1. Project Based Learning and
Google Apps Day
Sturgeon School Division

2. Let’s Get Creative Task - How can I and others refer to your group?
Some Rules:
No person can touch the pen to write the name
No person can touch the paper while writing the name
Only one person can speak while writing the name
Only one person can see while writing the name
Table Facilitators are there to support you in your task.
What is needed is a marker, a piece of 11x17 paper, duct tape, blindfolds.

3. Presentations of Names
Reflect upon the following:
What did you learn from doing this task?
What did you learn from other groups?
What was the strength of your presentation/outcome?
What could you have done better?
What did you enjoy most doing this task?

4. Project Based Learning
What is it?
A way to pull students through the curriculum by using a meaningful question to explore, an engaging real-world problem to solve, or design a challenge to meet.
Key notes to remember here:
1. In education we tend to push. Push information out to students, have them do something like a worksheet, test, essay or questions and then push the information back to us to assess how well they were able to take in the information. PBL forces students to be more independant to find the information needed to answer those questions. Less reliance on us to the sole source of information.

5. Essential Elements of PBL
Significant Content
21st Century Skills
In-depth Inquiry
Driving Question
Need to Know
Voice and Choice
Revision and Reflection
Public Audience
Key things:
1. Significant Content - There is a role for direct instruction in PBL. The project is focused on important knowledge and skills derived from outcomes and key concepts that students have no other way to learn. Students NEED teachers to teach them at times.
2. 21st Century Skills - I hate the term. We are 14 years in. This is education today and we’ve also taught those same skills in different ways throughout education. Critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, communication. Look at our name task. Did you not use those four skills? I could have lectured to you about solving the problem but instead forced you to figure it out.
3. Students are engaged in a rigorous, extended process of asking questions using resources (online and/or paper), and developing answers. Lends itself really well to Bring Your Own Device initiatives as students will need access to information quickly.
4. Driving Question - OPen ended question student students must explore or captures the task they are completing. Whatever they do relates to this.
5. Need to Know - the need to gain knowledge, understand conepts and aooly skills to create project product(s). Entry Event generates interest and curiosity.
6. Voice and Choice - students are allowed to make some choices about the products they create, how they work, how they use their time guided by the teacher (and level of PBL experience).
7. Revision and Reflection - feedback is structured in the process to allow for additions and changes to improve the quality of their work and to think about what and how they are learning.
8. Students present their work to more than just the teacher and classmates. Lends itself well to web based portfolios, school wide events and puts some accountability onto students that what they do is more than just for a mark.

6. So the Pen Task Significant Content? Not so much. Just an outcome
21st Century Skills? Tons
In-depth inquiry? Did you in your groups?
Driving Question? Open Ended Question?
Need to Know? Did you not wonder how to do the task?
Voice and Choice? No prescribed way to do it
Revision and Reflection? Your facilitator was there. You may have also talked to your group about the task.
Public Audience? You gave me your names.

7. PBL is...
Is not about the “final project” but about working through the concepts/learning to get to the projects or final project.

8. Is not about structuring tasks throughout a theme or unit but about a set of learning opportunities that guide students to answer the central question, problem or challenge.

9. Is not about “making something” but on creating learnings (physical or online) that focus on research, reading, writing, discussion and oral presentation.

10. Role of the Teacher
You are no longer center stage. You facilitate the learning with your skills and your background knowledge.
You are not the content expert. There is way more out there in greater depth and with much more ways to explain things than you can ever provide to students. The task is to filter that.
Your students will not have be employed later on in life where they get to sit there for six to eight hours a day to listen to someone. They are asked to do something.
Your role: manager of the inquiry process (includes direct teaching), assessor of learning and master of logistics

11. Step 1 - Let’s Get Started
Ask yourself four questions
What are the outcomes of your course.
What is happening you in your/your student’s community that may merit investigation relating to the outcomes.
What is interesting and relevant to your students that align to the outcomes?
What happens in the world outside of school that are faced by others?
These four questions should get the wheels started to develop a PBL project. In other words, you don’t just go to your outcomes but look at all aspects of your outcomes and then how to teach them. This goes beyond knowledge based outcomes but ones that require them to understand the more complex ones - in depth understanding or application of their learning. These are the best outcomes for your project.

12. Know Where You Are Going
What are the outcomes you are selecting?
Choose 1-3 outcomes only
Go for the “big” ones - ones identified as having greatest assessment in things like PATs or Diplomas
Select 21st Century Skills
Select two of: collaboration, presentation, critical thinking and problem solving
Best to choose collaboration and presentation for your first project.
Page 37 PB: Starter Kit to photocopy
Page PBL Starter Kit

13. Decide on the Scope of the Project
What requirements do you live with?
What time frame do you operate in?
What is your classroom like?
What are your students like?
Recommendation for first project
2-3 weeks in duration (or hours of class time)
Limited complexity and number of student projects/tasks
Classroom based instead of community based
1. Are there common assessments at the same time? Department syllabi? School mission or theme (service project)? School/division priorities?
2. School calendar? Class length? Access to technology? Access to community resources? Timetable? Access to colleagues?
3. Is your classroom functional and flexible? Can you redesign the layout to allow for collaboration?
4. Can they handle the reading levels you may be asking them to use? Do you have to differentiate for some students? Can your students go out into the community? Can you ask them to bring in technology into your classroom to make connections? Can they work outside of school hours? Would they be willing to participate in real world scenarios? Are you allowing for this type of learning to take place?

14. “Why are we doing this?” The Driving Question Characteristics
Provocative or challenging
Open-ended and/or complex
Linked to the core of what you want students to learn
Handout Page 41

15. The Tubric
Let’s build a tubric

16. Time to Work

17. Step 2 - Planning and Preparing
Creating
Deciding
Arranging
Handout Page in PBL Starter Kit

18. Planning and Preparing
Selecting the Culuminating Product(s)
You can have more than one summative assessment in the project
Assess content knowledge more than the way the project is delivered
21st Century Skill assessment
Rubrics for: Presentation, Collaboration, Journals or learning logs, self-report, peer report
Entry Event - How will you get students “into” the project

19. Who will see the student’s work?
Students in the classroom? Other students? Adults at school? Other adults? The local community? Global community?
Avoid death by presentation!

20. Formative Assessment
Plan backwards from your culminating product to guideposts of learning to determine your formative assessments.
Mix of direct instruction and other lessons, time to practice skills, independent work time all directed towards answering the main question
Use some time in each class to at least allow students to think about or make connection to the main question
Allow for the use of any materials that will allow the learning to take place (so long as it addresses the main question)

21. What kind of assessments should/could I use?
Assessing content knowledge
Assessing specific skills
Assessing student work including their inquiry skills
Assessing process skills
1. quiz, quick writeups to explain concepts, homework assignments, (these are not assignments that are directly tied to a page of a book - ex Read page and answer 5-7). It always relates to the main question.
2. Skills relate to project work - technology, equipment, graphic design, math skills, recording data, practice skills to provide feedback. Again, they relate to the main question.
3. Interm products - list of questions they are researching and they may have developed, resource lists and notes, concepts maps, rough drafts, learning logs or journals, plans, prototypes and preliminary drawings, website maps, storyboards or slides, practice presentations.
4. Observe how groups work and collaborate, talk to group members, hold meetings with group leaders, how are students managing time and tasks, status reports

22. Creating Rubrics Each culminating product has its own rubric
Separate content from skills and 21st century skills
Show the students the rubrics early in the project (and if you have an exemplar with the associated rubric)
Focus on the content more than the “presentation”

23. A Project Calendar
Share a Google Calendar
Provide a calendar and post it in the classroom

24. Materials Must have materials include Rubrics for each major product
Rubric for 21st Century skills
Project Management Logs: Group Tasks
Project Group Contract
Project Work Report: Individual
Project Work Report: Group

25. Optional Resource List of readings etc
Research Log or log on how students spend all their time
Note taking guides
Notice materials are not there - they may be determined more by student demand than by student need. Imagine how many copies are made that are never read?

26. Preparing Students for PBL
Two words: Independance and Inquiry
Biggest Challenge - How do you take a student who has been accustomed to traditional deliver adjust to a PBL focus?
Thinking about a driving question
No single right answer to the driving question
Question themselves, the material, the teacher
Find resources
Work collaboratively
Present and defend ideas

27. Some thoughts on Inquiry and Independence
Practice team building exercises (like our game)
Practice time and project management, collaboration and cooperation skills in shorter activities
Practice and learn group roles
Processes for decision making
How to divide tasks appropriately
How to self and peer assess

28. Grading No single grade for the entire project
Assign a grade for each product of performance
Include a mix of individually earned and group earned grades and record them separately
Separate content from 21st century skills
You can then focus on the material and how they got there separately.

29. Groupings Recommendations You, not the students, choose group members
Although you can allow input into the group decision making
Four is the most effective group size
Heterogenous groupings are best
Students will ask about working with friends
1. No. Groups have been assigned for good reasons and you would be willing to meet with students to discuss them afterwards
2. No. Sometimes friends will have difficulty working with each other and then issues arise in the friendship and yet you are still in the same class
3. No. Working with different people is what happens in the job place so doing it here is important - to develop the skill of working with a team

30. Materials Three points Have everything ready well in advance
Don’t carve your plan in stone - you never know what your students will come up with
You don’t have to provide everything!

31. Time to Work

32. Step 3 - Management Big Challenge to Teachers When do you let go Trust
Imagine teaching your child to ride a bike. At what point do you let go so they ride on their own?
Trust
How do you trust that students will do a good job? And what do you do to help them get back on path?

33. Beginning the Process Present the driving question Analyze the task(s)
Identify the resources a student may use
Explain the details
Have students meet in their groups
Engage in a “need to know” discussion
Ask what they need to know about the project
Knowledge based, processes, materials etc
Do not answer any knowledge based questions

34. Managing Group Collaboration
Critical to make PBL successful
Discuss what working effective means
Show rubrics for collaboration skills
Students sign a contract with expectations
Provide a “task list” or “project work plan” to help organization
Clear directions for brainstorming - frame the learning

35. On a regular basis, have student report their progress or if using Google Apps, view their collaborative processes
Use checkpoints on the calendar to see where they are at
Monitoring at a distance (let them learn)
Use team leaders and meet with them at least once
Intervene quickly when groups have disfunction and have them come up with solutions

36. Keeping Track of Student Work
Online
Use Google Apps or website creation
Hard Copy
Use folders with group names
Use the inside covers to attach dates and key information
Checkin and checkout to know when materials are being used

37. Coaching Inquiry How do students “think” hard?
Model for them what it means. It may be the first time they have been asked to do this
Students will ask for answers instead of asking questions
Do students know what “critical thinking” actually means and how to do it?
Does your driving question, tasks and products ask students to dig deep?
Multiple choice, fill in the blank don’t do this

38. Facilitating Presentations
You are the host - define what you want to see
Time for the presentation, what the audience will do, how the audience is to act, and what role they play.
You are the assessor
Don’t be dazzled by technology. Remember the content
Ask, ask and ask more questions

39. Work Time

40. Step 4 - Reflection How do you celebrate success?
Students need to reflect upon their learning
You can use self and peer assessments to include as your own assessments
Use your data to think about what students learned
Ask students for feedback - what should you do differently?
Teachers need to reflect upon their own learning and the project
Collect Exemplars

41. Step 5 - Next Project? What would a next project look like?
When would you do it?
Decide if you want to do another project

42. Important Links Buck Institute - http://bie.org/
Online Project Planner -
Resources -
Good Articles on Driving Question -