Blog Post #9

What can teachers and students teach us about Project Based Learning?


7 Essentials for PBL is one resource that every teacher could use the knowledge about. When talking about projects, there are efficient and non-efficient ways of going about accomplishing them. A project is meaningful if it meets two criteria:

1. The students must perceive the work as personally meaningful.
2. It must fulfill an educational purpose.

As the title says in the same resource, there are seven essential elements of meaningful projects:


1. A Need to Know

• "Teachers can powerfully activate students need to know content by launching a project with an "entry event" that engages interest and initiates questioning. "
• "Many students find school work to be meaningless because they don't have a need to perceive."
• Giving the students a compelling project gives them a need to know.

2. A Driving Question

• Captures the heart of a project in a clear, compelling language in the form of open-ended, complex, and proactive.
• The question can be abstract, concrete, or focused on solving a problem.
• Going without a driving question, is like writing an essay with no thesis statement.

3. Student Voice and Choice

• "Although on the limited choice scale, the learners can select a topic to study within a driving question or choose how to create, design, or present product."
• Students feel the project is more meaningful when they have a say in the project.

4. 21st Century Skills 

• Projects should give students an opportunity to collaborate, communicate, think critically, and use technology which will help them in the work place and life.

5. Inquiry and Innovation

• Students conduct real inquiry which means they follow a trail that begins with own questions which leads to search for resources and discovery of answers, and often leads to generating new questions, testing ideas, and drawing their own conclusions.
• It also involves innovation, with a new question, product, and solution, independently.

6. Feedback and Revision

• Makes learning meaningful because it emphasizes creating quality products and purposes. Students must understand everything is not perfect the first time.
• Frequent feature of the real world.
• Use rubrics and other criteria on students products.

7. Publicly Presented Product

• More meaningful when presented to an audience, not just the teacher.

In Tony Vincent's PBL for Teachers, he creates a presentation on what PBL consists of. He describes that Project Based Learning has students working over an extended period of answering a driving question that is deep and requires students to complete an end product to share their learning with others. Tony says Common Core Standards are the WHAT, which means it is: evidence based, filled with rigorous content, aligned with college and work expectations, clear and understandable, and applicable of knowledge. Project Based Learning is the HOW, which means it is: inquiry based, open ended, problem solving, and personalized. Just as the first article mentioned, students learn collaborative skills, communication skills, critical thinking and career life skills. Technology plays a role in PBL. He lists plenty of examples, such as: Xtranormal, PowerPoint, Zooburst, Popplet, Glogster, Meeting Words, record MP3, Edmodo, Google Docs, Prezi, Qwiki, Blabberize, Pic Collages, Educreations, QR Codes, Pixton, Linoit, SchoolTube, Skype, pen.10, Dropbox, iPiccy, Go Animate, PBworks, Posterous, Class Dojo, Dabbleboard, Movie Maker, Screenr, Rubistar, and Google. This long list gives endless possibilities of opportunities to involve PBL in the classroom and gives options to applicate to the real world at the same time. While technology plays a vital role, students are more vital because they take charge in Project Based Learning. In the video, Tony quotes Einstein, "I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which I can learn."Lastly, Tony notes PBL involves a purpose, addressing an audience, crafting a driving question, identifying learning standards, creating a rubric, grouping students, brainstorming branching questions, meeting deadlines, focusing on the process, and refining the end product. PBL does all of this while also letting students have a voice and choice in the lesson. No wonder school systems are switching over to PBL. Students are more involved and are learning how to apply their lessons in the real world as well.

PBL: What motivates students today? is a video made by Susan Ball asking students questions about school. Students noted some thoughts of what motivates them. One student said when a teacher congratulates them or honors their work in the classroom, it makes them feel good and accomplished. Another student mentions what motivates them to do well in school is that they want to do well in life. They have goals of getting a house and a job to provide for their family in the future. On the same topic, another student says what motivates them is making good grades so they can get into college. College opens up all sorts of doors to the future and is almost required nowadays to make it by. Lastly, another student notes what motivates him to do well in school is his mom. Without good grades, she takes away fun things and that's the last thing this student wants taken away from him. Then Susan asked the students what rewards work for them in the classroom. Many students say they get specific things, each day of the week depending on how well they do in class that week. They gave examples of Music Monday and Wacky Facts Wednesday. Other students said they like food, candy, brownie points, and paper money to spend on prizes at the end of the week. Although this video is a couple of years old, these rewards still seem to work in the classroom. These ways still help motivate students in the classroom.


10 Sites Supporting the Digital Classroom is as it sounds. Mike Gorman made a list of ten sites that would be helpful to teachers in the classroom.

1. Titan Pad- is used for collaboration and sharing a document; simplistic Google Doc as Gorman says.
2. Wall Wisher- Gorman describes it like collaborating virtual post-it notes on a virtual wall.
3. Corkboardme- Gorman says it's like Wall Wisher but can be used to support group collaborative projects.
4. Google Docs-  Gorman gave the free school version.
5. Microsoft Live- online collaboration tools, again Gorman gave the school link.
6. Today's Meet- Gorman describes this website to run a back channel for the classroom. It gives isolated room for the teachers and students.

7. Will you Type with me- same opportunities as Titan Pad. It also has the ability to import additional files including Word, HTML, and PDF, according to Gorman. It also allows output to same files along with OpenDoc, Plain Text, and Wordle.
8. Linoit- described as electronic classroom display board. Teachers or students can leave the classroom and it can be visible anywhere on any computer. You can create it in minutes using multi-colored post-it notes, pictures, drawings, weblinks, and videos. Students can also contribute by being given a URL.
9. Skype in Education- Gorman says this is a way to bring experts into the classroom.
10. Quick Screen Share- pretty self explanatory, gives the ability to share a screen.


PBL in High School English and Math shows one school's transformation to implementing PBL into their system. The school focused on the subjects of Math and English because people don't think to use PBL in them as much. English teachers mentioned it was harder for literature because authentic problems are philosophical questions and going beyond that is a challenge. But the teachers questioned, "How do we give students more?" In English classes, before PBL, it was all about the text but now it is about engaging with texts as writers themselves. In one lesson, a teacher was giving a PBL project on Weisels' Night, where the students were asked to look at the consequences of remaining silence. Along with that they were asked to apply it by researching groups in the same context. They were asked to see beyond how the groups broke from silence as the author did. PBL changes the teachers, but especially the students perspective on the subject and what it entails. The teachers are currently trying to figure out what works best with trial and error. The teachers also mention that they are not switching every lesson and unit to PBL. They just apply where they feel is necessary and useful. In the math department, the teachers were focusing on the lesson of probability. With this, they gave their students opportunities to make games of their choice as long as it followed guidelines. They found it to be very successful for the students. Overall, the school has seen enormous outcomes already for PBL and see why the change was necessary.