Laying Out Your PBL Year (Alg 1 version)
Math and PBL can seem hard when you put them together. Look at your calendar and pick a time in the year where you can devote 3 or 4 weeks to a project and start there.
Using An Old Challenge to Teach Project Management
http://goo.gl/AK0vs When I talk with teachers about getting started with PBL I often tell them to think of something they have seen done before and take the idea and make it their own. But I also caution them to think of their content first – what are the verbs and nouns in their standards? Unless […]
I Go From Project Idea to Project Launch (PBL with a DT Feel)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto/ I’ve just completed a pretty darn nice 2 weeks off for the holidays. Tomorrow I head back to 2 days of PD before the students come back to me on Wednesday. I’ve been spending the last couple of hours fine tuning my first design project of the year. This is my first year of […]
If You Borrow It, Tell Someone
https://www.flickr.com/photos/kittiesmademedoit/ Those are words of advice given to me by my Father. Actually it was more like, “Hey, I don’t mind if you want to use my tools but put them back – in the same spot – when you are finished.” Isn’t that really the point of attribution? You are borrowing someone else’s words […]
Exploring Design Thinking as a PBL Guy
Via Eric White This week I will be meeting with other BIE National Faculty (NF) members at our annual Spring Summit. For the summit we have broken into Professional Learning Communities (PLC’s) and I am with the Design Thinking (dt) group. We will be sharing with the other NF and we are looking at how […]
It’s Time For a Project
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dullhunk/ It’s that time of year again for many (most?) of us in the K-12 world of the United States to deal with standardized testing. And there are many teachers who have been waiting until “that test is over” to start a pbl project. There are some of you who can’t see past the […]
What is Essential For Successful PBL?
http://earthmosaic.org/index.html This year the Buck Institute for Education (BIE.org), of which I am on the National Faculty, is re-examining the “Essential Elements” for PBL. As I was thinking about it I remembered that I have posted about these elements a few times, over the years, and I came across this post from July […]
Make That Desert Project More PBL’y
http://goo.gl/XqZSjZ Friend of mine had their son bring home a “project” to make a cell membrane. I sighed. But then I thought about how the teacher could have done something with the same material. And it hit me – science teachers need to see how to take that internet or youtube project and make it […]
Resolve to Stop Using the Word “Fail”
http://goo.gl/ssvt4z This year I want to see educators using the word “fail” less. In 2013 and 2014 it seemed like it was the word to use when it came to discussing student resiliency. Half a century ago Winston Churchill talked about failure not being fatal. He then went on to emphasize the importance of not […]
There Was Gold In Them There Colorado Hills
http://goo.gl/oNBuIc A Gold standard for PBL – that’s what the folks at BIE.org are trying to define. And we are reaching out to all of you who are practicing this in your classrooms and schools. This past week the National Faculty (NF) met for our Fall summit and we had some rich, deep discussions on […]