Project Based Learning Best Practices Part 2

With projects as with almost anything, if you plan effectively, you are more likely to find success with your project. However, project planning is not just about the product, the process and assessment require just as much thought as what you are going to make/do.

Organizing a Project:
When I start a project, as I said in project based learning part 1, I will use forward design. So once I have decided upon the concept I would like the students to know and apply, I write that down in a Google Doc. It is important that you use some cloud based service or if you are going low tech, a piece of paper that you carry everywhere. The reason being, once your mind starts thinking about this, you will have flashes of inspiration at the most random of times.

I will spend a week or so simply adding the document until I reach a critical mass of thoughts about the project. Then I go through and organize it by topic (assessment, resources for materials, ideas for products, etc). You will find that the project practically orders itself. If you do not have much experience with projects to fall back on, it is most helpful to go talk to another teacher or colleague about it. You will find that your ideas will double and many of your concerns will be answered when seen from a new perspective.

Make sure you create a calendar of some sort where you have expectations of what will be done each day. Create extremely clear instructions to avoid confusion. If you have not yet made a model or example of the product, do so. If you have an exhibition in mind, consider how it will be displayed and where. My second year of teaching project based learning, I decided we would make life size boats out of PVC to study buoyancy and volume. We were about half way done building these amazing boats when it dawned on me, I had no idea where we are going to test them!

How Long Should a Project Last:
There is no strict rule that projects should be a week or a month, it depends on the project. However, if you have created a detailed calendar you should be able to estimate. I say estimate because unforeseen factors too numerous to mention will emerge and slow down or speed up your pace. To compensate for this I always build in at least two "fudge" days, to allow for mistakes or obstacles. I do not tell the students this as this might encourage them to slow down, but it is important to have them as you will find that students + projects = scheduling uncertainty.

Make sure you align your calendar with your school and local calendar. It would be a shame to have an exhibition due on the same day as a religious holiday or have your project broken up over winter break.

To summarize, careful planning will help you determine a pretty good estimate of the time needed.

Assessment:
This could be a post all by itself. If you are trying to achieve learning through projects, then a performance based assessment would seem to fit best. If you choose to use a paper based assessment to ensure understanding, make sure you align it to the project. Just because a student spent time applying the concept of slope, does not mean that they understand every aspect of it but if you are aware of that you can properly assess what they know.

While this isn't a one size fits all approach, my experience has determined that there are 4 main areas of a project through which one can assess.

1. Self Assessment - Reflection on what went well and did not go as well.
2. Group Assessment - How well did this person work with others, did they do their share of the work?
3. Audience Assessment - Does your exhibition achieve the goal which it was intended to (teach 2nd graders a science lesson, put on a Shakespearean play, increase community awareness about global climate change, etc)?
4. Teacher Assessment - Is the project of high quality, does it meet the expectations and parameters of the project?

As for grading, this is a choice to be made by the educator/school/district. Depending on the assignment, these areas are weighed differently. 

Rubrics are useful for determining to what degree a student has completed a task or shared the work. However, rubrics can skew the data heavily if students do not properly fill them out or are being nice to their friends. It is for that reason that I require that a response on a rubric be accompanied by anecdotal  evidence about why they assigned that grade (example: give an example of when the student helped out the group). Rubrics can be administered very effectively through Google Forms. It will collect and sort all of the data for you which saves a ton of headache at the end of a project. 

If you can plan your assessment into your project you will save a ton of heartache and stress. What this means is for the student to complete the project they need to understand the content. In all of my math projects, the student cannot proceed or complete the project until a previous step is calculated. Similarly if you structure your project to require feedback, the students can help each other to learn and improve the project.

Teacher Refinement:

If you are not refining your own work, then you should not ask the students to do it. Even the best planned out projects can still become better. I highly encourage you to keep a document where you can quickly jot down ideas on how to refine for next time. I call mine "Math/Physics for next year" and I am eternally grateful for that document because there is no way I would ever remember all of the feedback I gave myself throughout the year.

I wish you all the best as you seek to use an exciting and enjoyable way to work with students towards understanding. If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, don't hesitate to leave a comment.

Project Based Learning Best Practices Part 1

Project Based Learning can be a wonderful experience for you and your students. However, there are some things to consider to avoid frustration and to accomplish that what you are hoping to achieve.

Before we get started, know that my Colleague John has created some great food for thought at his Blog, I encourage you to check out and reflect upon his thoughts.

Forward Design vs. Backwards Design:
Forward Design is where you start with the learning objective and move towards the product and process. Backward Design involves envisioning the product first and then deriving the learning objective  afterwards. I tend to lean more towards Forward Design only because when I have tried to do backwards design, the learning seems less deep and contrived. I am not saying it cannot be done, but it takes a lot more work to do it well and the focus tends to be more on the product than on the learning.

When creating a project though, you will find that it is not a linear process at all, the product will emerge and refine over time; as will the learning objectives and the process. I would just encourage you to start with what you want them to learn as this will help you have a strong anchor point throughout the process.

Audience:
Just as important as the learning objective is the audience as it drives the project and determines the process. Typically, the audience is only the Teacher and I would avoid that being your only audience. It sets up an adversarial situation where students will only come to you asking whether or not a product is worthy of an 'A'. If you are not the sole audience, you can be the master helping them to refine and achieve their goal without as much focus on the grade.

Knowing explicitly who your audience will determine the how as in how much, how many, how deep, etc. It might not be wise to rely upon an algebraic equation for  your students to teach 5th graders the meaning of slope. If you have already determined your audience, it is a great idea for your students to meet them or get their input before starting the project. This puts a real face to their work and motivates them all the more.

Audience members are anyone who is going to see and interact with the project. If you do not have one for your project, look in your district for Elementary/Middle Schools. The teachers there are always very welcoming. You might have community resources like a Earth Day Fair, City Council meetings, History Museums, Zoos, Businesses. I have seen all of these and more be very effective audiences. You have nothing to lose by asking, and the opportunity this will provide your students to have a
 real world location to demonstrate their learning is priceless.

Class, Group, or Individual Project:
There is no one solution, it depends completely on what you are trying to accomplish.

Class Project: This setup is very useful if you are trying to create a large product as you can break it down into departments (e.g. writing, filming, building, painting, etc) or components (top,middle,bottom). Also, since you are building just one or a couple of the product it will cut down costs dramatically or allow you to make something of higher quality.

• What you will need to be particularly mindful of is the learning. With such a large project broken down into pieces, will each student learn the same thing with the same depth? While some say that giving a traditional assessment or giving a lecture (front-loading) is a way to avoid this, I prefer to have all of the learning and assessment take place within the project itself otherwise it diminishes the reason for doing the project in the first place. 

• It is also possible that students will have days where they simply do not work, this is easy to happen as you are so busy orchestrating. Two possible solutions to this are to assign class leaders to take care of the administration and completion of the project so you can focus on classroom management and refinement, or to have students update a daily log through a Google Form, Twitter, Blog, etc.

• When my teaching partner and I considered making Electric Guitars we had to decide whether or not to make 30 or 3. Something would have to be sacrificed as the saying goes, "Fast, Cheap, and Quality, you can only have two.

Group Project: Students are more likely to learn the same as their peers or at least not have the learning divided up as much. The costs are certainly more than a class project but less than an individual project. Also, there is a greater chance for each group member's ideas to be heard as opposed to a class where they might have less of a say in how it turns out.

• Be mindful of the fact that when students are in closer interaction with each other, there is a higher risk for conflict. It would be a good idea to talk to students about conflict resolution and understanding what their triggers are. I have seen groups where a "ringmaster" was assigned. Not a leader in the traditional boss of the group sense, but in the mindset of a circus where the ringmaster does not lead but manages. The ringmaster's role is to keep the project moving and make sure it all comes together without coercion or unnecessary stress on the group.

• Additionally, I would suggest implementing Google Docs to collaborate and share files and information. It is devastating to a group to find out that one or more of their group members is absent (and they always seem to be the ones with all of the work).

Indivdual Project:  There is a 1:1 ratio of product to student and therefore it is easiest to design an assessment that measures work and learning that has occurred. The student is able to fully express their creativity and completion is completely on them.

• The biggest factor in this type of organization is cost. Even a project that only costs $5 per student is going to cost hundreds to complete. I try and alleviate this by choosing individual projects that use household items or are paper based.

Note: There is no one type of project that works for every scenario. Evaluate what your most important goals are so you can choose that which works best. It is possible to minimize the shortcomings of each of these with in depth planning.

Inspiration and Motivation: I have written previously about resources you can use for designing projects, but where do the ideas come from in the first place? The answer is everywhere. They will just pop out of nowhere, when you are driving home, taking a walk, reading a magazine, etc. Have a way of writing these ideas down (I send a message to my email) then keep a document of all of your previous ideas, even those you did not end up using as they will be used someday.

In part 2, we will examine other important aspects of planning and implementing a project like assessment and exhibition.

SOS - Save Our Schools With After School Programs Part 3

Let me ask you to put aside any of your concerns with starting a program for a minute and ask you a couple of questions.

1) Are you really passionate about something like art, engineering, theatre, math, a foreign language, programming, etc?

2) Can you devote a couple of hours a week after school?

3) Do you believe that every student has potential to do great things?

If you answered yes to all of these, then I would encourage you to start an after school program! Your kids need you!

You might have doubts (I know I did):

• I am not good enough to run a _______ team or group: 
• You will never be able to keep up with your students desire to learn, all you can do is keep the energy high and support them. I had found this to be true no matter how learned you are, students just have too much imagination and energy.
• The MorTorq robotics team was started by a woman who had no engineering skills but was excited and passionate about working with students.
• This is how the Virtual World emerged in my robotics team. I found this software called Blender that while I knew nothing about, I gave it it to a couple of students who I thought might be interested. A couple of weeks later they had created a video game that the whole school wanted to play. There skills continued to grow until they were making huge virtual worlds and that is how the science festival came about.

• There isn't enough money:
• There are so many organizations and companies who want to give money to innovative and effective programs like yours. Do a Google search on "education grants" or grants for ______ and you will see that the list is huge. Additionally your community will love to support you whether it be a company seeking to create future employees or the pizza place down the street that will let you do a fundraiser, the money is there.
• If you are lucky, you might have someone in your district who rights grants as part of their duties. Were it not for our own Lisa Davis helping us raise funds and support us, it would be impossible to do all that our team does.

So hopefully, you have the courage to start a team, so what do you need to do?

1) Find initial funding: If you are creating a robotics team you are looking at a few hundred dollars, if it is a painting club then it might be significantly less. I would check with your school, district, parents, and community. You never know who you will find that would be willing to help so be sure to ask anyone you can.

• A note: many after school programs have disappeared because they relied to heavily on one source of funding. You should always seek to be self sufficient through donations and saving. This ensures that your program will always be around and not dependent upon other people's decisions.

2) Find support: After school programs can take a toll on your time. No matter how committed you are, it is important that you continue to be able to spend time with family, friends, and your primary teaching duties. While you might think that your program will only take a little time, ask any robotics teacher or Patrick Yurick of the Graphic Novel Project and they will tell you that once your program takes off it can take up as little or as much of your time as you will let it.

• Ask fellow teachers or parents, you will be surprised at how many community members would love to help out. I have seen artists, engineers, college students, politicians, writers, even a Disney Imagineer and LAPD Bomb Squad member come to our rescue. Plus the students love to see outside people with real world expertise come and advise them.

3) Find a project: You may think that passion is enough to fuel a group of students but I can tell you it is otherwise. In my opinion, the sole determinant of the success of an after school program is having something to work toward.

• For my robotics team it is the competitions, for the Graphic Novel Project it is publishing two Graphic Novels a year, for a theatre program it is the productions, for a Japanese club it might be a field trip downtown to order lunch or to the cultural center. Whatever it is, I would encourage you to find something and have it ready to announce to the students on the first day as this will help fuel the program.

4) Let the students be the fuel for the fire: If your goal is to get students excited about a field, discipline, idea then once you have given them the tools let them run with it. They will come in with new ways of doing things and innovate right before your eyes. 

• When a few of my students 2 years ago made a video game in Blender, it took them 6 months. They then showed a couple of my Freshmen how to do it, and one of them ended up recreating the game in a couple of hours. Now the bar was raised and there was a huge new influx of energy into learning and creating.
• However, I do caution you against letting them have complete control over the class. I have seen this happen and it either devolved into just hanging out or the project dragged on (deadlines, deadlines, deadlines). 
• Have fun but keep it professional otherwise people might bring in their friends that just want to hang out as opposed to wanting to help the project. I have been firm about asking people to leave the program in order to protect it from those who just want a place to mess around.

5) Market yourself: Neglect this point at your own peril. I am grateful once again for Eileen Kahn teaching me the importance of marketing. This is not just for fundraising, you may be in a situation where your program is taking up resources (students, room space, materials, funding, etc) from others and if you do not constantly extol the importance of your program then people will not know that it is necessary to keep around.

• Some ways of easily marketing yourself are youtube videos, a website, yearbook photos, Facebook/Myspace, appearances before the city council/school board, appearances at school events, newspaper blurbs, referring to it in your classroom, posters, etc.
• I cannot stress enough the importance of doing this. You may never know when it will be important to have the community on your side.

Finally, a message to the community:

Please, please, please seek out a way you can help out in your schools. Whether an after school program or otherwise you will make an impact that will extend beyond what you can imagine. If you are able to donate money, or have an expert in a certain field, can provide space, or materials, you will make a powerful change in student's lives. 

After school is the most powerful use of your resources. With little or no overhead, your donation goes directly toward the passion of a student that they may not even know they had. The ripple effect into the community will be incredible and I thank you for your time and involvement in one of the most important things you can do.

SOS - Save Our Schools With After School Programs Part 1

I have the pleasure of having wonderful colleagues, family, and friends that love to talk about society and education. Last week I spoke with Matt, a Counselor to students that the world has decided are "difficult" or "at risk". He loves these kids so much that he was sharing about his experiences the night before his wedding (congratulations Newlywed)!

Everyday, he connects with them, they trust and confide in him, and they are not the tough "thugs" that they show to everyone else. They are humans with passions and a yearning for wholeness like all of us. They just don't see the relevance of participating in the standard curriculum. How can they think of the abstract like Mathematics or Literature when their reality overwhelms them so much.

We seek to share our own passions and interests but all too often there are so many constraints that make it difficult. Our class sizes are huge, the curriculum is set in stone, and there is never enough resources to go around. It often seems like we are just stuck and our kids suffer for it.

However, there is a glimmer of hope. While it may not always be in school, it can be found at school. I truly believe after school programs will save our youth.

Imagine a world where passion and excitement filled the room. Where the constraints are lifted and students can participate in the real world. This is what I experience everyday with after school programs.

Years ago, by the strangest of coincidences I was introduced to Eileen Kahn and her incredible robotics team MorTorq. While I was lured in by the excitement of engineering, I had no idea what I was in store for. Jocks and geeks, male and female, rich and poor were working together as a team and friends for a common purpose to build, program, and compete in the FIRST Robotics Competiton. They would stay late and on weekends and all they could ever talk about were robots.

This would have been great if that was all they had gained from the experience, but there was more. Many of those students would have never even thought of a career in Engineering but now they were attending CalTech  and Ivy League schools.

I knew when I left that school I would need to start a team of my own. I can't wait to tell you more about this exciting journey, the people I have met, and the lives touched by these programs but it will have to wait until part 2.