BACK TO PROJECT BASED LEARNING BLOGS
By: Rachelle Antcliff, Director of Training
Magnify Learning
Columbus, IN
When it comes to planning an authentic Project Based Learning Unit, I find it’s helpful to follow a process that ensures students are doing real work for real people and purposes. When my students know their work matters, they are engaged. When they see the impact of their work in the world, they feel valued. Despite the incredible impact, continuously finding authentic opportunities can be daunting. Though the real world is “out there,” sometimes it helps to begin by looking a little closer to my desk.
Additionally, I want to make sure my project has the promise of a rigorous exploration of my standards. I never want to have to teach my standards after I do a project because my students didn’t learn them as a result of the project. What a colossal waste of time for all of us!
The process I follow has four fairly easy steps.
Step One: Identify Standards
I identify a standard or set of standards that are clammoning loudest for me to design a project around. When I start this way, I ensure I tether my project design to standards rather than bending standards to fit projects. I don’t want to force a standard into a project or invent its relevance to a project. Those projects fall apart for me and they don’t tend to be meaty enough to sustain weeks worth of work. My standards are the very first thing I write on my planning form. This keeps me focused on what I am building and it clarifies what I am not working on.
Note: In a step before this, I find it helpful to cluster my standards or identify power standards.
Let’s say I am working with environmental science standards, that are something like this:
Analyze the factors that influence the spread of invasive species, evaluate their impact, and determine how to prevent or minimize their impact.
So far, so good, right?
Step Two: Identify Who Does the Work
I then ask myself who in this world does work like that. Who’s sitting at a desk, who’s sitting in a meeting, who’s sending an email, who’s up at night thinking about this work? I identify a list of people who have made this standard their life’s work. I’ve now placed that standard in an authentic context by identifying the doer of that work. If I take this single leap, I am certain I am moving in the right direction.
If I cannot answer the question because nobody actually does the work, I realize I have picked a standard that is too small or specific or obscure to design an entire project around. These standards get tucked into projects as support standards. Or they might become our work during a break between projects.
If I return to my invasive species standards, the answer to the question, “who does the work?” might be a forest manager, an ecologist, an oceanographer, or an outdoor educator. I could think of dozens of jobs in the realm of invasive species. Some standards, however, are more exclusive. Perhaps I can only think of one or two professions.
Step Three: Consider the Disciplinary Practices of a Person in that Field
I now need to dig into the desk drawers, computer files, and meeting notes for my person. What does this person write? What does this person speak about? And to whom and why? What does this person create? What does this person’s boss ask them to produce? What does this person do at work?
An engineer writes differently from a journalist, a journalist speaks to different audiences than a landscaper, a landscaper creates different prototypes than a historian, and so on. Each profession has a set of collective skills and practices that best serve their work. This is the stuff we want.
One beautiful byproduct of authenticity is that we offer students an opportunity to try on different career hats and to try on different life experiences. We invite them to tinker in many areas so they develop and hone the skills and practices within themselves that allow every door to stay open and allow them to choose the best door to walk through when it’s time to choose a career.
Back to our project. A person who does work in the field of invasive species makes identification guides. They make statements to the public. They create podcasts. They make lesson plans. Those are the kinds of things that they’re doing. They’re not typically writing plays or songs as plays and songs belong to other disciplines. Though plays and songs are amazing end products, if I want an authentic project, I need to focus on authentic work. (That is not to say I could not find a way to use plays or songs. I could. There are jobs of all kinds in the world, but finding an authentic audience for professionals who write songs about invasive species might require me to use energy I don’t have).
This step is magical in that it broadens my options for community partners. If we create identification guides, we can work with graphic designers or technical writers. If we make podcasts, we can work with sound engineers and advertisers. The world outside of education is interdisciplinary–even transdisciplinary–Project Based Learning welcomes the whole field of skills and experiences.
A helpful hint for happier living is that I use this step to scale up or down. If I have tons of support standards, plenty of time, an interdisciplinary teaching team, and unlimited resources, I lean toward a bigger project. If I don’t I will scale down. If I only have two weeks and teach alone, I am not going to have my kids build a life-size, topographical map of the local watershed as an interactive teaching tool. An invasive species guide, however, fits nicely into that timeline. If I have even less time, each group contributes a page or two to the guide.
Step 4: Create the Scenario
At this point we have our standards, we have a list of professionals and we have a list of potential products. We are now ready to create a project scenario that articulates the who, the what, and the why of our project.
At Magnify Learning, we refer to this piece of the project as a Driving Question. My invasive species Driving Question could be something like this:
How do we as ecologists (ROLE/PROFESSION)
Create an invasive species identification guide that equips local residents with removal and prevention strategies (TASK/PRODUCT)
So we prevent the extinction of native plants and animals, protect biodiversity, and preserve wildlife habitat? (PURPOSE/WHY)
Boom! We have an authentic project that allows kids to dig in deep and make a difference. However, I want to circle back to the beginning. I know I said there are four steps, but a follow up step is to take my driving question back to step one to make sure the project fulfills the requirements of the standards, that the project demands my students engage deeply with the standard, that the best way to learn those standards is by engaging in this project; that the project and standards are inseparable. If I do this, I will begin the process of letting Project Based Learning drive my students’ learning. PBL no longer feels like an extra thing I have to do. PBL becomes the way we learn.
So here goes the test for my invasive species project. Does my project allow me to analyze the factors that influence the spread of invasive species? I believe students will grapple with this as they decide how to caution readers about preventative measures. Does it allow students to evaluate their impact? I believe the project does so as a whole, but again, I will require an introduction to the guide that holds them accountable to talking about impact. Taking this step is also how I start to build benchmarks and scaffolding. More on that in another post.
As a treat, I have saved the very best thought for last. My favorite thing about this process is that it can happen right in the classroom. Students can help unpack standards, define professionals and products, and ultimately help projects take shape. This structure keeps us all accountable to designing projects that align with meaningful work. Moreover, they have so many creative ideas that I would never have thought of. They can also help reach out to community partners.
Give it a whirl and see if your projects are a little more authentic and a little more connected to standards.
Rachelle was born in Byron Center, Michigan, but has called Indiana home for some time now. She spent a wonderful twenty-five years teaching English and Social Studies; half of those years were in a wall-to-wall PBL school, CSA New Tech in Columbus, IN. She was also part of the design team that created the school, which she defines as “one of my life’s greatest experiences.” Rachelle’s job is to facilitate the connections that make “PBL magic” happen. Her work is focused on connecting schools who sign up for workshops with facilitators and content that can best usher them into the world of PBL. When she’s not making PBL magic happen, she can be found on adventures with her family (food, hiking, snow and water activities). She also co-owns a yoga studio and loves to share mindfulness with students.
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