Blog Post #9

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

For this blog post, we were required to read an article and watch a few videos to see the importance of Project-Based Learning. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised with what I took in from all of this information and in my future classroom, I hope to have many areas in which I can emphasize the importance of PBL. So, to answer the question, teachers and students can relay to us their thoughts about PBL because they've experienced it firsthand. If we ever become discouraged, we can refer to these videos to see how PBL is changing the future for the better. Students enjoy it because they can create their own material and instead of it being busywork, it becomes "fun" for them because they have a voice in their projects! For many teachers that are older, they'll say that it's tough and that it's a huge mental shift but they're mostly liking it because PBL does provide these students with an in-depth experience of the knowledge they're retaining.

In Seven Essential for Project-Based Learning, I read about the process behind PBL and expanded my knowledge on why it is so important to let students engage their creativity through PBL! Seven points were made in this article and they include:

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

 The first point made basically made you understand why a student needs to have an item or scenario that captivates them and grabs their attention by making them become interested in what they're about to research. When you've got a class full of students who are ready to learn, you definitely need an "entry event," to produce interest. Instead of passing out a pack of papers, let the students know that what they're about to take on is more than just producing a mere poster. The second point mentioned to include a "driving question" and it should be precise so it gives your students a sense of challenge. Without a driving question, then what are your students learning? Why are they doing all of this work just to produce a poster? The third point made, which was one that I strongly agree with, is to give the students a voice and a choice. When you give your students a driving question (or encourage them to come up with one of their own), then you'll be able to see your students challenge themselves to do more than they think they're capable of. The point being made of, "the more, the better," is extremely true because rather than leaving a question close-ended, it's of utmost importance to leave the question open-ended so that they can get creative and produce results that you may not even know are possible. The next four points somehow coincide with one another by saying that it's critical that your students learn these skills so that they can be successful in the future, their inquisitive minds can be put to the test by letting them get outside of the classroom to get questions answered by professionals, they're able to collaborate with their peers to give feedback and provide educated answers, and they're able to display their work to an audience and take pride in what they've done. Although the end product of their project is a poster, they stepped outside of the classroom to get that information and they're proud of the work they accomplished and the information they gained from that silly poster!

After viewing Project-Based Learning for Teachers, I added this information to information that I've already retained about PBL. The main point of this video was providing a driving question for your students so that they can understand what they're doing and why they're doing it. Collaboration, communication, and critical thinking skills were three things mentioned that are vital components of PBL. Think about it for a minute or two-- in your future workplace, you're collaborating with your co-workers to produce better outcomes or to resolve a conflict; while you're trying to resolve this conflict, you're also communicating with your co-workers and for a situation to get resolved, you must be able to communicate clearly with your co-workers; finally, if the situation gets out of hand, you need to resort to your critical thinking skills and put those to good use to solve the situation. I said all that to say that PBL is essential to the future of our students!


PBL: What Motivates Students was a video conducted by three people to see things from a student's perspective. The first student said that he liked when he gets recognized for good work and that gives him boost of self-confidence. When you use positive reinforcement, you'll see that your students respond more to that than by just giving them negative feedback. Although sometimes negative feedback is needed, you should tell them what they've done correctly first so that they don't adopt the mentality of completely failing what they were told to complete. Incentives are also a good way to get the attention of students because when you provide an incentive for them do well, they'll work toward that goal and when they've achieved it, they know they're going to be rewarded for it. I know this fact to be all too true because I witnessed it in my mother's fifth grade classroom- she would give them tickets each time they were caught doing something well and at the end of each week, they got to go into the "treasure chest" and get something from it. In higher grades, these types of incentives may not work; in my 10th grade History class, our teacher provided us with an incentive that if the class as a whole averaged an 80 on his midterm, we would take a field trip to Fort Gaines. If class time was left after each day, we'd study together as a class; after the midterm, he announced that the class average surpassed the 80 by reaching an average of 86! We worked together to achieve a goal and it payed off.

Two Students Solve the Case of the Watery Ketchup by Designing a New Cap:
This video was so neat! As a future science teacher, it makes me excited to such enthusiasm from high-school students. Although they displayed their love for ketchup, it was absolutely evident that they really put their minds to work on this project. This all relates back to giving the students a choice and voice. As you can see through this video, they brainstormed ideas, spent a week on research, and made a prototype to display their hard work. These two gentlemen collaborated and came up with a new type of invention to prevent the ketchup from being watery when it left the bottle. Their collaboration and end product was something to be truly proud of and I hope my students are the same way in the future!

***(I looked this video up on my own):
 PBL: Chemical Reactions 2013

This young man was showing everyone what would happen when you mixed chemicals and he did it very well. From what I can see, he spent a lot of time getting his terminology correct and when the reaction took place, he immediately began to explain what was going on and why it was happening. I chose this video because I want to teach chemistry and it really fascinated me to see this student so excited about his experiment. When you’re a visual learner, this makes life a whole lot easier because you’re able to see what’s happening and you’re able to revert back to this (or any) video to make sense of the problem!