Scaffolding – Supporting Student PBL Work

After starting the PBL last week, this week was the week for researching, a time for the girls to build their initial understanding of their individual topics. What independence they showed as they searched for facts about the topics that they had chosen! Most of them moved easily between books and digital resources, recording their information and creating new research questions.

At times, they became frustrated with the complexity of the information, but there was a deep commitment to reaching understanding and mastery. I worked on sending them to less complex sources for the initial work and then to return to the more difficult ones. When they needed a break, they took a short walk to help them refocus, a strategy that I have them use regularly in my class, or they shifted their work to the memorization piece of the project.

As part of the scaffolding for the project, I had given them a list of 25 people from Europe from 1400-1600 to memorize. As I explained to them that these were people with whom any well-educated person would be familiar. Their job was simply to learn why each person was significant in 5-7 words. The list ranged from Martin Luther to Michelangelo to Prince Henry the Navigator. I had two reasons for having them memorize this list. The first was simply to broaden their understanding of the time period and provide a bridge to some of the other topics about which they weren’t personally studying. I also wanted to give my students who struggle with the challenges that independent research presented a single task over which most of them have control. They have learned through the course of the year the strategies that work for them when they need to memorize information. It gave them a sense of being capable and in control as they worked on their research, which was more difficult.

While they worked with almost total independence this week, I simply wandered the room, available to answer questions and make suggestions when needed, but largely an observer. They were the ones at work, setting goals for themselves each day and tackling each with an amazing amount of focus.

One thing I noticed right away, however, was that they needed me present. While I wasn’t standing at the front of the class, writing an outline or posing questions, I was still very definitely setting the tone of the room. I quickly learned that if I went to check my email or do some other work, the mood in the room changed. My lack of focus on their work meant they could shift their focus, and it was challenging for them after that happened to get back to the same degree of commitment that they had had before. I had given them a completely wrong message by shifting away from their work. They needed me to honor their effort with my attention. After learning that lesson the painful way, I set about staying in the moment with them. I wandered between the desks, asked questions when I saw something of interest. I gave suggestions when I had them and learned new facts as they identified them. It was easy to make it clear to the students that they were becoming the experts, and I wanted to learn from them.

When I provided the support, they did the learning! It was their project and their work, and they wanted to do it!

Building Curiosity – PBL Week 1

After having the investigation of museum items that I wrote about in my last post, I gave the students time to explore in a variety of sources to see what happened during the time period about which they are learning, Europe from 1400-1600. They looked through both textbooks and online sources. This step was initially very hard for them. They wanted me to tell them what was important and on what they should focus. I resisted the impulse to jump in and name my favorite artists, thinkers and explorers. I just let them wander through the sources for awhile, getting their own initial impression of the time.

“Wow! A lot happened!”

“Didn’t the Muslims do this before? Didn’t we learn about that earlier?”

“I wonder where he got the idea for that?”

I told them to just skim over the information, looking for patterns and topics that might interest them. I suggested that they think about people and activities that interest them in general. Do they like to ride horses or paint? Do they want to be an architect or politician? I suggested that they let those interests guide their search. For the students who continued to struggle with the breadth of the investigation, I had created a list of 40 or so important people and places. I quietly gave it to the students who had gotten stuck, simply unable to enjoy the process or to connect with any of the aspects of the time period. For them, it provided a scaffold that they needed.

The next step was to have the school librarian come in and give a lesson on how to develop effective research questions. She taught them about “inch, foot and yard” questions, as a way of identifying if they had a broad enough topic for their research. Inch questions are ones that can be answered with a single fact and usually can be found in a single source. Foot questions require more investigation and are answered with a combination of facts. Yard questions require the gathering of facts and then synthesizing them to develop an deeper understanding. They practiced labeling questions and then developing their own.

Now it was time to identify what areas they were interested in investigating for their research. Each student identified three topics on which they wanted to focus. They then wrote 3-5 sentences about why each topic was of interest to her. Then she wrote three research questions for each topic. I told them to present a clear argument for why she should be given a specific topic to investigate. I wanted to try and build their connections with the topics. Luckily, they had all found different aspects of Europe from 1400-1600 that were of interest to them, and I was able to give each one their first choice by dividing up some of the most popular topics, such as I split da Vinci into his scientific work and his art.

I divided them into groups of 8 or 9, larger than I have ever done before, to create the final museum store together. I wanted to have them work on larger collaboration skills. I had created a group in Edmodo, and divided it into two sections, one for each group. Since they were doing independent work for the first part of the project, researching their topics, I wanted to begin to build a sense of connection between them, sharing interesting facts and their ideas about the project. For their first post, I had them blog about why they were interested in their topic and the research questions that were of interest to them. I created a schedule for commenting, so that each student received a comment for each post. I then went through and left comments after the students commented.

At this point, it felt like we were truly launched! The students were engaged and excited. They felt in control of their work and ready to start their research. Since they had already done two research projects this year, they simply created a new project in NoodleTools and began their investigations. They were off!

How I Spent My Weekend!

The end of the year is rushing at us, and I have a lot of content that still needs to be tackled in my 7th grade World History course. I decided to try to accomplish the work by doing a project. It wasn’t going to be a full Project-Based Learning project, because I just didn’t think that I had the time. I wanted, however, to add in some elements. I decided to have the students create a museum exhibit around a topic of their choice that answered the question: How did Europe in the 15th-17th centuries influence the development of the modern world? It was a very teacher-style question, but it covered the material over which I needed them to gain some familiarity: Renaissance to the Age of Exploration. I didn’t want to beat it into them with lots of textbook reading and notes on the board, but I also needed them to cover a lot of material.

I wanted to have them start by simply exploring, using textbooks, the library resources and digital ones as well, recording people, places and events that interested them. I was hoping that with some unstructured time to investigate a variety of resources, they would come up with a focus for their work. The goal was to have them research for 4-5 days after they made their choice and then build an exhibit. They were going to give an oral presentation of the information that they found. I knew I had some of the aspects of PBL as laid out by the Buck institute, such as Voice and Choice and Oral Presentation, but I knew I was missing a lot.

Saturday morning, I decided to take what I had built so far and go to the Buck Institute’s website and see how it measured up. I went to their Project Planner and started to fill it in. Suffice it to say, mine was a mess! I was simply pretending that this qualified as project-based learning. It didn’t. It might be a decent project for the students, and they might have learned from it, but it wasn’t PBL. It was time to decide to stick with what I knew or jump into something more.

So I jumped!

I basically started over. First I realized that I needed to think of a way for this to be a collaborative, rather than an individual project. PBL doesn’t happen outside of group work. I usually work in groups of 3-4, but I knew from my training that often the groups are often larger than that in PBL. I decided to make groups of 8 who would create a museum exhibit together, with each of them responsible for a specific aspect of it. I tried to think of who the Authentic Audience could be, perhaps local museum staff or AP European students. The more that I thought about teenagers and museums, the more it seemed like a typical class project that didn’t have a Hook that would engage them. I had to find a way to grab their interest!

Then it hit me, from all of my visits to museums with students and my own children! What was their favorite part of the museum? Always, always, always – the Museum Gift Shop!

And I knew I had it! The Driving Question became: How does a museum gift store capture the importance of the museum’s collection and sell items that are of interest to the public?

It will require them to do significant research to understand the time period and whomever they chose to focus on. They will need to collaborate and learn together. They will make decisions and create items for their shop. 5th and 6th graders, AP Euro students and History teachers will be given Renaissance “money” to place by items that they find worthy of purchase.

With an idea born, I spent the weekend running back to my laptop, typing up a new document to build the scaffolding that the project needed. After every drive to the market or time in the garden, I was back typing up each new idea. It is what teachers do! We dream and build for our students!

Monday morning’s Entry Event involved items that could be found in a museum gift shop, spread all around the classroom. Time for investigation! What were they? What did they have in common? Where might they have come from? Their curiosity was definitely peaked, and the project, a real PBL project, was launched.

More on how it progresses in later posts!

SmartBlog Article on Ungraded Class

Here is a link to the article that I wrote on my ungraded 7th grade class.

I Love Giving Students Time to Work!

My 7th grade is currently working on a project where they study primary sources from the mid-to-late 14th century. They read Giovanni Boccaccio’s account of when the plague reached Florence. Then they study a variety of woodblocks, including Hans Holbein’s Dance of Death. Their assignment is to write two diary entries of a person living in Europe at the time. Each student decided on an identity from the king to a peasant. They developed a personality, family and connections for their characters, settling them in a village, town or city. The next step was to investigate the woodblocks and the writing and to develop a list of details that they found to help them understand what happened and how people felt about it. The final step was the writing process, including 10-15 facts from their investigation in each of their diary entries.

Rather than have the students write for their homework, I have begun to have that work done in class. I learn a lot about them from watching them work. They spread out around the room, some still sitting in desks, but many sitting on the floor or on the cushions in the Reading Corner. With an incredible level of focus, they started writing and kept on writing. Every now and then, one of them would ask to get a drink, but otherwise they were totally focused on what they were creating. In the quiet of the classroom, they built a world that was facing the plague and then responding to it. They were driving their work; I just gave them a time and space to do it.

I started the second class by handing out 4 Post-It notes to each student and had them stand up. Their task was to go to a different desk, read the diary entry there and leave a comment, constructive suggestions, grammar errors, etc. I did this for two reasons. First, they often help each other identify places where it isn’t as clear as the author thought it was. Second, it allows the weaker students, who struggle with developing their historical imagination, to see some examples of other girls’ work. After reading 4 diary entries, they went back to their desks and read the notes that were left for them. This is always their favorite part! They love having messages left for them.

Then it was back to work! And they went to it! Again, with no hesitation!

When I set a task that holds their interest, provide enough tools to support their learning and work, then it really is time to get out of the way! While some classes need to have more of my “teacher” input, I keep reminding myself that I can be just as valuable when I plan a great lesson and let them go to drive their own learning. Those lessons don’t happen without a lot of work, but when the work is done before the class starts, then what happens in class can feel empowering to the students. It places responsibility with them, rather than with me.

My students often are uncomfortable with being given the power to do their own work. They want me to set the requirements and limits, to tell them when they are done. Once they start, however, the work often sucks them in. They want to master the new skill or create their new understanding. As one student recently wrote on her self-reflection, “Working on this project was much different than any other project because we had a lot of choice in what we wanted to do and basically had to come up with everything ourselves. However, it was really fun!”

Time plus work that engages them! That is the goal!

SmartBlog on Education Article

Here is a link to the article that I wrote for SmartBlogs on incorporating movement into the classroom.

Because a Laptop is Distracting!

Most teachers who work with a 1:1 program know that the benefits come with challenges. Our students are very social creatures, and the internet has given them an amazing tool to connect and be part of one or more communities all of the time. There are stories being told and invitations being issued; there are questions being asked and responses being given. It is a siren call to our students, and we need to help them defend themselves against it during the times they need to be focused on other work. How do we train our students to engage in the world of being a digital learner without losing track of the goal? What tools and tricks can we give them, so that the web will not seduce them when they have academic tasks to accomplish, whether they are in school or at home?

Teacher Strategies

1.Accept that it is part of them being a digital learner! Talk to your students regularly about what they find challenging and how they are managing their time. They know that the distraction is part of what happens when they are on their laptops. Have them develop classroom rules for their behavior. It is important for them to know that you understand the temptation, but that you want them to tackle it.

2. Provide them with time to “check in” at the beginning of class. Let them know that they will have 3 minutes, or however much time you think they need, to check their email and look at their various places to connect: Twitter, Pinterest, wherever they need to go. By providing them with designated time, we can avoid them regularly trying to sneak off to check. It acknowledges that the temptation is real, that the desire to connect is legitimate, but it also establishes that there are appropriate times to do it, provided by the teacher, and there are inappropriate ones. I have started having my students, who are all on MacBooks, do the finger swipe at the end of this time to show other windows that are open and to shut all of them that are not for class work.

3. “45 your laptops!” Have the students set their laptop covers at 45 degrees whenever instruction is happening. When the cover is at this angle, it maintains connection with the wifi, but the screen there less visible and less distracting for the students. Without the visual stimulation of whatever there, it is easier for them to focus on the class conversation. (It also does away with the sense of a barrier between the teacher and students or student and student that happens when all of the laptops are opened.)

4.Have the students take notes by hand, rather than on the computer. For many of them, this eye-hand coordination will activate the brain, helping them to learn the material as they write. It increases the time that they are focused on individual pieces of information. As I write the notes on the board, I am explaining them in more depth than when slides of information are projected. Also, especially for the quick typers, notetaking on the laptop often opens them up to the other distractions of the Web, while they wait for others to finish. Typing their notes then becomes the homework assignment, creating another time for reviewing and learning the material.

Student Strategies

1.Close out of email and other windows that are their main avenues of connection. When they are not being used for school, they should be closed. While many schools block these sites, it is important to talk about them, as they are a major draw away from work when at home.

2.When not working on their laptops, the students should turn their laptops upside down. The bottom of the laptop is heavier than the top, so if they unintentionally reach out to reconnect with their friends, the weight alone will remind them to stay on task.

3.Have the students use a digital tool, such as iProcrastine, to keep track of the work that they need to accomplish. Set clear goals for when the work will be done.

What strategies have you tried?