Reinventing Project-based Learning

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These are notes taken during a lecture at the NECC in Atlanta June 2007 at which I (Linda Hartley) was a virtual contributor.

1 Re-inventing Project-Based Learning
2 Related Pages

Re-inventing Project-Based Learning

Reinventing Project-Based Learning: Your Field Guide to Real-World Projects in the Digital Age

Link to description of session, scroll down for the powerpoint slides and an article about the book.

Jane Krauss, Learning Innovation Technology Consortium with Suzie Boss

Monday, 6/25/2007, 11:00am–12:00pm; GWCC B212

Lecture at NECC, Atlanta 2007

Learn new approaches to project-based learning in technology-rich contexts and preview a new resource.

My thoughts in italics

Notes on the presentation

Pre-presentation

Thoughts on using Skype - amazing :-) Here we are in Atlanta, Ankara and London. It feels a bit like 3- way family favourites! (UK joke)

Jane & Suzie's presentation is all cued up & ready to go on a tab on my Firefox - no need to download from gmail.

Introduction -

Other teachers here virtually Tom from Ankara, Turkey and Linda (me) London, England

We decided we wanted to bring together all the things we’ve learned and seen with project based learning (PBL) and technology.

looking at K-12
also informal education
professional developemt for teachers
possible use as courseware/teacher education

Suzi is an education technology journalist

Jane works in education mostly with teachers on professional development.

They want to connect teachers that are doing PBL lessons as innovators

Making best practice visible

A global view and perspective

Why reinvent it?

Value - with today's learners what value does project based learning add? How does it need to change (and how can technolgy support this?)

Change - widening the world of the classroom, using the web to give access to real problems, capturing interest, sharing work with others.

Answers Gathered from the floor:

Authenticity

Motivation - improved investment

Inter disciplinary/cross curricular

Future learning skills - see the relevance

Keep on track with assessment

Building bridges

Emotional Intelligence development

Lots of room for extension

suits all learning styles

Fun!!

Application of skills

Deep learning.

(I'm guessing many of the people there already know why it should be done!)

A Field-guide approach

The book takes a field-guide metaphor. Each chapter focuses on a stage of the journey. (This sort of thing can get tiresome but they don't take it too far)

Audience -

Who are the audience for the book? Ideally a learning community but could be individual teachers. They need to be:

Willing to try things

Learners - no need to be the expert. Happy even to know less than the student about aspect of the project (co-researchers?)

Connectors - happy to share and collaborate.

No whiners!! (Everyone whines sometimes! Wonder if there are good tips for when people get discouraged half way through? Maybe these could be collected somewhere? Here?)

By using the ideas, methods and tools in the book - teachers will be more familiar with technology

There's a nice Venn diagram showing this movement. (This chimes well with my ideas about teachers attitudes changing as they see the relevance of on-line tools for their own learning)

Jane and Suzie's Own Learning Journey

MP3 of this section available via Edublog Insights

In making the book they used:

A wiki

Skype,

E-mail,

del.icio.us (from floor - "what???" - perils of being techie lol!)

(Diverts for a short explanation of social bookmarking)

(Thinks- It would be good if they shared the del.icio.us tag)

Since they wrote the book:

blog

A flickr group

These can be used for keeping the conversation going. Not like a traditional book, journey not over when they publish.

Run through of contents of book

It's a guided instructional design process. There are also more than 30 stories of real projects undertaken by teachers. It's about using technology to support the process not for technology's sake. (Work smarter not harder)

Tom on Skype from Turkey on project management

his background - rural development rather than education. Hired as a project manager not teacher. He assumes all people are learners. He introduced ideas like

logical framework analysis

moving towards defined goals

taking projects from one to the next

impacts beyond the scope of the projects

asking what will be left behind at the end of the project?

(I'm thinking action research, facilitating change processes, connections with my own experience with networked learning communities)

Tryangulation (Tom's blog)

Note from Tom: I just posted on my blog a short case study related to linking actions with goals.

Drawing in external help

Using the online and off line connections to draw in help for projects, not just teachers but other adults, other children. This is where you use the people you identified in your asset map. (See below for more details)

(This is where the widening of online community really pays off - Fairy blog mothers on children's blogs, authors replying to book reviews, people from other countries adding their own perspectives, experts advising students, even blogging their responses on their own blog. It takes a world to raise a digital native?)

Celebration & reflection

Celebrate what they've learned. The power of using digital images. (Don't forget to share it in the Classroom Displays group!)

Reflecting on learning - theirs and yours - a vital step. (Can't help thinking Gibbs reflective cycle might be made use of here at any level.)

Stories

Examples with:

core learning goals,
in the real world,
team work,

Jerome - Google lit trips

Jerome was in the room. talked briefly about what he's done creating a resource which relates works of literature to their settings.

Jane focussed on the way he'd drawn other teachers in.

David

iHistory podcasts iHistory blog - A secondary school project using podcasts and mp3 players to study Australian history

Investigative history - collaborating with US school- peer-review, authentic audience

Jane talked about how much more responsive the children were to peer review than they would have been to adult intervention.

Vicki

Flatclassroom wikispace

Two week inter-school assesment project on a wiki between two schools one in US othe other in Bangladesh. Project was based on the Thomas Friedman book The World is Flat.

How to use the book

Ideally as a learning community Find where you are first.

Appendices

The stories are in the appendices. They are not add ons but are central to the book. Stories help us to understand, can give insights into the whole process - especially when they are documented online.

Example Activity

Asset mapping

People in the room produced an asset map.

Brainstorm an asset map - community maps what their assets are on a sort of mind-map.

Collaborative Practice

Key to re-framing the professional experience.

Encouraged by

Edublogs (wikis too)

Hosted sites like:

Classroom Displays Flickr Group

(My contribution!)

Group Blog

680 images, 125 members (as of June 2007)

A window into classrooms all over the world.

A way to share best practice

preserves ephemeral learning objects

Importance of visual learning

Helps us see what learning is valued (and what is overlooked?)

Involving the children in celebrating their learning

I told the story of the class who have joined the group and are currently deciding what to make as their next display so that they can choose what to put into the group.

My own learning was also project based

Constructionist - making something real, building community involving others, - group and blog - reflecting on it on my research blog - action research spirals.

A hurried ending as time ran out

Thanks to participants

Gave out urls for

PBL Flickr group,

pbl blog etc.

(I don't know if they were exhausted I know I was! An hour and a half on Skype, chat, email and running through my copy of the presentation via gmail. The technology was on it's best behaviour for me but Tom's Skype connection got dropped near the end)