Getting Started with PBL
From LiteracyTentWiki
Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 1515] Getting started in Project-Based Learning
From: Taylor, Jackie jataylor at utk.edu
Date: Tue Sep 4 09:30:02 EDT 2007
Good day or evening to you all!
Welcome to our discussion on project-based learning (PBL) as
professional development. This week (and part of next), Heide Spruck
Wrigley and a team of Texas teachers are joining us in sharing
experiences with PBL.
I have a couple of questions for all list subscribers. But first, some
suggested guiding points:
- If your answer to someone's post alters the topic of the discussion, feel free to do so. But please change the subject line of your email to reflect the change in topic. This makes it easier for those who are following threads to base their decision on whether or not to read that line of discussion. (It helps those of us who are squeezing in our own PD around busy schedules to prioritize.)
- In general, please do not respond to a string of topics in one email. It's nice to split them up into different threads when applicable.
- Please read and contribute as your time and PD interests permit. If you don't have time, know that the discussions are automatically
archived should you wish to catch up from a busy day. http://www.nifl.gov/pipermail/professionaldevelopment/2007/date.html
Questions:
- 1. Briefly tell us about your experience(s) with PBL. What did you do?
- 2. How did you get started in PBL? What was the impetus behind it?
In other words, what's your story?
I'm looking forward to some lively discussions! This is going to be a
great week. Best wishes, Jackie
Jackie Taylor, Professional Development List Moderator
jataylor at utk.edu
Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 1517] from Heide, Re: Getting started in PBL
From: Taylor, Jackie jataylor at utk.edu
Date: Tue Sep 4 10:19:01 EDT 2007
PD List Colleagues:
The following post is from Heide Spruck Wrigley. Please read on! Best,
Jackie
Briefly tell us about your experience with PBL
Hi, all and welcome to what I hope will be a lively discussion where we
share ideas, ask questions, support each other and occasionally
challenge each other in our thinking (in the nicest way possible, of
course).
I'm glad Jackie mentioned briefly since I could easily go on and on. So
here is the short version of a long story:
In doing PD work, we found that many part time teachers had a hard time
doing meaningful work around Action Research (AR) - they needed lots
more support than we were able to give them and there did not seem to be
much change in their teaching, though some enjoyed the process of
reflecting on their teaching. Clearly we needed something that got the
teachers more excited and involved students in a much more active way (
quite possibly it was our fault and we had done AR all wrong)
When we discussed where to go next with Project Forward, an early Texas
Statewide initiative for adult literacy teachers developed by Barbara
Baird, we felt that PBL showed greater promise for new ways of teaching
and learning.
I was familiar with PBL as a means to foster participatory learning but
also from my experience in Europe where many universities require
demonstration of knowledge and understanding through team and individual
projects rather than through tests or written exams (I believe Portland
University uses a similar model). My daughter was getting her degree in
Computational Linguistics at the University of Manchester at the time,
and I was amazed at the work the student teams did, researching topics,
trying out their own ideas, and then presenting it all to faculty and
fellow students as PowerPoints or posters. The audience reacted, asked
questions, praised or critiqued and you really needed to know what you
were talking about or you were dead meat. It was easy to see how a
kinder and gentler version might work in adult literacy and ESOL
classes.
I also knew about PBL through community development work (other's, not
my own) and had read about women in particular taking on issues that
worried them (health, water, child safety), researching them and then
presenting their documentation and demands for action to community
councils. In the meantime, I visited literacy programs such as El Barrio
Popular Education Program in East Harlem (run by Klaudia Rivera at the
time) where the women took on both research and business projects that
were quite impressive (more on those later).
Long story short - when Texas implemented a state-wide PD initiative
around PBL and Action Research (called Project IDEA), I became the PBL
consultant and a few years later, Literacywork (based in California at
the time) developed a proposal with the Socorro Independent School
district to combine PBL, technology and EL Civics. Jim Powrie and I were
lucky enough to work with teachers over a five year period (see
www.bordercivics.org <http://www.bordercivics.org/> ). I'm now involved
with several of the Texas GREAT Centers and we are integrating PBL into
the PD Institutes that the centers run.
So how about others then? How did you come to PBL and what has been
your experience - both positive and somewhat anxiety producing (teachers
lose control). Implementing PBL can be a bit scary at first since the
teacher gives up control and things seldom work out as planned.
Soon more
Heide
Heide Spruck Wrigley
Currently in Malaga, Spain
Responding through the miracle of lap tops and wireless technology
Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 1518] Difficulties and Successes with PBL
From: Lee Williams lwilliams at communityaction.com
Date: Tue Sep 4 15:02:04 EDT 2007
I began working on PBL with a cadre of teachers in Barbara Baird's Project
Forward initiative. Although we studied successful student projects across
the state (TX) and knew the many benefits of PBL, I didn't have a clue about
how to recreate that success in my classroom. I naively thought that the
students could choose a project from a list of suggestions and go with it. I
assumed that once they knew what the end product was, they would start
working to make it happen. Key pieces were missing like organization,
teamwork, initiative and desire.
The projects I've been successful with
1) have risen out of existing curriculum and
2) the student's passion is visibly obvious. I expand the lessons to further
delve into those passionate topics and then make suggestion of possible
projects-ideas where students return what they have learned to the
community. Once the product is identified, we create a list of steps to
make it happen and order them. Students need see these steps so they can
choose the areas where they fit and then they can take off. This
scaffolding then becomes the basis of future lessons and culminates in a
final project.
For me, student-centered projects take several months to identify and create
and are more likely a true product of the students. I have also done small
projects that I suggest, which are finished in a much shorter time, but
often result in more work for me. This is an area I am still refining at
this time.
Lee Williams
ELL II Teacher at the Kyle Learning Center
Kyle, Texas
