding that the traditional model of
curriculum does not work for student learning anymore. The Traditional Model
(you know, where the teacher is in front of the classroom lecturing, and the
students in in separate seats to listen) is no longer suitable as education is
not focused on straight memorization. How often do we hear students say “This
is pointless to learn, when am I ever going to need this in the real world”?
But
what is Project based learning, and why is it so adaptable to the 21st
century learner? Essentially, Project based learning is a comprehensive
approach that helps allows the students to learn while focusing on a large
project. The project might be 2 weeks long to a length of a semester. Students
use constructivist learning, while mastering the content, and thinking
critically of the content given before them. This diagram explains all of the
characteristics of the PBL Learning Model:
Project Based Learning has 7
different elements in it:
- Driving Questions
- Need to know
- Inquiry and Innovation
- 21st century skills
- Student Voice and Choice
- Feedback and Revision
- Publicly Presented Project
More on the 7 Essentials, Click the link below!
For this blog I will focus
on one project I found in order to explain PBL more in depth: http://www.envisionprojects.org/pub/env_p/29.html
Danielle Johnson of City
Arts and Tech High School uses the subject of High School English in order to
form her PBL method. The topic, “Can We Overcome
Racism? A Case Study of South Africa”, focuses on the book Kaffir Boy, this project can be focused on any novel or narrative
that deals with the difference of races or racism (holocaust, genocide, and
colonialism topics). This also looks at the hidden curriculum of racial
differences or socioeconomics in the classroom, students will be educated on
these differences. Ms. Johnson’s project falls under the 7 elements of the
project based learning in these simple explanations:
- Driving Questions: Why are these instances in history played repeatedly? Why is writing important to the understandings of history? Why are these historical events brought up in history and language arts classes constantly? How does this reflect society? How do these narratives help us improve ourselves based on events in the past? Questions like these should be addressed and students should look at how they are addressed in the given narrative. Brainstorm possible solutions and looking at movements forward should be a topic of discussion and allow for students to move forward.
- Need to Know: The topic of racism and discrimination is brought to the students attention after reading a text such as Kaffur Boy; as long as the text has relevance to colonialism, racism and discrimination, genocide, apartheid, or holocaust like event. Teacher should point out the topics of racism and instances in the narratives where they occur.
- Inquiry and Innovation: The students should inquire deeply into the topic at hand, and based on the driving questions, students should be able to use their research sources clearly and effectively. As a future educator, I would allow my students in pick the narrative themselves. When I say “narrative” I mean any source of film, novel, graphic novel, television shows, commercial, or video game. As long as the guidelines still stick, and the video game (or any other narrative) as a storyline, I would say go for it! If they wanted to provide adaptations to a text in different mediums
- 21st century skills: The types of 21st century skills that can be found in this project include teaching the students how to communicate effectively and persuasively. Students will be given a time line as to when tasks need to be completed and therefore, they will manage projects effectively. Students will have to look deeper into texts and think critically about the language used, the cultural background, and why the author chose some words as he did. Lastly, because the students will be working with classmates of different backgrounds and possible morals and values, student will have to work collaboratively.
- Student Voice and Choice: The more choice the students have on this type of a project, the better. With the culturally diverse society we live in, students in the group may pick up hints of injustice or racism better than other students would. In my opinion, if a certain topic in history and a narrative reflects a topic of interest, why not go for it? Unlike Ms. Johnson’s requirements, I would allow my students to pick a topic in the theme of injustice and racism, as long as it is an interest to them.
- Feedback and Revision: Constant feedback and revision in a project like this is critical to the understanding of the topic at hand. Creating a process of feedback and constantly making wiggling room for feedback is important when narrowing down a topic like this. Making an emphasis on products of higher quality shows the students that they are able to reach their best potential. As expressed in lecture—it is okay to fail! You can only get better from where you started!
- Publicly Presenting the Project: Making a class presentation may be a little nerve racking (especially on a sensitive topic), but this allows for communicative skills and presentation skills that you simply do not get to learn when you’re sitting in front of a teacher lecturing all day. Quality in the presentation and how they teach others about the topic will help them with their understanding of the topic as well. If I were to give this type of a project to my students, I would not limit them to a Power Point presentation. Maybe I would have them make a short movie, or make a collage/painting, make a song based on the theme and how we can work towards change. Lastly, I could have them make a class presentation and have everyone assigned roles based on a council of a past event. Presentation possibilities are limitless!
Obviously, as a future
educator I would take this project a bit further in terms of elasticity and
creativity on narratives of choice and presentation. Now looking at this
project, I also see some cons to project based learning, and how project based
learning could go terribly wrong.
Could it be possible that the teacher could fail in the role of the facilitator?
It is very possible this
could be the case, the teacher could have a lack of understanding of the topic
the student group wants to discuss, and therefore, limit the students growth in
the topic at hand.
Could the teachers own prejudices
and biases get in the way of the students inquiry and innovation on the topic?
The teachers have to be able to push their own biases aside in terms of project-based learning—especially in and English/History topic like this. As a facilitator, the teacher has to act as a referee, and has to keep up-to-date on the topic of discussion in the feedback in revision stage.
The teachers have to be able to push their own biases aside in terms of project-based learning—especially in and English/History topic like this. As a facilitator, the teacher has to act as a referee, and has to keep up-to-date on the topic of discussion in the feedback in revision stage.
Is it possible to integrate
all the course material?
With the possibly of writing, reading, creativity, and media studies, it would be very easy to incorporate all the curriculum goals of English, but what about integrating other subject in the PBL project? What about History in a project such as this?
With the possibly of writing, reading, creativity, and media studies, it would be very easy to incorporate all the curriculum goals of English, but what about integrating other subject in the PBL project? What about History in a project such as this?
Obviously, this has to work with the group dynamics and how each student is assigned to the group (involuntary, or chosen groups?). But how do you have each members of the group collaborate? How do you monitor without shadowing the project/task?
These are all questions I leave with you!
Until next time,
Sabrina Bieber
Hello Miss Bieber,
ReplyDeleteI found reading your blog very easy to read and I thought you captured all the important information about project based learning. I also liked how you posted a picture of the 7 essentials and then after went into further detail breaking down each one. One neat thing I thought you did was asking the questions at the end of the blog. It really caused me to think about those last little points that would then stick in my head after reading the blog. I am a hands on learner and have never really taken part in a project-based learning teaching style and think that I would excel in it if I was given the chance to take part in one. One criticism I have for you is to maybe make the blog a little shorter as it is a lot of information to take in at once. Other than that I thought your blog was great and I look forward to your next one.
Thank you
Hey Sabrina, I really enjoyed reading your blog; I loved how you took the concept of project based learning, and looked at the cons of using this teaching strategy. For your next blog, try to be a bit more concise because I found when reading it to be very text heavy, so maybe just breaking up the paragraphs into smaller writing blocks. I found it really effective that you closed you blog by asking multiple questions, because it gets your readership to think about the concept of project-based learning, and why it might not be an effective way of teaching material to students. Also, I would probably use more visual queues and videos in your blog to make reading your posts more inviting. Putting pictures or a video is a create way to break up the text, so that readers do not feel overwhelmed when reading a blog with a lot of written text. Also, I would try to incorporate more of your own personal experience within your blog it makes it a lot more relatable, rather then just focusing on academic material alone. Overall great job at meeting the expectations for your first blog post, I look forward to reading your next post.
ReplyDeleteHi Miss Bieber,
ReplyDeleteYour first blog post was enjoyable to read as it provided me with a more comprehensive understanding of the project-based learning model. I thought you did a great job referencing Danielle Johnson’s method of incorporating PBL into the classroom because you provided a concrete example of how her project fits into the seven considerations for PBL. Through the integration of questions at the end of your blog post, you prompted me to consider new ways of thinking about PBL. To improve your next blog post, I would recommend that you include more visual aids, such as images and videos to separate the text, highlight the questions you posed in the end to make them more prominent, and try to make your blog post more concise as some of the information seemed was redundant.
Looking forward to reading your next blog post,
Miss Berardocco