Treasure Chest of Thoughts

This past Wednesday, my 21 CLC PLN Skyped with author Suzie Boss as part of our continued study of her book Reinventing Project-Based Learning.  Now how cool is that?

At our last meeting in summer, I tweeted about our group as I was introducing the group to Twitter, which I love and wish I had more time to explore, for I obtain the best and latest links there to so much pertaining to my curricular interests.

Then Ms. Suzie tweeted back!  During our correspondence, I asked if she might consider Skyping with our group…and she graciously accepted.

Once again I am reminded of

1. the smallness of our world…as we crossed several state lines
2. the true beauty of Web 2.0…connecting with others with like interests

Before the meeting, Ms. Suzie emailed me a host of links that she wanted to share with us, now hosted on our 21 clc wiki.

For 45 minutes, Ms. Suzie chatted and questioned us, as she reignited the spark for PBL, for one of the goals of our group is to create a PBL to utilize with our students and then showcase for our peers to preview, thereby, modeling as we encourage others to further embrace PBL.

One of the many nuggets I took from this meeting was Ms. Suzie’s “Three A’s,” as summed up by peer and PLN coordinator Lisa Huff in an email she sent to our PLN the next day:

3 A’s of Project-Design:

• Awareness: Projects that have kids educate themselves about an issue/process/event.
• Advocacy: Projects that identify a real issue that needs attention, and has students champion it by being a voice to address the problem or champion a cause.
• Action: Projects where students actually DO something to address a solution or fix for an issue/problem.

From our meet and greet, as I sat and listened to the conversations, I began to plot and plan a PBL for my next thematic unit which revolves around the term bullying and the reading of core text The Crucible, and lit circle texts Speak, The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Anthem, and Animal Farm…possibly other novel texts (these were just my initial thoughts). 

NOTE:  As I was skimming my Google Reader and reading Jay Asher’s posts…of course, I must include Th1rteen R3asons Why!  Cool ideas on post updates!

I need to find a grant so that I can purchase enough of these books for each student to have  copy of his/her chosen one…for annotating, for possessing…then maybe for sharing with someone else.

In groups, I want my students  to further research and read about the effects of bullying and create, in some format, an avenue of sharing their awareness with the rest of our study body, as well as our junior high students.  I would love to connect with another class that might be learning about this same concept…would not matter the grade level…elementary, middle school, junior high, or high school.  Now, I am going to visit some of the links Ms. Suzie shared with us in hopes of finding such a school!

Also during our meeting peer Kathy Walter, who is one of our ESL teachers, and I continued a discussion about how to assist and incorporate her PBL idea into one of my classes that contains two ESL students who are 1′s, who barely speak English.  Imagine finding a way to engage these two learners so that they might be a part of something productive!

Have you considered PBL?  On what projects are your students working?  What projects might you consider? 

I encourage you to learn more about project-based learning.  Should this be a new concept for you, plan to take your time as you wrap your mind around letting go and empowering students in their own learning, as you decide on the time you can allot to such a project-type learning.

Engagement is so powerful, and PBL is one of the answers to that engagement.