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This was part of our class arcade project. My students spent about an hour to an hour and a half a day designing cardboard arcade games and . . . the results were mixed. I would love to say that this was a slam dunk, but it wasn’t.
1. Plan it together: I brought students into the conversation about the project ideas (ultimately landing on the arcade concept). They created the essential questions and linked the standards. They also helped develop the rubric. However, this wasn’t done in isolation. As a teacher, I still had to guide the process.
2. Create procedures: Teachers throw around phrases like “controlled chaos” and “embrace the mess.” However, I can’t do loud, crazy classrooms. It makes me edgy and I get impatient. I need a reasonable volume level. I need the movement to be safe. So, we created our procedures together as a class
3. Be prepared for motivational issues: The same issues that happen in assignments happen in projects. Kids will still get bored and want to give up. Students will want to throw in the towel when it gets too hard. Project time isn’t necessarily a “fun” time the entire time. In the case of this project, I still had two groups who did the bare minimum.
4. Explain the revision process: I’ve learned over time that it is critical that students understand that projects aren’t all that different from blog posts. They require revision. This can be hard, because revision can be slow and less novel than the initial product.
5. Structure reflection and discourse: We used a blend of blogs, social media and in-person reflection time to engage in discourse and to have personal reflection time. I’ve learned that if this isn’t built into it, they often fail to articulate what they’ve learned.
6. Let the groups work interdependently: In other words, if one group is having an issue with their project, let them invite an expert from another group to help.
7. Teach project management: This is an area where I still fail as a teacher. I tend to manage it for them and check up on progress for them. On this project, I was more intentional about helping students set goals and task lists.
8. Think about the audience: In our case, it was easy. The students were going to play with the arcade games and do a peer assessment. However, in the case of our current project (a modern history museum), students know that they will have to create a display and give a two-minute Ignite-style presentation.
9. Teach conflict resolution: I pay careful attention to the communication happening. I specifically ask students to identify conflict that exists and we take a few minutes to hash it out.
10. Focus on the learning rather than the product: Here’s my biggest take home. Some groups will create projects that don’t look great. However, the bottom line is the mastery of the concepts. I have had to remind myself that they are only sixth graders and their product and process won’t be the same as that of an adult.
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John,
Thanks for sharing your reflections. As I read your reflections it reminded me of the topic Bill Gates spoke about last night in the PBSTED special. When you reflect in public you are opening yourself up for observation and growth.
At the sixth grade level you are teaching at one of the most critical positions in education if things are going to change. It’s at that 6th grade age where the major shift is going to be required before you begin to see a different type of young person showing up for university learning and then launching into the workplace.
Here are a few thoughts to consider.
The existing factory system and old habits are fully at work behind your points 1 through 3. With a slight shift in thinking these three bullet points will disappear as needs.
Any significant change in how students learn is going to be predicated on giving up the worn out 30 seat classroom centric base of operation. Having twenty or thirty students work on a single project or planning for a single project idea causes the motivational issue you touch on in point 3. If you think there will be a problem, then there will be unless you first consider that problem exist now so a new method will be no different unless wholesale changes are made. Nibbling around the edges of an old process is not going to make the difference needed.
Your point 4, *explain the revision process* is still an old school view. Any field in our marketplace has a revision process of some type. No explanation or teaching is required for learning about the revision process. Your point 5 allows students to learn this with no teaching required by a teacher. coach Coach COACH not teach.
We all know how tough it is to give up control, long held control being like breaking an addiction. Your point 6 reflects just how tough it is to give up control. The TV game show Who Wants To Be a Millionaire models what school should have been modeling for years. Phone a friend to help you figure out something. Just a slight shift in thinking and the teacher can be that friend a kid will call, or txt, or DM on Twitter.
Point 7 would be a good one for grade departments in a middle school to model for student. Core content teachers along with other types of teachers at the grade level could come together and collaborate on the project called “Providing a comprehensive learning environment for students”. Their first task would be to figure out how to metaphorically knockdown the four classroom walls surrounding those thirty desks and chairs. That's a project worth managing where as managing classroom behavior is akin to managing multiple cats as they walk to their food bowl.
Point 8 is getting real close to being something like how a coach leads their players to learn a new play or consider a strategy for playing the team they will play on Friday night. Same could be said for point 9.
And finally point 10 that really demonstrates how you learned from your student design projects, project. In the end we can see a shift in your thinking from the starting point in this post where you wrote about “Procedures” and the “Crazy Classroom” to what should be number one, “Focus On Learning”. You the teacher learned from this project and there was no teaching or testing required. An accountability partner might be helpful but no testing.
I see your point about the shift away from industrialization, but here's a few thoughts to consider:
1. This is still the system I work in. I don't like the industrial side of it, but simply going PBL is a pretty radical step for most teachers and students.
2. Procedures, revisions, reflections and planning are all concepts that go beyond industrialization. The most cutting edge corporations have those things embedded in them.
John,
Every time I think about adding my 2 cents on education, I have to stop, take a deep breath and ask myself if I really understand what I am writingsaying. After all I’m not a teacher. I don’t walk into the classroom everyday like you fine folks do. I’m the one standing on the sidelines saying how I would do it. Teachers are the real heroes in our society but even heroes need fans encouraging them everyday.
When I ask myself the tough question, what makes me think I have anything to add, I remember my own school experience 30 + years back and I watch as my own kids pass through the existing system. With these two thoughts and experience in mind and after many re-reads, most of the time I push the publish button.
Project based learning is a radical step. That said, we now know this is how we really learn best. Not best in the sense of getting good grades so we can move on to the next grade but profoundly learn making knowledge and skills a part of us.
When you reflect back on each project based lesson you’ve taught, you realize that there are so many details you either would have missed as you studied about this method of teaching from a book or an online source. Even if you went to a conference for teachers and listened to an expert speaking from a stage, at best you walk away with notes and head knowledge. It’s only when you put this knowledge to a test with real students where you see what works and ultimately what makes a radical difference.
Yes cutting edge corporations have procedures, revisions, reflections, and planning embedded in them. Taking this into account, go one step further. Research Toyota which is one of the best large business examples I know of and FastCap out in Washington State an example of a small operation. While both of these companies operate under a true system, the focus is on the employees themselves and not on procedures and the system. When you focus on your own deep learning first and then on individual students second, procedures and real learning by students will be bi-products of the proper focus.
Even in the sub-par worklearning environment where most teachers go to work each day, it is possible to meet government mandated learning requirements and make a rapid shift away from current factory methods at the same time.
Your blog posts reflect that you are the very type of teacher who is capable of making a radical shift. Keep in mind you don’t have to figure it out all on your own. You don’t even have to count on overworked colleagues for tinkering tips as you make the shift away from teaching students, to coaching and providing an environment for learning. Keep blogging your reflections on your daily efforts, and sign off on each post by asking how would you do this….