Pretty impressive title for this week's blog....
Here is an article about self-organized learning environments. These types of environment promote project-based learning. As I have been doing evaluations this year, many of you are enacting some form of project-based learning (PBL) in some way or form.
PBL is a great tool to use in your room. Some schools do everything in their classrooms using the PBL approach. Doing this means having some pretty intense training to make sure all standards are being mastered.
Please let me know if you are interested in learning more about PBL. I know of some places that would allow you to visit.
Take a look at the article and consider the below questions.
Questions To Consider:
1. From the article "I wanted to empower students to take more responsibility over their own learning, yet so much about the approach went against my teaching instincts. What would it look like if I were to hand over the majority of my XX-minute class period to my students?"
This is a great self reflection question. How do you feel about it?
2. The article talks about formulating a "Big Question." This is very similar to posting objectives. What is it that students are going to master. Maybe some of you would like to think about posting objectives this way, posting a "Big Question."
3. Students grade their own "self managing behaviors." How would that look in your room? Could that be helpful to you?
Our music theory class has slowly moved toward a PBL environment. I had many challenges along the way, including the growing pains of having students use their time on anything and everything except for their project. We now have a clearly set of weekly benchmarks with rubrics that the students also rate for themselves to ensure they are doing what they're supposed to be doing. If they aren't, it should show up on their self-assessment.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the concept of a "Big Question." For their song analysis project last quarter, that question would have been "What makes a song great?" For their original song projects this quarter, the same question might work or "Where does does inspiration come?" I'm also a fan of questions like "How do I learn best?" or "How can I achieve a goal I set for myself?"