Powerful Tools, Powerful Pedagogy Project-Based Learning!

1. Powerful Tools, Powerful PedagogyProject-Based Learning! Jim Moulton - MLTI jim@jimmoulton.org Laptop Institute - Mitchell, SD June 11, 2007

2. The way we learn… because it works… • Research on project-based learning from the Buck Institute for Education

3. Sprung from a passion • Here’s where the soul of the project comes from. The best ones are those for which the teachers and the students share the passion. In other words, if one cares about the goal, and puts the "big picture" first, then the work becomes fulfilling rather than demanding.

4. Truly worthwhile • We all know that the work we ask children to do in school is important, whether it is a math drill worksheet or participating in a musical program. Projects are different. Their importance tends to be very visible, and everyone buys into it, celebrating accomplishments.

5. Productive in a tangible way • We all spend so much of our time in school filling out papers. This is two-dimensional work with a limited audience and only cerebral reinforcement. Projects have goals that can be held in hand, eaten, played on, or are in some other way "real." Milestones allow participants to celebrate intermediate results as well.

6. Efforts that make use of the skills we have • How many times have you tried to explain why a student needs to know how to add, subtract, multiply, divide, write a coherent sentence or paragraph, speak publicly, or perform other life-skill? Projects create a need for these skills, and because they spring from the passion mentioned above, the need for the skill is natural rather than forced.

7. Efforts that develop and utilize complex thinking skills • Because the project is more than a set of worksheets dealing with discrete skills, students develop an understanding of the importance of using mathematical, language, artistic, physical, and social skills in an integrated fashion.

8. Collaborative efforts that naturally build social skills along with academic skills • When you get into a project you tend to look around for those who can help. You did it when you were a kid stacking wood, cleaning out the garage, or building that tree fort. As a teacher, this makes projects a natural way to bring the community into your classroom and to take your classroom out to the community. Not to be forgotten are all of the interactions that will take place among the kids as they work together to make the end result real.

9. Fun • Because students and teachers care about the goal, teaching and learning are more enjoyable for all!

10. Moving Beyond Automation Ruben Puentedura - hippasus.com

11. Bloom’s Taxonomy, revised http://uwf.edu/cutla/images/bloom_taxonomy.jpg

12. The Six A’s of Project Design • Authenticity • Academic Rigor • Applied Learning • Active Exploration • Adult Relationships • Assessment Excerpted from Adria Steinberg, Real Learning, Real Work, Routledge, New York, 1997

13. Does this look Familiar? From the Metiri Group: www.metiri.com/Solutions/21st_century_skills.html

14. Professional Level Tools - Professional Level Work • The King Middle School story • MaineMemory - Skowhegan & others… • In the end, the essential question for any laptop implementation is, “So what? You now are so empowered… How are you really making a difference?”

15. The George Lucas Educational Foundation’s Edutopia.org

16. The Buck Institute for Education’s bie.org

17. Add them together and you get:pbl-online.org

18. Making it powerfully local:files.ruraledu.org/topics/placebased.htm

19. Service Learning www.kidsconsortium.org

20. So what can you do? • Learn: Edutopia’s PBL Materials • Stay local - Join an ongoing effort, or begin one! • Create contributors

21. What you know, what you do, and who you know… • Let A = what one knows • Let B = what one does with what one knows • Let C = who knows and cares what one knows and what one has done. • (A x B)C