Today as we broke into our small groups, I found it interesting to note that three of our members were from elementary schools and thcompleting ree from middle and high schools. This was exciting to me because this indicates that project based learning has a place in Kindergarten to grade twelve education and I find that best practices in teaching are often applicable in many teaching environments. This also means that I better do a very good job at implementing this type of learning with my students so that they are capable of projects in this manner as this is something that they will be doing for the rest of their educational careers if not the rest of their lives.
Our group had a good discussion about the International Baccalaureate program as Jenny teaches in an IB school. It was good to hear that this type of learning can actually be effective in a classroom setting. We didn’t, however, get to much of a discussion about technology in this type of setting. I can see the possibilities of using technology to enhance these types of projects, both as a research tool but also as a presentation tool. I am curious if students get in a technology rut and if given a chance they would always present in the same format ie. video or if they would be self motivated to try a blog one time, a video the next, a cartoon the next etc.
Project based learning does have a variety of resources on line. The above image shows an outline of the PLB framework. This PBL site seems to have good resources available (http://pbl-online.org/) and a good outline of what PBL is. I am wondering if there is a way that I could set up some sort of forum within our school district SharePoint where people could share unit ideas and ideas about how PBL is working in their classrooms. I wonder if my forum has to be restricted to SharePoint because as the one go to place for all members of our district, perhaps people would be more inclined to contribute rather than having to check two different places. Perhaps people would be happy to check two different places if the information was valuable enough?
Great work, Lisa! With regards to technology and inquiry learning, I would add communicating as a part of the technological experience. Researching, communicating, and presenting. Also, something that doesn’t get discussed much, but there are design processes that are used to conceive, design, construct, and present information. It would be easy to get into a technological rut – ie. using the same technology, the same format, the same structure, etc. But there is also the possibility of using different combinations of technology with art activities to develop dynamic, unique, innovative expressions of learning. I think this is a part of the inquiry learning unit that needs attention.
You bring up a good point, about setting up district wide collaborative networks using online resources. It really depends on the cultures of ICT use in the district. Are TLs in your district using Sharepoint already? Are they in the habit of going online and communicating through that platform? Are they using email? Are they using Twitter? These are professional practices that you can identify and then discuss whether there might be room for improvement or if there is an existing use of network resources that can be adapted to facilitate problem-based learning collaboration.