(uo1a1) PBL - Blog

(uo1a1) PBL - Blog

According to the Buck Institute of Technology, Project Based Learning is, “a systematic teaching method that engages students in learning essential knowledge and life-enhancing skills through an extended, student-influenced inquiry process structured around complex, authentic questions and carefully designed products and tasks”(PBL-online.org).  As an educator in a quickly evolving and changing field, it has become our duty to facilitate rather than dictate our subject knowledge to students.  The circumstances and design principles that each specific school and project had in common was their empathis on meeting state standards, new and relevant technology used, and the student based learning and leadership that was involved in the completion of the project.

Due to the need of each teacher to meet the individual curriculum requirements of their state, each article made mention that the project not only met a variety of standards, but students would have a better grasp since they have explored, researched, and used rather than memorizing and forgetting once the test was taken.  In  March of the Monarchs: Students Follow the Butterflies‘ Migration, Fran Koontz notes that her students are more careful with their writing because they know that someone real is going to be reading it; a peer in another country.  This shows that they value and are taking ownership of their work, creating a more meaningful experience.  Along with writing and sending butterflies, the students plot and track the monarch’s migration using state of the art computers and technology.  They are also able to collaborate with real scientists in the field.  Because of the enormous scope of the project and the technology used Koontz is able to integrate almost every part of her curriculum into this high interest project. 

In, Geometry Students Angle into Architecture Through Project Learning, Eeva Reeder has her students design a school for the future.  Each design must meet specific set of requirements while using concepts from her Math class.  Eeva Reeder mentions that her colleagues often ask her how she has the time to create such an undertaking at the end of the school year when there are so many concepts to cover, especially when preparing students for high stakes tests.  To that, just as with Koontz, the students are tasked with using a wide variety of concepts before presenting their final project.  By using and demonstrating, rather than reading and memorizing, the students create a more meaningful experience through the project.  And just as with Koontz’s monarch project, Reeder has the students collaborate with experts in the field.  Reeder’s geometry students are not only able to speak with, and gain advice from actual architects, but are graded by them as well.  Another similarity in Reeder’s project is the use of technology, like that of CAD to help create the final design.  This is a real world program that architects use in their careers.

As in the previous two articles, More Fun Than a Barrel of . . . Worms?!  Makes it clear that one of the prime focuses in project based learning, is the use of new technology and its real world application.  Students in Newsome Park Elementary school are making word webs, researching animals, and following the stock market all with the help of new programs.  In Robert Lirange's fourth-grade class the students were able to follow the stock market and research the crash that lead to the Great Depression.  As students became more involved they created their own company and sold shares of said company.  Newsome Park’s principal, Peter Bender, noted that not only have scores increased, but behavioral problems have gone down, as well as absenteeism.

The roles of the students and teacher in each scenario seem simple enough; the teacher facilitates the students by helping push them in the right direction by giving them the appropriate materials and questions to lead them into acquiring knowledge on their own.  When students learn by doing, or participating in the constructivist approach, they are more likely to take ownership of their work, write more carefully, create more freely, and engage in conversation with their peers on how to better their final output.  Finally, one of the best arguments for PBL, as in all three cases, is the transfer of the activities to real world applications.  After the success of Robert Lirange's fourth-grade class, a fifth grade class secretly plotted to buy a majority share the company’s stock, and thus control the company.  This kind of hostile takeover happens on Wall Street and in real world business practices.  Eeva Reeder’s students must present their school to real architects as if they are trying to win a contract, and Fran Koontz’s students collaborate with scientists and other students from around the world.  It is within these meaningful interactions that students learn how to transfer school learned knowledge to the real world.

References:

Armstrong, S. (2012). Geometry Students Angel into Architecture through Project Learning. Edutopia.
http://www.edutopia.org/geometry-real-world-students-architects

Curtis, D. (2012). More fun than a barrel of… Worms? Edutopia. http://www.edutopia.org/more-fun-barrel-worms

Curtis, D. (2012). March of the Monarchs: Students Follow the Butterflies‘ Migration. Edutopia.
http://www.edutopia.org/march-monarchs

Larmer, John. (2012). What is PBL? Buck Institute for Education.
http://www.bie.org/