If you would have asked me a decade ago if I
thought Project Based Learning would ever expand beyond a small pocket of
innovative schools I would have said “I doubt it”; I could never have imagined
that it would be such a widely-used buzzword in 2020. To my pleasant surprise
it has expanded to mainstream vernacular and is continuing to sweep across
schools in our country.
And yet, despite all the buzz surrounding it,
there still is a pretty wide range of understanding as to what high quality PBL
is, and more importantly, how to plan for and facilitate it. To many, PBL is
met with uncertainty and apprehension; while terms used to describe PBL, like
organized chaos, productive noise, and student-driven sound appealing to some,
for the majority it creates a lot of unnecessary ambiguity.
To most teachers’ surprise, I like to think
about PBL as a structure, almost a formula that can both uphold academic rigor
and also engage students. To show you what that structure looks like in action,
I’ll walk you through how I plan a PBL lesson step by step.
PROJECT-BASED LEARNING: A WORKING DEFINITION
Before we jump into how to approach planning a
project, it’s important that we are operating from the same definition of PBL,
because there are many! After years of working in the leading organizations of
the PBL movement I came to arrive on the following as my non-negotiables for a
project to reflect high quality PBL:
It is grounded in standards.
It incorporates best
practices of assessment for learning.
It’s authentic to the given
community.
It explicitly scaffolds and
assesses 21st century skills.
So what does it look like to put these
non-negotiables into practice and plan a project? I will walk you through the
process I have come to embrace and share with teachers who cross my path,
either through our time together in the trenches during project coaching, or
when they pick up my book, Keep it Real with PBL (for elementary and
secondary). The specific project I highlight here, Silent Voices, is a
collaborative effort between myself and the 5th grade team at Lake Elementary
in Vista, CA.
THE “SILENT VOICES” PROJECT
The 5th grade team at Lake Elementary is
comprised of four teachers. The team wanted to tackle a content area they knew
they needed to go “deeper” with to better engage their students: The American
Revolution. We knew this topic was difficult to make interesting for students,
but we believed that through PBL we could successfully provide them with a
rigorous, authentic and meaningful learning experience.
STEP
1: BRAINSTORM AUTHENTIC PROJECT IDEAS
I often hear from teachers that getting started
with a project idea is the hardest part, but for me it’s the most exciting
part! I encourage teachers to identify a Driving Standard (these typically come
from science or social studies because they both provide a nice context, which
math or ELA can easily support). From there, think about a current issue that
brings the standards to life.
Knowing they wanted to teach about the American
Revolution, the teachers pulled the California social studies standards they
were responsible for covering; specifically, 5.5: “Students explain the causes
of the American Revolution” and 5.6: “Students understand the course and
consequences of the American Revolution.”
We sat around a whiteboard and threw up a bunch
of ideas that could possibly make students interested in an event from over 200
years ago. We landed on the concept of connecting hidden voices (an issue that
would feel relevant to them as 10 year olds) and empathy-building (a character
trait from school also familiar to them) to the historic event. We also landed
on supporting standards of Common Core ELA for narrative writing, compare and
contrast, and research; but more on that later!
STEP
2: PLAN WITH THE END IN MIND
My approach to project planning is very much
rooted in Understanding by Design (UBD), so once I have identified the
standards and an authentic issue, I then jump to the final product. There are
so many ways students can show what they have learned—from public service
announcements, to podcasts or documentaries, to art installations and
simulations or performances. Whatever is decided upon, all the project planning
from this point on is in service of preparing students to ultimately produce
that final product.
As we continued planning this project, the
teachers at Lake realized that there was SO much they could do with this
concept of elevating silenced voices and building empathy awareness, that we
actually had to scale back our final product ideas! Together we landed on
having students create two final products:
1) 2-voice poetry, which is a style of
narrative poetry that showcases the similarities and differences between two
unique perspectives, or voices. Students would write and create an audio
recording of the reading of their written poetry to share via listening
stations at Open House Exhibition. This final product would showcase important
ELA skills such as speaking and listening standards, the use of technology and
writing production, and narrative writing techniques.
2)
Student art: Students would represent their understanding of a “hidden voice”
or silenced perspective in a contemporary issue using symbolism and a specific
art style (photography, digital art, painting, or pop art). Students would also
write a detailed artist statement for submission of their work to the San Diego
County Fair. In this artist statement students would explain the historical and
contemporary inspiration for their work, style choices, and influences; thus
bringing together the social studies standards and ELA research standards (and
possibly even art standards if the art teacher chose to collaborate!), using
topics of student interest as the context of the product.
STEP
3: BENCHMARK YOUR PROJECT
This is arguably the most important step
because it ensures that best practices of scaffolding and formative assessment
are embedded in the project. Benchmarking is simply taking your end products
and breaking them down into manageable phases, or milestones. Within each of
these benchmarks the teacher identifies the content and skills necessary to
complete the given phase of the project. Tied to each benchmark is a concrete
deliverable that students turn in to be formatively assessed. While daily
checks for understanding are still happening and smaller assignments may be
collected for credit, project benchmark deliverables are formatively assessed
using a project rubric (more on that next!) and recorded in the grade book.
For the Silent Voices project, we identified
the following benchmarks and deliverables:
In
Benchmark #1 students learned about
the “big picture” historical context of the American Revolution—the causes of
the revolution and the early events and individuals—through textbook readings,
PowerPoint lectures, videos and other short readings. The focus of these individuals
and events was from a Eurocentric perspective—typical of what we would find in
most textbooks. Students also began novels that represented voices of those we
don’t typically hear in our textbooks: enslaved people, children, women, etc.
To show that students had mastered the necessary content from this benchmark
they completed a traditional history quiz. Sometimes it’s okay to include
traditional assessment methods as benchmark deliverables—you don’t have to
throw the baby out with the bathwater in PBL, and in these circumstances a
rubric isn’t necessary for grading since the feedback and the depth of learning
are limited.
Benchmark #2 focused on the
experiences of the “silent voices” in the American Revolution. Teachers
provided model texts through short stories of Native Americans, white women,
enslaved people, lower class, Chinese, religious groups, and children. Students
continued reading their literature circle novels during ELA and also learned
about narrative writing techniques through writers workshop methods. The
benchmark deliverable for this second section of the project was a piece of
writing titled “A Day in the Life of…” which represented what daily life was
like for a person from one of the groups of the “silent voices.” This deliverable
showcased their narrative writing skills, textual analysis skills, and content
mastery for social studies. Because the textbooks don’t provide the perspective
of “the silent voices” students truly had to synthesize, analyze and apply what
they were learning in ELA and social studies to be able to complete this
benchmark—the higher order thinking that this project requires is one of the
many reasons I love it!
Benchmark #3 required students to
continue analyzing what they were learning on this topic by collaborating with
a peer to find the differences and commonalities across two unique “silent
voices.” Students were guided through the process by discussion protocols,
visible thinking routines, completing a venn diagram, and a workshop on 2 voice
poetry. Ultimately they wrote and recorded the audio for this benchmark’s
deliverable, a 2 voice poem to show two different perspectives from the
American Revolution. This benchmark used narrative writing techniques from the
second benchmark as well.
Benchmark #4 moved students from the
historical time period of the American Revolution to the current day.
Throughout this benchmark students were challenged to look for the perspective
of the “silent voices”—whose story are we not hearing? Students were exposed to
some contemporary issues though various forms of media, conducted a survey of
other students to gauge problems within their student population, engaged in
more discussion protocols and ultimately landed on a topic for their own
research based on their interest (Special Interest Groups-SIG). After
conducting this research students created a detailed graphic organizer to show
what they had collected and organized; some students chose to complete an
infographic as a challenge option.
Benchmark #5: In the final benchmark
students applied everything they had learned about searching for the story of
“silent voices” through historical and contemporary events, and used art as the
vehicle for showcasing their knowledge and skills. Each of the four teachers
identified a style of art they were passionate about—photography, digital art,
painting and pop art. Each teacher created a series of workshops about their
art style, including well-known artists, artistic composition, and basics of
color and design. Students worked with the teacher that matched their interest,
analyzed models from their given style, and ultimately learned how to create a
piece of work that showed the silent voices in a given current issue from their
research. Students went through the critique process of drafting and also
completed an artist statement with their final product—all of which was curated
and exhibited for the community.
STEP 4: BUILD YOUR PROJECT RUBRICS
In
keeping with the spirit of UBD, I also create assessment tools with the end in
mind, which produces a pretty large project rubric (but never fear, we never
use ALL of it at once—more on that in step 6!).
To
build this rubric I encourage teachers to take the following steps:
Finalize
the content standards you plan to assess; Note: each content standard gets its
own row on the rubric. Then drop each content standard into the “proficient”
column of your rubric. In the case of the Silent Voices project we identified
social studies standards on the American Revolution and Common Core ELA
standards for narrative writing, compare and contrast, and research.
Pull
up Blooms Taxonomy verbs and bold the verbs in the language of the standards in
a given domain. From there, reference Blooms verbs to help you write the
language of one level up (advanced) and one level down (developing/emerging).
For example:
3.Identify
which 21st century skills you want to scaffold and assess in the project. I
like to use these New Tech Network rubrics and simply copy and paste the rows
in their entirety into my project rubric. For this project we identified
Collaboration: Commitment to Shared Success, and Agency-Growth Mindset.
STEP 5: PLAN FOR FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT
Once
the project rubric is completed then you can begin to think about which rows
will be used with which benchmarks. Each benchmark will get its own separate,
smaller rubric that will only have a few standards on it. I encourage teachers
to try to map it out so that each row of the larger project rubric is used
twice throughout the project. The purpose of this is so that students can
reflect, receive feedback and have the opportunity to grow in each area at
multiple points throughout the project; this is truly assessment for learning,
rather than assessment of learning. What this also means is that each benchmark
will likely only be assessed using 2-3 rows from your (very large!) rubric.
You
can see which rows of the rubric were used for which benchmarks in the “Silent
voices” project by looking at the far left column on the project rubric (link
in previous section). These benchmark numbers dictate what the smaller rubrics
will look like for grading each deliverable (since, remember from my note in
step 4, we will never use this entire rubric at once!). So for example,
benchmark #3’s rubric would include the following rows only: collaboration,
viewpoints and narrative writing.
STEP 6: CREATE STUDENT-FACING RUBRICS
Most
teachers from most grades will tell you that the language of standards is not
student-friendly, and I agree! That’s why I encourage teachers to take their
teacher rubric and convert it into a student rubric. To do this, simply take
each row of your teacher rubric, look at the proficient box, and write the
standard as success criteria for students, or “I can” statements. This breaks
down teacher-facing language into vocabulary that students can understand,
which helps them to know what is expected of them while also helping them
reflect on their learning. Using the teacher rubric row from the above example,
you can see what a row for students would look like below:
STEP 7: PLAN DAILY LESSONS USING A PROJECT
CALENDAR
Now
is when ‘the rubber hits the road’ and it’s time to think about what daily
learning will look like within your project. I like to simply use a Google Doc
and create a table that mirrors that of a 30-day calendar, that way you can
hyperlink all the daily lesson plans and resources so that it’s in one place.
Most of what is linked in these Google Docs are simply workshop resources and
lesson plans that teachers traditionally use to cover the content that appears
in the project; or helpful new websites and activities to cover contemporary
topics.
(* by
JENNY PIERATT )
