Just returned from a wonderful
few days chaperoning the U14 football teams in Hanoi so apologies for the late edition
of Food for Thought on Personalized learning. This week I have decided to share
a short article for you from Edutopia about how personalized learning can go
further than being trapped within our traditional curriculum structures. This where
we need to be going as we attempt to also break down some of the systems that
restrict the move from teacher controlled learning to real student agency. In
order to maximize the use of this article you do need to follow the links
because they provide valuable additional Food for thought.
Personalized PBL:
Student-Designed Learning
June 27, 2014
" I wrote a
blog about one of the
pitfalls of personalization for the ASCD Whole Child Blog.
Specifically, that pitfall is the lack of engagement. With all the focus on
personalization through time, pacing, and place, it can be easy to forget about
the importance of engagement. No matter where students learn, when they learn,
and the timing of the learning, engagement drives them to learn. When we factor all the pieces
of personalization together, we can truly meet students
where they are and set them on a path of learning that truly meets their needs
and desires. Project-based learning can be an effective engagement framework to
engage students in personalized learning.
Moving Past "Course-Based" PBL
Due to the antiquated restraints of the education system, most
educators are forced to implement PBL in a "course-based" manner.
This means that the project occurs within the traditional discipline
structures, where there may be integration, but learning is framed within
grades and competencies. In addition, start and stop times, driven by the Carnegie unit,
force teachers to start and stop a project for all of their students around the
same time. What if PBL wasn't held to antiquated rules of time, space, and
discipline constructs? In that ideal situation, students could be engaged in
personalized projects.
Student-Designed Projects
Students at Phoenix High School have been engaged in a model similar to the one I've
described. In it, students design their own driving questions
and select the 21st century skills they want to work on, as well as the content
learning objectives. They select and design their own products to show their
learning in a true commitment to performance assessment. They decide on due
dates, benchmarks, and the authentic audience of the work. There is also a
heavy push toward community impact and work outside the four walls of the
classroom.
My PBL colleague, Erin Sanchez,
(formally Erin Thomas), created an amazing
graphic of this continuum that shows the power of PBL truly
aligned to the learner. As teaching colleagues, we did our best to implement
personalized projects for students, and we experienced many of the same
challenges faced by teachers who attempt to do this. However, we also saw the
payoff: engagement! When students are truly in the driver's seat of their
learning, the impact of their work and the learning associated with it can be
powerful!
Role of the Teacher
When teachers move toward personalized PBL, their role continues
to shift, just as it does when teachers move traditional instruction to
"course-based" PBL. While still involved in the design process, they
also serve as advisors. Teachers frequently use question techniques to help
students focus and crystalize their projects and project plans. They coach
students in creating effective driving questions and student products. They're
still involved in frequent formative assessments, but instead of planning all
instructional activity for the students, they help students plan it themselves.
In addition, teachers help students select standards and learning targets that
will align with the project and products. Teachers at Phoenix High School, for
example, help ensure that all standards are targeted for a year, but do not
limit the standards that students may want to hit in a project. Here the
teachers create and facilitate the infrastructure for the learning rather than
designing the PBL projects themselves.
Not every teacher may be ready to jump into this type of
personalization. To make it work, they'll be required to adopt a different
teaching role. They'll need strong management skills and a commitment to
disruptive innovation. In addition, the current constructs of the education
system may hold us back. What if we could make this dream of personalized PBL a
reality? I say that we work toward it, creating a push on the system that
demands change in the education of our students."
Have a good evening,
Yours,
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