The Value of Project-based Learning - a solid gold learning nugget

Project-based learning (PBL) is the process whereby students take control of their own learning by participating in group projects.  There is a difference, however, between assigning projects and project-based learning.  A project is an assignment usually added at the end of a unit to strengthen the knowledge learned through traditional educational methods like direct instruction, such as creating a model of the solar system following a unit on that topic.  Project-based learning, on the other hand, poses a specific goal that the students must meet throughout the unit.  Guidelines for completion and grading rubrics are given to the students.  From start to finish, the student knows what is expected and how to attain the goal, and subsequently, their grade.  PBL allows for continuous feedback from the teacher while the students work within their groups.  The unit usually ends with a classroom presentation so everyone can learn from each group's efforts.  And the best part is that not all presentations or product creations are the same.  You don’t have 25 solar system models around the room!

So, how are PBL units organized?  The teacher chooses 4-6 topics related to the unit.  Then the students are divided into the same number of groups.  Within those groups, 3-5 mini-projects guide the students to understand their topic and prepare them to present it to their class.  A week or so later, when all the students have completed their “tasks,” they explain their section of the topic to the rest of the class.  Do you see what happened here?  The students do all he work and all you have to do is the prep for each group.  AND, once you get the groups prepared and the tasks written, you can use this system from year to year!

Benefits to students

Aside from the obvious benefit of learning the PBL topic of the week, your students learn a number of other valuable life skills.

·       Cooperation – When students work in groups, they learn to cooperate with each other.  They can divide up tasks according to group members’ interests and abilities.  They learn to accept that other students may not be as skilled at certain tasks as others. 

·       Time management – When a PBL deadline is posted in the front of the room, students learn to divide up their time so that the project assignments can be done on time (with the threat of grade deductions looming if they are late!) They also learn that certain tasks take more time than others and would therefore deserve more attention, and perhaps even work at home to complete it.

·       Public speaking - On presentation day, students learn public speaking skills.  When they are prepared with their PBL activities, they are more likely to feel confident in front of the room explaining their section of the unit to the rest of the class.

·       Enhanced learning – Remember the learning pyramid?  People of all ages retain 90% of what they learned when they teach others.  If the students know ahead of time that they will be presenting their topic to the class, they will be more inclined to complete the tasks so they look good in front of their peers.

Benefits to teachers

If you are fortunate enough to have PBL activities included with your curriculum guide, you are among the lucky teachers who can lift the projects from the teacher’s guide and hand them out to the students. Most of us aren’t that lucky! And even if you do have that golden PBL unit in your curriculum guide, the activities may not appeal to you or to the climate of your classroom.  Other alternatives include ordering PBL units from TeachersPayTeachers and creating your own PBL units.  Either way, below are the benefits of using PBL in your classroom.

·       Less work/more learning – With a bit of advance preparation, you can allow your students to work at their own pace.  Your PBL packet for each group increases student learning of the topic without you standing in front of the room providing direct instruction.

·       An energized classroom – When students work in groups to solve a problem, answer a question, or create a 3-D or digital project, they become more engaged in their learning.  Boredom disappears as if by magic. Sit back for a moment and watch your students being actively engaged in their own education!

·       Ready-made lesson plans – With PBL, you can lift the objectives directly from the project guidelines for the students and drop them into your plan book.  You don’t need to list all the topics you will be covering and the manner in which you will do so.  The students do all this for you.  How great is that!!

In conclusion, I offer you this quote: "Two major new gold-standard studies conducted by researchers from the University of Southern California and Michigan State University, provide compelling evidence that project-based learning is an effective strategy for all students, outperforming traditional curricula not only for high achieving students, but across grade levels and racial and socioeconomic groups.”  Go here for more information: https://www.edutopia.org/article/new-research-makes-powerful-case-pbl

Look at my collection of Project-based Learning units on TeachersPayTeachers.  I think you’ll find a topic of interest for your classes.  They range from state histories (all 50 + DC) to middle school social studies to Women’s History Month: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/My-Products/category:534947  Each is designed for 4-5 groups of 3-4 students.  Each tasks students to complete their assignments within a certain time frame.  Each has a variety of activities within each group: Develop a presentation, answer questions, research a topic, create a game, write an interview script, etc.  All groups have links to helpful Internet sources, so your students don’t waste time googling the information. AND, many of my PBL resources also ask the students who have finished their topic to go help those who are struggling to complete theirs.  It’s a win-win classroom where everyone cooperates to learn the topic you have chosen.  Also check out my FREE grading rubric for middle school PBL: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Project-Based-Learning-Grading-Rubric-Middle-School-5113042

 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

The Mighty "IF"

 

The word IF is small but powerful.  Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem about it (which, IF you haven’t read it since high school, read it again – it is meaningful even today!).  IF can be a conjunction with several meanings or a noun with only two meanings in Webster’s dictionary.  But to teachers who want to enlarge their students’ world of possibilities for creative writing, I offer you the “Educational IFs” for your students to ponder.  Combine these with my prompts (links below) and you will have a fun time reading a wide variety of stories, essays, and articles from your little learners.  

Ask your students to use one of these IFs in their assignment

• The “Curious IF” – What IF…?  (Example: What IF the snow was green instead of white? How would that change the world?)
• The “Conditional IF” – IF….. then…..  (Example: IF my dog gets into the garbage, then __________- fill in the blank with the many things that could go wrong.)
• The “Dictator IF” – No IFs, ands, or buts! (Example: When my mom told me to clean my room, she told me there would be no IFs, ands or buts.  How would you respond to that?)
• The “Regrettable IF” – IF only…. (Example: IF only I had tied my shoe before I got on my bicycle.  What happened next?)
• The “Sassy IF” – As IF! (Example: When my sister told me she was going to make a million dollars selling lemonade, I said, “As IF!)
• The "Simile IF" - As IF (without the exclamation point) (Example: My notebook fell to the floor, as IF it had a life of its own.)
• The “Sorting IF” – IF any…. (Example: IF any flowers bloom in my garden, I will be pleasantly surprised.)

So, offer your students the possibilities below for their writing assignments, while using one of the IF statements above and watch their creativity soar, as IF their words took wings!

For Middle and High School:

FUN Writing Prompts - Nonfiction - This collection of prompts is in the form of clickable images on PowerPoint interactive slides. Your students will enjoy exploring all the possibilities. (Also available on Google slides HERE)

FUN Writing Prompts - Fiction - This collection of prompts is also in the form of clickable images on PowerPoint interactive slides. Your students will enjoy exploring all the possibilities. (Also available on Google slides HERE)

Valentine's Day Story Starters - No lace or Disney characters in these prompts!

For Elementary and Middle School:

Weekly Visual and Verbal Story Starters -  A set of 40 story starters that will keep your young authors busy all year long with a variety of topics to explore and develop. Each picture also contains a question for your students to answer.

For Elementary School:

180 Picture and Sight Word Prompts - Grade 3 - This collection of 180 picture prompts are arranged on an Avery 30-label template, so you can stick them to your students' journals, or simply print them on plain paper and glue into the journal. They are based on a Dolch sight word list.

180 Picture and Sight Word Prompts - Grade 2 - This collection of 180 picture prompts are arranged on an Avery 30-label template, so you can stick them to your students' journals, or simply print them on plain paper and glue into the journal. They are based on a Dolch sight word li

180 Picture and Sight Word Prompts - Grade 1 - This collection of 180 picture prompts are arranged on an Avery 30-label template, so you can stick them to your students' journals, or simply print them on plain paper and glue into the journal. They are based on a Dolch sight word li

A Retired Teacher's COVID-19 Journey

When I retired as a teacher of high school child development in 2009, I started a journey.  No, not a journey to see every state in the union, although that would have been rather interesting!  It was a journey of self-fulfillment to help the teachers who were still teaching, still over-worked, and still struggling to balance home and school.  Don’t get me wrong – I took plenty of time for my own retirement endeavors, which included sewing, writing, painting, and all the other little things I never had time to pursue when I was teaching.  However, I also did two things that helped me to help the teachers I left behind.

First, I began posting resources on Teachers Pay Teachers.  Initially, I posted many of the resources I had used while I was teaching.  Then, my “store” expanded to include resources that my teacher daughters asked me to create for them.  That included a PowerPoint of state history, which expanded into PowerPoints of every state history!  Then my daughter needed a learning packet for Ancient Rome.  You guessed it, that expanded into Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, and I now have plans for Ancient China.  The list goes on and on.  Some resources were at the request of my daughters. Other resources were from my own interest in a variety of topics.  See all that I have done at my store: All-American Teacher Tools.  I am especially proud of the games I came up with to energize those kids who have been sitting in front of a screen all day.  Check out my Socially Distant Games for Grades 4-8.

Second, I started donating to Donor’s Choose.  I began to plow half of my earnings back into a different way of helping currently teaching educators looking for help.  (The other half goes to supporting my retirement habits – buying paints, fabrics, and sewing supplies!)  Each month I looked for projects that I felt most deserved my support.  First, I started looking for fellow Family Consumer Sciences teachers who were looking for supplies.  I also searched for teachers who wanted sustainable resources, not consumable resources that would only last a year.  Finally, and this is a personal preference, I wanted to be the donor who put those teachers “over the top” by being their last donor to complete their request.  I have always wanted to be wealthy enough to have my own foundation, like Bill Gates.  Since that’s never going to happen, Donor’s Choose is my next best opportunity to give back to those who need my money the most.

So how does this teacher’s journey retrospective relate to COVID-19? When the schools closed and teachers scrambled to prepare remote resources for their students, I wanted to learn what they needed to carry their classes through to the end of the year. (I had no idea at the time, that those needs would continue into the next school year!) My daughters showed me new and interesting platforms I never knew existed, and gave me new vocabulary that I never thought I’d use.  Words like Google Classroom, Slides, and Docs became my best friends.  They were easy to understand.  By the way, I found that it’s very easy to transfer Google Slides into PowerPoint, but the reverse is not so easy!  Next came Google meet and Zoom and screencasting!  Our family used the Google meet app to link up two states and four families into a family chat when travel was not an option.  Thank you, Google!  Then came my newest addiction – Bitmojis and their insertion into the virtual classroom.  What fun that is to help create a background, insert posters, add a Bitmoji character and develop a virtual classroom that is the next best alternative to the real deal.

So that’s the story of my journey to today.  I began teaching in 1971 when purple dittos were still the accepted means of reproducing tests and worksheets.  And blackboards still created chalk dust all over the front of the classroom! Now I know how to develop a Google doc with a form insertion field so students can fill in the blanks. What fun!!

Teaching is a never-ending journey of learning.  I hope I can continue to provide assistance to other teachers who need my limited expertise in remote learning. I say “limited” because my daughters who are developing classes, schedules, and assignments in their remote formats are far more experienced than I will ever be.  I wish them and the rest of you the best that the new school year has to offer – both remotely and in the COVID-19 adapted classroom. 

If you are a retired teacher, I'd love to know what you are doing to help your fellow teachers struggling to cope with remote/hybrid/classroom education.  If you are a current teacher, please let me know how I can help.  I'll give you a resource (if I can!) for free and then post it on Teachers Pay Teachers for a fee!  Its a win-win for everybody 😉

Easy-to-Implement Home Instruction Ideas

When I was in college a bazillion years ago, we were asked to develop a learning packet for home-bound students.  It included readings (which can now be a link to an online source!), activities that could be completed at home with readily available materials, written assignments, and miscellaneous other methods for evaluation (which today can be an online test).  It took several weeks during my methods class to develop that device and I wondered when I would ever use it.  Well, as it turned out, I did have a student who was put on home instruction during my first year teaching.  The work I had put into the learning packet in college, sure came in handy when I was overwhelmed with first-year worries like brand new lesson plans, grading (by hand!) all of my students, and preparing what I needed for the day's lesson.

Many schools now are planning for ways to provide home instruction as a reaction to the coronavirus.  While that's certainly an effective way to prevent the spread, it places an additional burden on already-overworked teachers to come up with lessons that their students can accomplish at home for days or even weeks until the crisis passes and the students can return to school.

Here are some ideas that may help you:

1. Look for online versions of your textbooks that are provided by the publisher.  You may already have that possibility in place.  If so, great!  Use it to list daily readings, activities, and assignments that they can return to you by email or in a packet when they return to school.  Some companies are offering free subscriptions during the coronavirus crisis: FREE subscriptions.
2. Search for prepared projects that encompass your curriculum.  This will be easy for your students to complete because they would probably have been completing them on their own in the classroom, anyway. No, these are usually not free, but they can come at a minimal expense for the ease of implementation in your remote classroom! For example, I have a few social studies packets at my Teachers Pay Teachers store: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/All-american-Teacher-Tools  
•  I have a packet for every state in the union plus the District of Columbia.  Each PowerPoint presentation and accompanying activities can be done individually or as a team (in class or at home with friends).  They are appropriate for grades 3-6.  Here is one example (look for your own state): Ohio History and Project-Based Learning Packet
•  I also have a complete learning quest for each of the ancient civilizations: Rome, Greece, and Egypt.  These, two, can be done individually or with a small group and are appropriate for grades 5-9: Ancient Civilizations Bundle
3. Look for explanatory PowerPoints that make learning fun and easier for students who need that extra help.  Math is particularly difficult if there is no teacher present to steer the wayward student in the right direction.  I have developed PowerPoints for each of the topics in the 6th grade Engage New York math modules. Here is the first one on ratios, which is free to show you how I simplify the topics for your students: Ratios.  Engage New York does have their own explanatory videos, but I found that they can be as confusing as the topic which was presented in the text.
4. Use Google docs to coordinate grades, groups, and assignments.  Your district may not have this already in place, so encourage everyone to participate in this easy way to communicate with students and their parents.  Speaking of parents and other caregivers, make sure they understand that their children absolutely need to complete the assignments you offer while you are separated from them or they will fall seriously behind in their work.  
5. Learn from the Homeschool network how to present the curriculum without a brick and mortar school as a base of operations.  Here is one link to get your creative juices flowing: Time 4 Learning.  I'm not saying you need to buy into their expensive system, but you can get some ideas from them on possible themes, projects, and independent learning.
6. Finally, coordinate with other teachers, either in your school or around the country who are teaching the same topics as you are.  Look on Teachers Pay Teachers for free resources and download them for you students to access using whatever at-home platform your district is using.  

Above all, make this a fun learning experience for your students and keep in constant contact by providing feedback on the assignments they may be returning to you every day.  They probably don't want to be stuck at home, either.  And they won't be motivated to participate in a learning program where there is no teacher to direct them back to the task at hand.  Offer them interim rewards for finishing an assignment.  Show them what might be waiting for them when they return from "quarantine" to offer completion incentives.  And remember that your students rely on you for their education, whether you are standing in front of them, or offering remote assistance through written assignments or even a Skype-like platform.