day 1

Today, we had day 1 of our PBL training.  It was the kind of staff development that makes you think. And that's a good thing. 
I won't get into much of it here today because I'm waiting to see what the next two days will bring before I talk too much about it.  I also won't get into much because my colleague @sraspanglish has beaten me to the proverbial punch with her great post on day 1 of our Buck Institute ( @biepbl) training.  You can read her post here: http://sraspanglish.blogspot.com/2012/06/buck-institute-day-1-deliverable.html
She did a great job showing the cool kinds of #pbl training that we are receiving and the thinking processes involved.
I won't post my project here because, to be honest with you, it pales in comparison to the exciting project she has described. Also, because I can't seem to wrap my head around what I want the students to do.
I'm going to let this one stew for another night while I collect my thoughts.  But a quick takeaway from today.
#1. The learning must be authentic.  Which means, why do the students WANT to do the project?  Have you hooked them with a great driving question?  Does the driving question lead to more questions?  Are they intrigued by the question?  Are they intrigued by the product?  There must be a real world application somewhere, somehow and the students must see it.

Comments

Unknown said…
Besides the sweet talk, of course, I really like the point about how driving questions must lead to more questions. That was indeed a revelation!
June 25, 2012 at 11:17 PM
Anonymous said…
dkjfdjjkd
January 4, 2013 at 2:46 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

back to school

ok, so i know i have been slack in the posting department as of the last few days but it is because we haven't been in school. we had the martin luther king holiday off on monday and then tuesday and wednesday we were off because of the semester change. so today, we are back. in full force. ready to kick some butt. we have spent the last two days grading and planning and trying to gauge where we are with regard to our school improvement plan. in other words, busy, very busy. now the students are back with us and all the gnashing of teeth (jw speak) and complaints and soul searching between the teachers have taken a back seat to the needs of the kids. this is one of the neat things about this school. i work with a staff that is full of hardworking, caring people. we look at our ourselves, self assess, judge where we are and how we are going to get where we want to go. there is a lot of self-doubt and passion and general craziness as we strive to be better teachers in a bet...
Read more

Life moves pretty fast

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."- Ferris Bueller I was thinking about that great philosopher Ferris Bueller earlier today. I was reflecting on a conversation that I had this past Friday with our school superintendent, associate superintendent, personnel director, and IT administrator. Our school principal was kind enough to join me and support me. The topic of the conversation was the school district's recent decision to block facebook and twitter on all school employee computers. I had requested the meeting and the assembled district staff had been gracious enough to hear me out. I will spare you all the details of the meeting except to say that I have the utmost respect for everyone there and that our discussion was wide ranging, free flowing, and ultimately concerned with what was best for teachers and students. Every time I talk to the people at the district office I am impressed with how much they ...
Read more

facebook (or the social web)

i read and hear a lot about social networking these days. you know, all the cool kids are doing it. the kids have myspaces, and facebooks, and nings and maybe even a few of them twitter and skype. but the majority of teachers out there don't do any of these things. i understand the reluctance of teachers to get involved. there is so much of a demand on the time of teachers already. but i wonder how much of it is also just a flat-out refusal to learn something new on the part of some people. you would think that teachers would be the first in line when there is learning to be done. unfortunately this is not always the case. i also wonder where the line should be drawn between students and teachers. many teachers have no problems letting students into their on-line world. i personally, do not add students as friends on facebook or whatever until they are no longer students. a class ning of course would be excepted from this but i can't have a class ning because we block ...
Read more