Student Reflection: Problem Finding

Untitled from kim trefz on Vimeo.

As we are still brainstorming for our project and refining our guiding questions, the boys have been writing reflections in response to videos and articles they have read. I want them to get in the habit of thinking about finding problems that they would like to further investigate before they problem solve. Because this is student-directed, I want the boys to search for what interests them so they will be highly motivated and more willing to push through the difficult challenges they will face through this entire process.

Guiding Question for PBL

I have done extensive research on PBL and have found a fabulous site that offers many resources such as videos, articles, helpful downloads, etc. from Buck Institute for Education: Project Based Learning for the 21st Century. I have had my boys to brainstorm possible questions that could serve as a guiding or driving question for further investigation of this space mission/aviation project. The decision to use a broader question vs. a narrow one would allow the boys to not be limited in their research but could go in an unexpected direction according to the questions formulated. I am not exactly sure if I am making the right decision for 5th graders, but I did find an excellent web site that clearly defines what a driving/guiding question should look like.

Effective Driving Questions:

Driving questions are also called essential questions, project questions, and umbrella questions. Effective driving questions include the following features:

1. Are open-ended. Driving questions lead to debate and discussion, and therefore, are motivating to students.

2. Are objective. Driving questions do not imply whether something is good or bad, better or worse.

3. Focus and drive the project. Students use the question as a springboard to formulate their own questions. All learning and research in the project are geared toward answering the driving question.

4. Focus on key understandings. Generally each project will have about five overarching ideas; the driving question subsumes all of them.

5. Are answerable. With diligence and dedication, students are able to answer the driving question. While it should not be an easy process, it should be manageable.

6. Require research, investigation, and reflection. Driving questions may have yes-or-no answers; however, your students need to support their answers with the research and knowledge they have acquired throughout the project.

7. Call on a student's previous knowledge and help students apply their learning to new situations.

8. Link basic skills and concepts to students' lives and the real world. Students are more motivated and involved when the topic they are studying is relevant to their lives and to the real world.

9. Integrate standards from a variety of disciplines. Interdisciplinary lesson plans promote teamwork among colleagues and encourage students to make connections between disciplines.

10. Encourage multiple approaches to problem solving. Driving questions allow for more than one way to solve a problem and express the solution.

Day 1 of PBL: On a Mission

Today was the beginning of our project/problem-based learning where I began by sharing with my students about entering a realm of the unknown to let them know that I am a risk-taker as well as a learner. It is so important to create an atmosphere of having a growth mindset and modeling for the students that I am not afraid of failing. Does that lessen the uncomfortable and uncertain feeling that I have about what lies ahead? Absolutely not! However, I will proceed with only a positive frame of mind as we all embark on a new adventure!

At the beginning of each class, I briefly defined project-based learning as a project that is student-directed. This is an opportunity where they will discover answers to questions through real world investigations. I asked them to brainstorm what they imagined their roles to be during this process, and they shared the following responses:

leaders
researchers
team players
collaborative workers
providers of feedback
technology users
recorders of information
risk takers
problem solvers
decision makers

I then asked them to activate prior knowledge by sharing the top ten reasons for going to space as well as the drawbacks from it. As they shared their answers, I typed them on our Wiki to gather all of their brainstorming ideas. They ended class by writing a reflection that had them thinking about deciding when risks were worth taking and when they weren't.

Throughout this project, I will be integrating the required grammar and writing skills for 5th grade English and I am using the science curriculum as the topic for the project. The students will apply pronouns: personal, indefinite, interrogative, demonstrative, reflexive, as well as pronoun/antecedent agreement. The writing skills that they will be strengthening will involve adding strong supports to the claims they make. All of this will done in the context of their writing as they work toward the completion of their project.

The next step will include the viewing of various videos and the reading of articles regarding space flight and space missions. They will record questions that they would like to further investigate, and after compiling the results, a final list of guiding questions will be posted from which students will choose. They will be grouped according to interests and they will find a problem to solve.

Project Based Learning

View more presentations from Robert Parkes.

On a Mission with Project-Based Learning

My fifth grade students are beginning a project on space missions and aviation. I have been reading a book called Making Learning Whole written by David Perkins. He uses the metaphor of playing the game of baseball as he relates it to effectively teaching for understanding. He makes a valid point when he talks about baseball players going beyond practice of pitching or batting but being part of a team, running bases, and applying what they have practiced. Players don't just stop there; they play the whole game. What seems to be occurring in many classrooms is the students aren't being led beyond practice to understand how the whole game is played. They practice the skills in isolation but never really see the relevance of how it is important in their lives. Project-based learning allows the students to discover answers to their questions through real world investigation. It is so important for our students to be problem solvers and decision makers. Incorporating skills along the way allows them to see the purpose and function of how they apply in their lives.

I decided to begin with the science curriculum and integrate the grammar and writing skills that need to be covered. I have posted the project on our class wiki where a lot of the work will be a collaborative effort. Independent reflections and essay writing will be expected as well.

The project will be guided by the questions that the students ask about space missions and aviation. There will be several authentic activities along the way to promote critical and creative thinking. I am just excited by the possibilities of the project since there are so many directions it can take, but the goal is for the students to play the whole game for learning.

2009-2010 Reflection Journal Entries

It is very important to step back and reflect on what is going on around you. Taking notice of your habits of the mind is the first step to becoming a better problem solver, critical thinker, and communicator. The following are the journal entries that have been assigned in class so far. We will continue to add to the list of entries as we address essential questions pertaining to the grammar and writing skills we are developing in class.

1. 8/20 What kind of communicator are you?

2. 8/25 Compare and Contrast an electronic dictionary vs. a book dictionary. Which one do you prefer?

3. 9/8 Using Lesson 3 of Vocabulary For Achievement, use 3 words in context as you creatively write about an imaginary character.

4, 9/15 After analyzing your writing, share what you have noticed to be your writing habits. Include strengths and weaknesses.

5. 9/16 Check out our class blog and share your thoughts about one particular blog post that you find interesting. Explain why you chose the one that you did.

6. 9/25 Provide an in-depth explanation of how to find a subject in an inverted sentence. What else do you know about simple/complete subjects and verbs?

20th vs. 21st Century Classroom

Our world has drastically changed in the last few decades, and education reform has taken off! There was once a disconnect in what was being learned in the classroom vs. what was occurring in the outside world. Desks were arranged in rows where very little opportunity for collaboration took place. Skills were taught in isolation and the relevance of what was being learned was often lost.

Now, The 21st century classroom is designed to encourage active learning and interaction as critical thinking, problem solving, and computer literacy skills are being taught. If the curriculum is not relevant, the students will become disengaged and unmotivated.

Imagine this: the students are opening their wireless laptops to their wikis so that they can continue their collaboration on their writing; they are creating glogs which are digital posters to display their creative ideas that can link to websites to support what they have learned on any given skill; they are reading and commenting on blog posts and sharing their ideas about various topics; they are logging on to digital quizzes that they can submit upon completion for instant feedback; they are skyping with other classrooms around the world and gaining new perspectives; and they are gaining knowledge of how we live in an interconnected society where technology is essential.

This is a snapshot of what it looks like in a PDS classroom on a day-to-day basis. The boys are engaged in a curriculum that is connected to their interests and that will benefit them in the world that they are facing.

Staying One Step Ahead...

I am really looking forward to the start of this year feeling a little more prepared since I am no longer new to the 5th grade English curriculum. I am also a lot more experienced with implementing technology as I use a classroom blog and wiki as tools for teaching grammar and writing skills. I now have a better sense of direction and plan to take different approaches for helping the year go much smoother. After reading up on blogs, Kelly Hines had a great idea of planning ahead even though there are still a few weeks left before it's time to start back to school. I think it is a great idea to stay a step ahead to avoid beginning the year feeling stressed. The following are just a few ways that I plan to accomplish this:

Make Learning Visible: Not only will I leave space to showcase student work, but I will also use the walls to display information to promote a thinking classroom: hanging banners for thinking strategies, showing ways for developing a growth mindset, displaying a chart for habits of the mind, creating a bulletin board for the language of thinking, and hanging posters/banners that contain relevant information for enhancing writing skills.

Establish Ongoing Communication: I plan to use Glogster, a technology tool, as a way to communicate classroom expectations to the students as well as the parents. This will include the following:

*student responsibility in the classroom as well as homework expectations
*weekly tests and quizzes which will include Quia, an on-line test generator
*uses of technology in the classroom and the agreement they are held to
*procedures for making up work when absent
*List of the main websites used for assessment: quia, wpponline, AR, and ARmath
*Easy access to the interactive classroom blog and wiki that will be used as a tool
for learning and collaborating with other schools around the world.
*Classroom news and upcoming field trips, school events, etc.

Create a Classroom Theme: I plan to create an environment that will allow the students to make connections to what they are learning in the classroom. I am using a common theme that involves "building" complex sentences, paragraphs, essays, vocabulary, character, a language of thinking, etc. This seems fitting for an English classroom where the focus is to enhance verbal and written communication. For the "building" theme, I have used bricks for the borders and background of banners that I have created, and I thought that it was a perfect theme for an all-boys' classroom.


Clean up and archive: Being new to using a class wiki, I am now faced with the question of what to do with my prior students' work. I have decided that I will create a new home page and store all of last year's assignments in a folder. This will be perfect for referencing great examples of others' work for students to model after.

After finishing my professional development reading and doing my own research, there are many things that I would like to try this upcoming school year:

*Expand collaboration with more schools/countries (so far there are 4 on the list)
*Use Moodle with the students
*Continue my efforts of going paperless
*Implement more problem solving activities for developing critical thinkers
*Use more authentic lesson plans
*Have students to podcast

The technology that I continue to use on a regular basis includes the following:

Wpponline-This is a website where the students submit their writing and get immediate feedback as their writing strengths and weaknesses are described in detail. Tutorials are even recommended based on the needs of each individual student. I love the way that each student has a online writing portfolio that contains a graph that records their progress made over the course of the year. A new feature even allows the student to send a message to the teacher in regards to something specific about the writing piece, a response can be returned, and dialogue can continue as needed.

Quia- this is a wonderful test generator that offers many test-taking format options. Each student has his/her own username and password. Once the test is taken and submitted, the scores are available which mean instant feedback.

Class Blog and wiki- I have always wanted to have a classroom blog but wasn't sure how to even begin. Being that my students were extremely technologically advanced, I felt that I needed to engage them in ways that they would learn best. I completely jumped in and immersed myself in all the latest technology tools that could be used to teach grammar. We even began a class wiki and this opened the door to collaborating with other schools across the country. I found my students even working in their free time on the weekends. The students' growth was undeniably impressive, for they had a more meaningful purpose for improving their written communication skills.

"Playing for Change: Peace Through Music"

Click here to watch the video
I am following blogs of some very talented educators, and I saw this video posted on a colleague's website. As I was viewing it, it really touched me to see musicians from all over the world come together as one in their efforts to bring "change through music." I shared conversation with the person who posted this inspirational video, and I thought that it would be perfect to begin the year teaching my 5th graders about our class theme, perspectives: one's attitude toward something or in regards to something; a point of view. We will cover this throughout the year as we address how one's perspective might change through experiences.

I will have them view the video, listen to the lyrics of the song "Stand by Me," and reflect on the apparent diversity of the musicians, but also look deeper to gain insight on the importance of global unification: even though we are different in many ways, there are many commonalities that bring us together। I love how this video uses the common language of music to promote change in the stereotypes, prejudices, and oppression that not only plague the people of our very own city of Memphis, but also the people of the world.

These are the questions that I will my 5th graders to respond to:

What would the world be like if there wasn't diversity?

Why is it important to demonstrate the need to be accepting of others' differences?

How can you make a difference? In what ways can you positively influence others at school or in your community?

Make a connection to the video and relate it to something that you have experienced in your life.

Professional Development Goal

Critical and Creative Thinking: If the Walls Could Talk

Blooms Taxonomy and Linking Verbs

Inaugural Speech-Claim Support

Collaborative Wiki: Perspectives

Using Critical and Creative Thinking with Vocabulary for Achievement

Reflection of article on Blooms Taxonomy (digital blooms)

Teaching Transfer: How is the Sentence Like a House

The Thinking Classroom: The Language of Thinking

Thinking Dispositions: What's Your Mindset

Critical and Creative Thinking: I Have a Dream Too Original speech about boys' dreams for the future.

Decision Making Strategy: New Year Goals

Critical and Creative Thinking: Interpreting Art Through VoiceThread

Student Reflection Journals

Critical and Creative Thinking: Student Newsletters/journalism/photography

My Personal Learning Network: Twitter

Habits of the Mind