Syllabus Project-Week 2

I am still exhausted from the first week of school. At first, I thought it was just me but I was relieved when two of my coworkers shared the same feeling. We started to realize why schools start in the middle or end of the week. Going a full five days after having a long break is brutal. My second week of the project begins the messy middle of a project. It is the start of doing a dance between the second and third layer of the project path. PBLWorks project path describes the second layer as building knowledge, understanding and skills to answer the driving question. The third layer is develop and critique products and answers to the driving question. There is a wonderful arrow between these two layers that says revision. This circular process is an ongoing process of improvement. Let me share how I worked students through this process this week with my curriculum and success skills goals in mind.

Building Knowledge and Understanding

Because this is my students first project, there are some knowledge building that is not connected to my content. This is because in order for them to learn my content without me being the main source, I have to teach them how to be independent learners. This requires knowledge and skills that are not content based. Therefore, this particular project has more non-content goals then content. It is nice that my Algebra II class doesn't have a heavy content goal the first month of the school year. Many schools have at least a week or two of review of content that will allow you to be more skills based at first too. Below is my content versus my success skills goals for the unit.

This week, I focused several of the success skills and two content goals. The main reason for the focus was because it was driven by the students. They had a lot of questions around norms, reassessment, goals and learning strategies. One of the key strategies of projects is to allow the project to be driven by their questions. As a teacher, I can manipulate this situation to a degree by planting questions or offering a suggestion of how to organize their work. For example, I always tell students they should probably work on the questions that would best help them meet the first deadline. Since I make all the deadlines, I am able to help move them in a direction I need.

As a result, students experienced different learning strategies, created causes and solutions to their common problems as well as possible norms to test out as a class before they make a final decision. In regards to content knowledge, they started learning about calculating grades and systems of equations. Some of the teaching strategies I used to help promote learning included Paideia seminar, practice of note taking from a paper or video and general practice time. The seminar was not effective in my 2nd and 3rd hour as the map below shows. However, it was great in my 5th and 7th classes. I am tempted to drop the strategy given how quiet my first two class periods are but the tool is so powerful. I am wondering how I can get them to open up. Would love suggestions :).

One of my success of the week was to plant seeds to help students realize their weaknesses in terms of learning. I made sure students completed a couple of class graded assignments that would help me to accomplish the following:

• Point out the challenges with grading based upon points rather than a rubric
• Help them to see their need to ask more questions when given the opportunity
• Help them to see the need to use their time more wisely during work time
• The need to have a good note taking strategy along with a memory technique

Students ended the week with two graded assignments where they could not get help from me and had to use each other. I was able to see they were discovering their lack of preparation for the task as I hoped. This will make the discussion next week so much more fruitful. 

Developing & Critique Products 

Moving between the building of knowledge and the development of the products is still my most challenging area of planning and implementing projects. The difficult part is deciding what aspects of the product needs to be broken into a small piece that folds into the bigger piece. It needs to be a piece that is worthy of revision as well as capable of occurring without the bigger whole. Once you figure out this part, then you need a plan on how students will revise the work. This is another area where I am always debating because the people involved in the revision is more than me. I have to think about when is it best to be me, students or an outside expert. There is no perfect way. I have found the following questions do help me. I hope they help you as well.

• How many projects have my students completed?
• What do my students need to improve on the most in terms of being "critical friends"?
• Is it really essential for me to see the work at this stage?
• Given this stage of the process, who and what tool would best move the work forward?

This year, I am trying to break down the ideal self goals section of the individual learning page (see image below) better and to include revision loops. This is only the second time I used this tool in the project. I got the SINC portion from my good friend Kelly Reseigh. I love the insight it gives me about my students as learners. The goals and learning strategies section was inspired by Robert Cash's book Self-Regulation in the Classroom: Helping Students Learn How to Learn. The final section is the application side of the plan with the incorporation of my content.

Last year, I did a terrible job of revising the product. As I think about it, I think I didn't do any revision at all which is probably why it was not used well the remainder of the year. This year, I want to make sure the understanding gained is applicable to the classroom. I realized the revision and reflection process will help this happen. I decided to have one of the revision loops be their knowledge of the goals. I have found revision loops are best if there is at least two occurrences.

I decided I would be the first revision loop and it would be on their knowledge. I had as a part of their first graded assignment (day 9) a section where they wrote their goals. They received a point for having the appropriate type of goal in each section and a reason why. Most students didn't get to this section. For those who did, they rarely wrote the appropriate type of goal. I liked having this revision loop because it enables me to show how they are not truly using their notes which would help them with this area and reteach the need to have clear goals in each area that fits them. It will enable them to be better learners if they have a plan for learning.

Next Week 

I can't wait until next week because we will really begin to incorporate some of the other elements of project based learning as described by PBLWorks and High Quality PBL. Reflection is an element I have always had as a weakness. I am glad I am finally getting a handle on the element and excited to try out some changes I wanted to make from last year. I am also going to really be able to dive into collaboration and sustained inquiry. I have grown in these areas as well as can't wait to try out some things I found. One of my favorite aspects of teaching is that you never reach a destination. You get comfortable with aspects but you never truly master most aspects of the classroom. I just keep getting better like aged wine.

You can find the resources I used for this project at this link.