Blog Post 9

Project Based Learning- What Can Teachers and Students Teach Us About PBL?

There are Seven Essentials for PBL(Project Based Learning) and what they do is describe a scenario in which a project is assigned to the students by their instructor, Mrs. McIntyre. How she goes about introducing the project is she "plops down" a packet provided with information about the assigned project onto the students' desks listing the requirements for the project. What every good project needs is one that is meaningful and it provides two criteria. First one is the students must take the work serious as it was personally meaningful as a task that matters and they want to do well. Second, is also fulfills an educational purpose as well. "Well-designed and well implemented project-based learning is meaningful in both ways," says McIntyre.

The 7 Essentials for PBL:

1. A Need To Know
2. A Driving Question
3. Student Voice and Choice
4. 21st Century Skills
5. Inquiry and Innovation
6. Feedback and Revision
7. A Publicly Presented Product

Project Based Learning for Teacher by Tony Vincent provided an interesting lesson about Project Based Learning. It featured what student will be doing in PBL and it includes: having a purpose, addressing an audience, creating a driving question, identifying learning standards, creating a rubric, grouping students, brainstorming, meeting deadlines, focusing on the process, and refining the end product. This is all while students have a voice and a choice in their learning. This is not only helpful in school but in the real world in the future as well because PBL is so hands on and the students learn things on their own. Teaching these techniques and skills at an early age will form very good habits in and outside the classroom!

What Motivates Students Today? This video interviews a few students about what motivates them to do well in school. These students talked about how school supplies, brownie points, pizza parties, stickers, and even compliments from the teachers on their work are all things that motivate them to do well. One of the students talked about how when his teacher gives him positive feedback on his work he feels like he accomplished something and gives him confidence, which leads him to continue to do those things every time. Some other students also talked about how they want to live a good life when they grow up, so they make good grades now to be successful later on in what they do in life. What I have learned from experience and this video is to reward students when they accomplish something or do well in something because that leads to them being motivated in school and to do well.

Two Students Solve the Problem of Watery Ketchup By Designing A New Cap is a video about two high school students from North Liberty High School who were partnered up in their software design class to research and develop a bottle cap that prevents the first squirt of ketchup from being a huge watery mess. The students used a 3-D printer to create a new cap to where you can eliminate the need of shaking the bottle. How they go upon by doing this is they use Project Lead the Way, which is a program that takes a hands-on and project-based approach to STEM education for not only high school but elementary and middle school and as well.

Project Based Learning in PE is an article written by high school students to middle school students about a physical fitness program that the high schools had the opportunity to create. This project is very beneficial to both groups of students and it presents some great ideas to the PE participants. Some ways that it is beneficial are creating different programs to help the student focus on practicing physical fitness, also the ideas of collaboration, teamwork, and most of all role modeling. I think this is a great way to engage all students in fitness and actually learn something from the experience!

Using PBL is very beneficial for both students and teacher because everybody is learning in the process! All of these videos and articles have been very helpful for me towards my teaching career!