wrapping up

Had Mayor Engen come in 3rd period today to listen to talks. Unfortunately, some of the posters, when projected, were less than readable. Couldn't get at some of the student directories due to the slowness of the network, otherwise we would have had at least one other powerpoint in place of a poster. The other unfortunate thing was how generally unprepared 3rd period is to present. I can see now that an authentic audience would require us to do lots of practice presenting. Also, I wonder how much editing I should be doing. Some points students make are just a bit misaligned or nearly inaccurate, and I just don't know how deeply I should make edits for them. Anyway, I can see that simplifying all the information for the purpose of public presentation is necessary. Maybe not one word per slide, but one bullet?

findings

It's all about the rhythm. Traditional science teaching is all lined up and quick-fire. Bang, bang, bang, churn out those objectives day after day. If nothing else, it makes the teacher feel productive. I wonder what the students get out of it. The pbl project, on the other hand, is much more free-form and less planned out. You have a starting point and a destination (the project goal), but the journey is so much different than the standard pedagogy. And just when I'm relaxing and getting into it, and the students seem to be ramping up a bit, it's going to be over for this year. I'm getting psyched for next quarter and planning which targets I'm going to cover, and I'm going to do the target-direct assessment I tried last year, so at least the system won't be an exact return to first semester.

synthesis

Moving into the synthesis phase today, although some groups have questions remaining. The disaster in Japan is just mind-blowing, and I think will forever etch this project into most of my students heads. It gives a sense of urgency to our efforts when you think that the same thing could happen in Seattle or Portland, minus the nukes. Visiting museum big burn exhibit tomorrow, and hope to have a speaker from MC emergency services office soon. Still not sure about a final audience, but I don't want to commit to a venue until I see how the presentations are shaping up. Maybe we should commit now, however, so they have to make it solid.

group lab concept

It's weird and difficult to let students teach my sacred cows. For instance, today groups attempted to teach faults and earthquake location, which I consider my "specialties." I just want to jump in and give my old lessons, but why? Just because I love it and have some knowledge doesn't mean they will love it, nor does it mean any of it will be absorbed or retained, or is even important. I think maybe this level is better because it lets everyone distill just the basic facts from these lessons, with the end goal not being to understand earthquakes, but to know how they might affect us here in Missoula. I guess a minimal understanding is important, but my old lesson plan was probably too deep.

How deep should we go? I just thought of creating some kind of big ven diagram poster at the beginning of each year that shows subsets of knowledge about some topic. For example: humanity, transportation, vehicles, bicycles, parts, wheels, rims, cast aluminum, metallurgy, mining. Then we would number the levels, with humanity being 1 and mining being 10. We could refer to this diagram throughout the year to describe how deeply we are delving into a particular topic, either before of after the fact. I'd say with earthquakes I would take them to level 10 several times during the unit. I think this is good for the brain, especially when math and logic and reasoning skills are involved.

It's becoming clear that a PBL unit is not about going deeply into any particular subject unless it's necessary for the outcome of the project. The outcome is paramount here, and the detailed knowledge is only a means to an end, not the end itself. Traditionally, that's backward. Knowledge is king in most high schools, and grade schools for that matter. What's king in PBL? If the outcome is a product, it can't be that important, can it? Are skills king? Skills gained by the process? What about outlook and attitude toward collaboration and learning? Citizenship.