Tag Archives: student centered learning

Flex like Stretch Armstrong

 

From https://images.vat19.com/covers/large/the-original-stretch-armstrong.jpg

This is the third post in a series where I flesh out why the ideal traits of a PBL teacher are important. Check out the links to the rest of the series below the post.

Flexible

I remember as a kid that Stretch Armstrong was definitely the ultimate Christmas present. I am pretty sure that at some point I “accidentally” punctured or cut him in someway just to figure what exactly was inside his amazing body. Teaching with the PBL framework can feel like you are getting pulled in many directions at times between student voice and choice, community partners, and your regular teaching demands. Teachers who are more flexible have, dare I say, a less stressful time with PBL and their students benefit from the freedom granted.

Improvisation

The most flexible teacher that I know is my friend, Nate Langel. He is a science teacher who is willing to do anything to get kids excited about learning. Want to do an integrated project, he’s in. He doesn’t worry about timing with his calendar or standards. He knows that he will make it work with the NGSS emphasis on practice and application. Want to partner on a project about poverty, the problems of industrialization, or water? Nate is leading the charge!

What we can learn from Nate’s approach is that he often starts with a great project concept, not the standards. Then he looks through his content and finds the standards to match. This allows him to be flexible to all kinds of project ideas that at first glance, might not “look” like they fit his class.

The other thing that Nate does well is that his students do not perform canned labs but design their own experiments around a problem or theme of the PBL project. He encourages students to research and come up with crazy hypotheses that students can test. “Normal” in his classroom is to see every group of students working on a totally different experiment towards a common group of standards. Kids love the opportunity to be creative and ask their own questions.

Road Tripping

Maybe you are not ready to be this flexible yet. How about starting like another colleague of mine? His students were creating PSA’s around the topic of invasive species. A group of girls approached him about a local problem. The airport was using a de-icing agent on their runways that was ending up in the nearby stream and polluting it. They wanted to research the effects. He let this group do a separate project while still meeting the content standards. You might guess that this group was more invested in the project than the rest of the class and did the highest quality work.

When you run a student-centered classroom with voice and choice, then you have to be flexible to where students decide to take the projects. It’s more of a road trip to your learning goals than using GPS. Of course, Google Maps can take you anywhere by the fastest route and help you avoid construction, accidents, and tolls. But sometimes the “obstacles” are where the greatest learning takes place.

Starting a PBL road trip means that you know the destination of standards and enduring understandings that your class is headed for, but let students choose the route and where to stop to take selfies along the way. Students learn how to manage the project and themselves, and are more motivated along the way.

Killing a Project

Sometimes projects go off the rails. There are always unforeseen difficulties that arise with school events, student groups, and the logistics of working with your community partners. Acts of God can throw a monkey wrench in. We once had to cancel our field trip to local factories to launch a school wide project because of a snow day. Then the community partner cancelled an appearance the following day because of the storms. PBL teachers have to be willing to improvise when things don’t go as expected because I can guarantee that challenges will come.

One year my students made Choose your own Adventure videos about World War I and World War II. This was a whole class assignment of 50 students working together to research, storyboard, write a script, make props, act, film, and edit the final product.

Things went south in so many ways. I did not create enough structure for the students to organize and complete the project (yes, teachers can be too flexible). There were miscommunications; students forgot costumes at home on filming day; everything took longer than expected; filmed scenes were lost as we had no system to get the files easily from the cameras to computers for editing. 

After a few weeks, one class had very few final videos completed and the other class had a hodge podge of scenes done. Neither class was anywhere near a final product and would probably need weeks to finish. My teaching partner and I made the decision to kill the project. Sometimes it is necessary to discard a project that isn’t working. We reflected on the obstacles with our students and were able to improve our processes for future projects the rest of the year.

Teaching with a PBL framework is going to bring some unsuspected challenges. Being flexible ensures that you honor your student’s voice and choice and may also help you to keep your sanity!

Links to the rest of the series on Ideal Traits of a PBL Teacher:

  1. Overview
  2. Student Centered
  3. Flexible
  4. Passionate
  5. Self efficacious
  6. Collaborative

Questions? PBL Consulting?  I can be found at my blog michaelkaechele.com or @mikekaechele onTwitter.

Student-Centered Teaching

This is the second post in a series where I flesh out why the ideal traits of a PBL teacher are important. Check out the links to the rest of the series below the post.

Why do we teach? A basic question, but how you answer may reveal your philosophy. I would argue that no one’s content is so valuable that kids are going to suffer in life if they miss it. The core of what we do isn’t curriculum, standards, or academic growth. Nope, it’s the kids. So making them the center of your class makes sense. Let’s look at some examples of what that might look like.

Space

The first time I enter a classroom, I observe the space and make some assumptions. Are the desks in rows facing a screen or are there chairs in groups facing each other? Does the teacher’s desk and “personal area” take up a huge chunk of the room? Do the walls have student work showing creativity or does it look like a Pinterest page vomited on them? Are there past projects, supplies, or “junk” laying around demonstating that students make things or does the room feel sterile?

All of these things are evidence of whether the adult teaching or students working is the center of the teacher’s philosophy. Room design communicates to students the culture and values of the teacher from desk alignment, to alternative seating choices to light and decorations. Is it about efficiency and beauty or conversations and inquiry? Student-centered teachers exhibit kid’s work as the theme of their space.

Active

Teachers who have already experimented with projects of any kind, even if they may be dessert projects, are taking the first steps toward PBL. If you have kids making, kids working in groups, or kids presenting in any fashion then you are taking baby steps toward a student-centered philosophy. If you have ever run a simulation, used skits or drama, or run a genius hour then you are more likely to shift to PBL easier.

Teachers with an active classroom of students moving out of their seats and working in groups are more comfortable with PBL. They understand that silence often implies consent to teacher control and that productive noise is evidence of learning. They understand the energy generated from a healthy buzz of working kids.

Why Over What

For years I taught U.S. history, making sure we “covered” all of the standards by the state. But in my mind, the standards and yes, even the project students were doing was not the end all, be all. I had my own set of goals for all of the students in the class. It was my “why,” my enduring understanding.

For me there were 3 things that I wanted every student to learn and U.S. History was the vehicle that I taught through: 

  1. BS detection
  2. Multiple viewpoints
  3. Empathy

BS detection is important so that my students are critical thinkers. I don’t want them fooled by “fake news” from any political viewpoint. The multiple viewpoints of historical events lead to my final goal of empathy. I want my students to understand others’ views so that they can step out of their own biases and care for others.

Student-centered means teachers are more concerned about the enduring understandings of their content discipline than about any specific standards. It is about developing successful humans, not making sure that students know all of the curriculum.

Culture is Everything

I believe everything that we do and don’t do in the classroom creates our culture. Every word, activity, conversation said or omitted tells students what is valued. The layout of the room mentioned above, greeting students at the door by name, and developing relationships all show students that they are valued.

My mantra for students is a culture of “Trust, Respect, Responsibility, Effort.” At the beginning of the year, in a stern voice with no smile I tell students, “If you have to go to the bathroom or get a drink, don’t ever ask me.” I pause for effect, secretly enjoying the concerned looks on their faces. Then I continue with a smile, “Just go.” I tell them that they don’t have to earn trust in my room but that trust is assumed until broken. I talk to my students as adults, not talking down to them.

Student voice and choice is a key component of PBL and many teachers are comfortable giving students choices over content, products, or assessment methods. But student VOICE won’t happen without a strong culture.

One year early in our Civil Rights project,  a conversation about discrimination turned into an open mic of students sharing stories of when they were treated unfairly. It wasn’t in my lesson plans for that day, but it was one of the most powerful feelings of community in the classroom that I have ever been a part of!

Sally raised her hand and shared that she was gay. She shared the pain of being rejected from her church youth group and her previous school. The culture in our class was strong so that she felt safe to come out in front of everyone. Sally continued to use her voice to stand up for LGBTQ rights. Student-centered isn’t satisfied with student choice, it promotes student voice and amplifies it.

Being student-centered is the most important trait of a PBL teacher. This teacher doesn’t “own” the space, but designs it for group work and shows off high quality work. Their class is active with the healthy buzz of kids working on projects. PBL teachers know their why of putting kids first is more important than their what of content. They work hard to establish a healthy culture of caring and respect where kids know that they are valued and safe.

Links to the rest of the series on Ideal Traits of a PBL Teacher:

  1. Overview
  2. Student Centered
  3. Flexible
  4. Passionate
  5. Self efficacious
  6. Collaborative

Questions? PBL Consulting?  I can be found at my blog michaelkaechele.com or @mikekaechele onTwitter.