Cycle 2 Collaboration
Being able to recognize when a PBL needs improvement is an important part of implementing PBL lessons into the classroom. If a PBL lesson is not aligned to several common core standards, or if it ignores the need for global competency by not including vital 21st century skills, then a teacher must be able to make the necessary adjustments before presenting it to the class.
There are also several other components of PBL lessons that must be addressed in order to assure that the students are indeed getting the best experience and learning to the maximum degree. Below is a PBL checklist that highlights 8 essentials that must be included in a lesson in order for it to be considered effective. I will be visiting this checklist later on and expanding on it further, since I used it to edit a pre-existing a lesson.
There are also several other components of PBL lessons that must be addressed in order to assure that the students are indeed getting the best experience and learning to the maximum degree. Below is a PBL checklist that highlights 8 essentials that must be included in a lesson in order for it to be considered effective. I will be visiting this checklist later on and expanding on it further, since I used it to edit a pre-existing a lesson.
Introducing the Lesson
During this cycle, my collaborative group and I found a PBL lesson online through one of the many resources available. We were initially attracted to this lesson because of the numerous activities about recycling it included, and also the personal student evaluations that corresponded with the activities. More importantly we believed that it had the potential of fitting in with many other standards for the 4th grade. After finding this lesson, we were convinced that it hardly needed revisions or editing, but upon closer inspection we realized that some of the activities were flawed and must be edited for global awareness and other aspects in order to be considered an effective PBL lesson. Also there was a lack of driving questions and while it allowed a lot of choice on the part of the student, it did not address a public audience or a community. It was rather one-sided, even though it first seemed like a complete lesson.
Below is a downloadable file of the lesson plan we were attempting to revise.
Below is a downloadable file of the lesson plan we were attempting to revise.
lesson_5__adventure_seeking.doc | |
File Size: | 2875 kb |
File Type: | doc |
Below is an article I found during one of my PLN times which discusses the connection between an effective PBL and using recycling as the topic of focus. At the end of this cycle, I hope that the lesson my group is editing will be able to model the criteria in the article, and be able to clearly show how students will be benefitting from this experience.
Revisions/Editing Process
When editing the PBL, we used other examples as guides to help us come up with activities, or use those created activities and adapt them towards our own lesson. One of the ones we frequently referred to can be found by clicking the link below. We especially liked the driving questions this one offered, and therefore we were able to adapt them to our "Recycling Rangers" lesson plan. We also used some of the activities such as the KLP chart to help in certain aspects of our lesson.
The work we did with the lesson plan can be found in the PBL Essential Elements Checklist, taken and adapted for our EDCI397 class through the addition of the global awareness and developing 21st century skills columns.
The End Result
This PBL revision process is still a work in progress, although the lesson is much more able to stand as an effective PBL compared to before. I personally feel as though no lesson can be completely perfect, but as a group we hope that our revisions and adaptations of other lessons created something that can be considered a step towards a PBL encompassing all the proper criteria required. The checklist aided us in realizing the holes that slowly became more evident in our lesson.