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On your blog, explain the critical organization and management steps and tools you would need to employ when implementing a PBL experience for the grade level / subject you teach. Be specific to digital tools you and your students would use and how they would be used.

I think key to the success of any PBL experience is to involve the students in all aspects of the project. The project should be introduced not just as a project but as an integral part of the program that will provide the students with a chance to develop communication skills, collaboration skills, technology skills and research skills as well as learning some subject matter. I do think that this may be easier to do at the high school level. In my classes students frequently ask, when am I going to use this? Is this going to be on the test? With a PBL experience, students should no longer have to ask these questions or even feel like they want to ask them!!

Even before the project is started and groups are formed, all students could be responsible for the creation of an Animoto video or a post to the class wiki or blog that would introduce others to who they are, how they learn, what their strengths are and what they hope to learn about the topic and from the PBL experience. Then groups could be formed based on students’ initial comments and questions. I think it is important to allow the students to ‘gel’ or ‘mesh’ so that they will feel more committed to functioning as members of a cohesive group. I like the idea of creating a group that will be responsible for working on all aspects of the project together although they will have individual responsibilities. This prevents the situation where one student does all of the work.

To start the project off on a positive note, students must be involved in the orientation phase. Students could brainstorm regarding questions that they want to investigate about a particular topic. Brainstorming could easily be done using the Inspiration application which allows students to create an expandable concept map. This could be done locally or globally. If done globally, students could easily work on a common document in Google Docs or share thoughts in Diigo. I like the suggestion from the Buck Institute that students should make use of a KWL (know-want to know-learn) sheet. Keeping this sheet will allow students to visually track their progress.

Many high school students are extremely busy with outside commitments – work, family, sports, volunteering, band, groups, friends, etc., so paramount to the success of the project will be all members of the group staying on task and focusing on the task at hand. A great way to keep organized is showing the students how to use Google Calendar and then how it can be imbedded in their wiki. For those students who need a daily reminder of what tasks need to be done, I really like the application Remember the Milk. It allows students to be the ultimate task master. I think students are much more likely to use a web based diary than they are to make use of their homework diary…much more hip to make use of technology!!

The positive involvement by the teacher is very important to the successful progression of the project milestones. Even though the project should be a student centered learning experience, the teacher still has to keep track of what is happening in each group. Not only to ensure that all things are getting done that need to be done, but also to be aware of any potential problems that may arise and quickly negotiate a solution with group members. A successful PBL experience does require the successful integration of technology and good old-fashioned teacher interaction. There are several ways that the teacher could monitor the group – through observations, by conducting short interviews or reading the bi-weekly student comments on their blogs or wikis. Alternatively, one of the individual roles of a group member could be as a liaison with the teacher who gives details of the daily successes, trials and progress in a short note on their Diigo. All the while, the teacher should be reminding the student of the driving question.

I think that providing adequate time for both the students and yourself to reflect and evaluate the PBL experience is almost as integral to its success as the project steps themselves. The educational research shows that “students who have the opportunity to discuss, analyze, and reflect on their learning experiences are more likely to retain and use their knowledge and skills” (The Buck Institute, n.d.). This would be a good time for the students to go back to their KWL sheet and see if their knowledge base has grown, if they have any unanswered questions and to feel proud of everything that they have learned during the process. The true measure of success for the project may not necessarily be the production of a flashy multimedia production but all the other intangible skills that the students would have worked on developing throughout the project experience. Students could showcase their growth by posting to their blog or Glogster. Students could even produce podcasts for Gcast or create presentations for SlideShare that would give hints for both teachers and students on the skills and knowledge needed to have a successful PBL experience in their classroom.


References

The Buck Institute for Education and Boise State University. (n.d). Plan for Evaluation and Reflection. Retrieved March 31, 2009 from http://pbl-online.org/ManagetheProject/projectexplore/projectexplore5.html