Project Based Learning - My Thoughts & Reflections
In the book “Street Data” by Shane Shafir & Jamala Dugan talk in detail about the importance of fostering agency in students in order to instill the skills they need to be successful in our ever-changing world. They define agency as “the idea that people have the capacity to take action, craft and carry out plans, and make informed decisions based on a growing base of knowledge.”
A pedagogical approach to allowing agency is Project Based Learning (PBL). This is the idea that students can explore and research a problem and work together to determine a possible solution to that problem. Through this active, adaptive, and collaborative process, students are able to learn how to think critically about the world around them while also understanding their class content on a deeper level. Learn more about PBL here.
I’ll admit, the open-ended and constantly changing nature of PBL was intimidating at first (especially as a type-a, always planned teacher). However, the level of excitement, engagement, and learning that goes on in the classroom was irrefutable. The first time I explored PBL with my students, I posed the problem of our growing population. While we were researching solutions to food shortages across the world and lack of space for farming in many areas, we decided to learn more about hydroponics. Our students worked together to research, design, build and test their own hydroponics designs. After testing, we gave them the opportunity to make improvements. While we completed this project, students were learning about plant growth, photosynthesis, respiration, and all the other content that is determined by the classroom standards. We participated in this project early in the year, many students still recall it as their favorite activity we did in science at the end of the year.
However, there were two components missing from our project based learning experiment. The first came to mind while reading Street Data. In chapter 5, they discuss this idea of pedagogy of voice. It is described as a teaching method that “shifts the locus of learning and power to the student,” (107). One integral part of the pedagogy of voice is to “make learning public,” (114). The goal of this facet is to give students the avenue to share the knowledge they are building in order to create authentic learning experiences for students. In this respect, we did not give students the opportunity to share their designs with the greater school community.
The other missing piece of the puzzle was brought to my attention after reading this blog post about “Using Genius Hour Projects to Help Students Find Meaning.” The main distinction between these projects and mine is student voice and student choice. Both of our projects challenged students to solve a problem, but the one mentioned in the blog post allowed students to pick their own “passion projects.” My specific project gave students the problem that needed to be fixed. I wonder what would have happened if students could pick their own problem that they observed? What if they found a problem in their community that connects to the content. If my students were given the agency to explore something that they are passionate about, they would find more ways to make strong connections to the project and to the content.
If I thought Project-Based Learning was unpredictable and intimidating, this will bring it to a whole new level. However, as they say in Street Data, “move with a mindset of courage” and don’t be afraid to try new things!
I agree that project based learning was intimidating because it is doing something new and different and taking a lot of ownership of learning from teachers and giving it to students. I think that the hydroponics unit you taught through PBL, allowed for your students to begin that process of taking ownership. This could be your model into Using Genius Hour Projects to Help Students Find Meaning because it would allow your students to learn how to learn on their own. This is probably the first time in their educational life that they were given an opportunity to learn on their own, and not having teachers be their sole resource of information. They will need learning opportunities to make that shift from sole teacher resource to teachers being facilitators and guiding their learning. Once they have the PBL system down, the Genius Hour Project is the next step, which teaches them to find something they are passionate about. I bet the Hydroponics unit lit passion in your students as they probably didn't really know about the food shortage and land shortage problem our world is facing.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of moving with a mindset of courage is so motiving and empowering not only for students but for us as educators as well.
DeleteWhen my former district used PBL many, many, years ago it was intimidating. I feel it was like that for me because I truly did not understand the benefits behind it and the learning opportunities that can come from it.
Thank you for this summary! I have also been learning a lot about Project-Based Learning. It aligns really nicely with the changes in instruction that the program I support is engaging in right now. We are moving toward integrated literacy content in social studies and science unit studies. The inquiry-based approach is intimidating to many of the teachers I support, and I understand their feelings around it. I think once teachers understand the "why" to project-based learning, they need time to learn strategies and explore opportunities to be able to implement. My greatest fear that gets repeated often in our work is that teachers will be asked to carry out a mission with amazing potential but provided minimal training that is quickly faded out. The negativity that arises after those experiences makes it very difficult to work through the process. I remain hopeful that shifts will come and I hope to be a part of them!
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