MODULE 1 What is PBL and why use it

What teaching strategy do you use most commonly? What do YOU do most of the time in the classroom? What do the students do most of the time? Do you feel your current approach could be easily complemented with a PBL approach? Do you sometimes have the problem that students don't remember what they "learned" the day before? How do you address this? Do you already use some of the PBL approaches mentioned in the video? What works, doesn't work? Why? How do you find out about your student needs and how do you incorporate this knowledge in your teaching? Finish your reflection by identifying a class and a subject topic that you teach which you can use to experiment with PBL.

Why use PBL

Components of Good PBL

Share your view on which of the 5 components (or keys as they are called in the video) you feel will be the most challenging for you to realize and why. Is it effective collaboration because your classroom space does not lend itself well to group work? Or is it assessment because your curriculum requires very regular and rigid summative assessments that you are worried will get in the way of PBL? Or maybe you are more concerned about the passivity of your students in lessons and getting them to take the initiative? Share your thoughts, concerns, reflections, etc.

The hardest to achieve...student driven...coming from self motivation and real interest. Those leaders are a few in a class so most students try to piggyback. Keep involvment of those self driven and make those passive more active in the process. What I find hard is to find rewards beyond grades or prizing. in my school (vocational school) studens have altogher 21 subjects and two thirds are still transferring huge amount of information out of touch with real life just required during exams. Students being forced to learn what they are not interested in, but what is required of them to pass loose interest and quriosity for real learning. Hands on experience is crucial here. So second or the same important as self driven would be real word connection.

Why do you think PBL is not used more widely in our education systems? What is stopping us from achieving what is outlined in the video? What are the biggest challenges we as educators face and who is stopping us from adopting the PBL approach in our classrooms?

driving question should be open-ended, engage and inspire students by creating curiosity, be aligned to your learning goals, and at the same time be non-Googleable.

“What does it mean to be a healthy eater?”

Turn the question into a non-Googleable question.

Non-Googleable Question 2: “How are airplane wings constructed?”

Turn the question into a non-Googleable question

Using your five senses, select healthy foods from non-healthy foods.

Which kind of healthy food would you put in the school vending machine if you were in charge of it?

As criteria for the feedback use the 4 aspects mentioned here:

Is the question open-ended? It will allow students to develop more than one reasonable answer.

Do you feel the question will spark curiosity and engage the students? (remember this might be dependent on the local contexts of the students)

Is it aligned to the learning goals identified? To answer it students will need to gain the intended knowledge, understanding, and skills.

Is it difficult to answer by using Google?

module 2Developing effective collaboration for PBL

COMING TOGETHER IS A BEGINNING,

KEEPING TOGETHER IS PROGRESS,

WORKING TOGETHER IS SUCCESS

Henry Ford

share a picture that shows or represents collaboration for you, together with a brief explanation of why you have chosen this picture.

a key goal of PBL is not the project but rather the process of building the project. Learning happens while working on the project. And one of the key things students should be learning as part of this process is effective collaboration.

1. collaboration

At the heart of the PBL process is collaboration, be that as part of a group of students exploring your driving question or be that as part of working with outside actors who can provide meaning and feedback on the students' work.

Thinking about a typical lesson we teach these key questions should be answered to know if our activities are truly collaborative:

Are your students required to work in pairs or groups most lessons?

Do your students have shared responsibility for tasks?

Do your students have to make substantive decisions when working together (decisions that will impact the result of their joint work)?

Is the students' work interdependent of each other (in other words can they only succeed together)?

Extra tips to support student collaboration:

Make sure team members know what is expected of them

Create norms and roles where appropriate

Monitor progress constantly

Celebrate even little successes

Give students ways to informally develop cohesion

2.5 Collaboration Tools

I have little experience in using collaboration tools. I have been using only Edmodo, Moodle, Skype and Google Drive but I would love to try Padlet and Team up suggested in this course.

EDMODO | CONNECT WITH STUDENTS AND PARENTS IN YOUR PAPERLESS CLASSROOM

Edmodo is an easy way to get your students connected so they can safely collaborate, get and stay organized, and access assignments, grades, and school messages.

https://www.edmodo.com

MOODLE * OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE FOR ONLINE LEARNING

NAKOS is a central node in Norway's nationwide emergency medical education, expertise and research networks. The company uses Moodle to educate about best possible emergency medical practices in pre-hospital emergency situations. NAKOS provide stand alone courses to complement existing medical training schedules together with programs to give students approved credits for further medical education.

https://moodle.com

SKYPE | FREE CALLS TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY

Download Skype and stay in touch with family and friends for free. Get international calling, free online calls and Skype for Business on desktop and mobile.

https://www.skype.com

MEET GOOGLE DRIVE - ONE PLACE FOR ALL YOUR FILES

Google Drive is a free way to keep your files backed up and easy to reach from any phone, tablet, or computer. Start with 15GB of Google storage - free.

https://www.google.com

PADLET IS THE EASIEST WAY TO CREATE AND COLLABORATE IN THE WORLD

From your hobby to your career, your class notes to your final exam, your mood board to your runway show, padlets help you organize your life.

https://padlet.com

TEAMUP - AALTO

http://teamup.aalto.fi

2.4 Finding collaboration partners outside the classroom

A key part of PBL is establishing a link to the "real-world". Two types of collaboration with outside actors occur in implementing PBL in the classroom:

The first is about organising projects together with another class (e-twinning network give this chance of collaboration) and

The second is about involving people from the community in students' work. Getting professionals from the "real-world" to come and work with the students creates an entirely new meaning for their work.

a group working together to find a solution to the problem by means or cooperating, dividing tasks and roles dividing, testing strategies and achieving results together.

MODULE 3 - Developing student-driven activities for PBL

The idea is for students to take ownership of tasks, initiative at solving problems, and most importantly to stick with these tasks and problems until they have come to a satisfactory conclusion. In other words, we should try to develop a student-driven environment in which the energy and persistence of what is happening in the classroom does not primarily come from us but from the students.

Developing student-driven activities for PBL

Parallel to developing collaborative skills of students, another key part of PBL is for students to take ownership of tasks, initiative at solving problems, and most importantly to stick with these tasks and problems until they have come to a satisfactory conclusion.

Albert Einstein's quote "IT'S NOT THAT I'M SO SMART,IT'S JUST THAT I STAY WITH PROBLEMS LONGER" captures the need of developing a student-driven environment in which students are going to develop grit and resilience to stay with a problem or project even though they have failed previously.

The learning objectives for this module are:

Understanding the importance of scaffolding the PBL process so that students increasingly develop independence and ownership over the tasks

Understanding the importance of a positive environment and mindset for building student confidence and resilience

Developing a range of activities, strategies and tools that facilitate an entrepreneurial mindset and entrepreneurial skills

Starter activity: describe a situation in your professional or personal life where you were first unsuccessful but because you stuck with it you succeeded in the end. Finish by identifying why you stuck with the problem/task and did not give up.

It was a time of my first etwinning project...not being experienced at running one, the importance of planning ached and agreeing on schedules and deadlines. Iwas frustrated as communication between me and my partners stopped and was not explained for some time and then it turned out my partned quit because of health reasons.....still was not prepared to be left on my own with the project. So it was hard to trust i can find more reliable partners and start searching for ones again. Because of belief people interested in collaboration are there I kept looking for them. Now I finish my third sucessful project with distictions.

3.1 Scaffolding for Student Ownership and Independence

Teachers provide scaffolding to support the construction of new learning for individual and groups of students.

Scaffolding:

provides students with the right supports they need to participate in learning, complete a challenging task or learn a new concept

encourages students to continuesly grow and develop to a level that is just above their current level

is a way to gradually shift the responsibility for learning from the teacher to the student and

helps learners become more independent

In conclusion, scaffolding builds on the understanding that students learn in many ways, build new knowledge based on prior experiences and knowledge and need to be supported in learning when they can not achieve on their own.

Teacher's role:

Understand what individual students or group of students can do independently.

Know student's strengths and needs.

Provide assistance that is adjusted on as needed bases.

Control of frustration and build learner's confidence.

Use descriptive feedback so students understand what they are doing right and how they can do better

For students with learning difficulties the intensity of scaffolding may need to be ongoing so students can actively participate on learning and move forward.

Facilitating learning in a student-driven environment

Tips:

Give students voice and choice in the process.

Let the students seek answers independently.

Make time for reflection and revision.

Have students track their own progress.

On Resilience

assessment

peer assessment

Reflections on peer assessment-My contrinbution to padlet:

Reflecting on others work help me see how my focus goes to what is missing insted of what is done right. That constant need to improve things makes me poor appreciator of others hard work. Receiving many critical but constructive remarks I learnt that it is possible to give both, inspiration and appreciation.

share your assessment context. Are you free to assess students in any way you want? Or do you have to follow a strict testing system with regular standardised tests every few months? What types of assessment are common at your school/in your country? Do you collaborate with colleagues when it comes to assessment?

External exams and limit of grades from 1-6. We have agreed scale in percentage how many points students need for each grade. Formative assessment is ecouraged but not really practised, summative assessment is not negotiable.

Formative Assessment Techniques

Identify simple formative assessment techniques that can be easily embedded into PBL