I am often asked when discussing Project-Based Learning (PBL) why I would support a model of education that has no regard for the teaching or mastery of content (click here for an introduction to PBL). Why would I use a model that is solely passion and interest-based with no structure? Isn’t PBL basically what we did in kindergarten when we finger painted and built houses out of popsicle sticks? Where is the content?

These would be great questions if they were based on anything but a lack of understanding of what PBL is. To the uninitiated, PBL is often seen as a model that encourages chaos with no substance. Projects with no purpose. Learning with no….well, learning. All of these things could not be further from the truth and in PBL, content is still king. The only difference between PBL and more traditional methods is that content shares the throne with seven other kings.

Back in 2010, the Buck Institute for Education (BIE) wrote a paper for the September issue of Educational Leadership from ASCD to help educators understand the difference between PBL and just doing projects. They broke PBL down into these eight “essential” elements:

• Significant content
• A need to know
• A driving question
• Student voice and choice
• 21st century skills
• Inquiry and innovation
• Feedback and revision
• Publicly presented content

You can read more about each element by clicking here and Tikvah Wiener and I will be exploring these elements on the I.D.E.A. Schools Network blog. However, as you can see, the first element listed is Significant Content. It is the foundation of every PBL project. It is just that where more traditional models start and end with the content, PBL is only getting started. Although, to be accurate, PBL starts with the end in mind by working backwards from driving questions that propel the learning forward. The content exists to support exploration and discovery towards answering the driving question and, in turn, solving a problem or accomplishing a goal put forth by the question. We will be discussing more about driving questions when we write about that essential element. For now, the question is how do we ensure that significant content is part of PBL?

Michael Gorman, on his award winning blog 21st Century Educational Technology and Learning, lists ten ways to answer this important question.

1. The entry event should show a relationship to the Driving Question promoting a “need to know” of significant content.
2. The Driving Question should allow students to uncover the curriculum in a student friendly and understandable manner.
3. The PBL planning sheet for students should line up with significant content in the curricular area being studied and assessed.
4. The project should be ongoing and made up of activities and lessons that facilitate the learning of significant content.
5. Formative learning activities and assessments that teach and reinforce the significant cont should occur throughout the timeline of the project.
6. While innovative and student centered learning is encouraged, scaffolding of the project can still include traditional lecture, tests, and textbook reading. that promote significant content. Yes… rich engaging lectures can be used!
7. There should be rubrics developed that evaluate student learning outcomes and they should be aligned with significant content.
8. The final project should not only emphasize the 21st century skills, but should show the learning and understanding of significant content.
9. Final outcome should include more than learning of significant content, but also application and connections of content to real world.
10. When planning projects teachers should consider Common Core as part of their significant content.

You can read the entire post by clicking here.

Another example of where the significant content fits in can be seen in this sample Algebra project overview from BIE (click here). This is a great template to start designing your own PBL unit, but I want to point your attention to the “Content and Skills Standards” box. In this unit it is clear that the students will learn significant content and skills in the area of Algebra II/Trigonometry. However, if you read the language carefully you will understand what make this uniquely PBL. The content and skills being taught and learned are not passively transmitted. The goal with the content is that the “student will be able to…..” utilize the content and skills to accomplish something, solve a problem and demonstrate their knowledge. The content serves a purpose and does not exist solely to be understood. It must be applied.

The usual follow up question to this explanation is that while it all sounds nice, does it work? Do the student actually learn the content? The answer is simply, yes. PBL students not only learn content knowledge as well as traditional students, they appear to learn it better (Boaler, 1997; Penuel & Means, 2000; Stepien, et al., 1993). More importantly, they not only demonstrate this knowledge for assessments, but show longer retention and a deeper understanding of the content (Penuel & Means, 2000; Stepien, Gallagher & Workman, 1993). The research also points to that fact that the effectiveness of PBL is not limited to peripheral courses such as electives, but impacts teaching and learning across the curriculum (Beckett & Miller, 2006; Boaler, 2002; Finkelstein et al., 2010; Greier et al., 2008; Mergendoller, Maxwell, & Bellisimo, 2006).

Content is still king in PBL despite it sharing the title with seven other essential elements. In fact, in regard to the understanding and acquisition of the content, it may have dethroned more traditional models of teaching and learning content.

References:

Beckett, G. H., & Chamness Miller, P. (2006). Project-based second language and foreign language education: Past, present, future. Greenwich, Connecticut: Information Age Publishing.

Boaler, J. (1997). Experiencing school mathematics: Teaching styles, sex, and settings. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.

Finkelstein, N., Hanson, T., Huang, C., Hirschman, B., and Huang, M. (2010). Effects of problem based economics on high school economics instruction. (NCEE 2010-4002). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.

Geier, R., Blumenfeld, P. C., Marx, R. W., Krajcik, J. S., Fishman, B., Soloway, E., & Clay-Chambers, J. (2008). Standardized test outcomes for students engaged in inquiry-based science curricula in the context of urban reform. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 45(8), 922-939.

Mergendoller, J., Maxwell, N., & Bellisimo, Y. (2006). The effectiveness of problem-based instruction: A comparative study of instructional methods and student characteristics. Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-based Learning, 1(2), 49-69.

Penuel, W. R., & Means, B. (2000). Designing a performance assessment to measure students’ communication skills in multi-media-supported, project-based learning. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans.

We are happy to announce the addition of a video section of the I.D.E.A. Schools Network site. We have added four videos created from the East Coast Summer Sandbox focused on creativity, game-based learning, culture change and what exactly the Sandbox is. We hope you enjoy them and the future videos we produce for our members and the field. Click here to check out the videos.

Having spent last week at the ISTE2014 conference, I left a more inspired and motivated educator, not the least of which was because of presentations like the one by Phil Hansen who presented as part of the ISTE EdTekTalks.

As I sat and listened to him speak (see his TEDTalk below which is basically what he presented) I could not stop thinking about my 6th grade science project. My topic was “roller coaster physics” and I was comparing elliptical and spherical looped roller coasters and the differences in coaster velocity. While I have no recollection of my hypothesis or the results, I certainly remember being in tears one late evening working on my project. The marble would not go up the moving stairs! It was all over!

To test my theories of velocity, whatever they were, I was using one of those marble roller coasters (see blog image) made out of plastic tubes with an electric staircase that would push the marble step by step from the bottom of the coaster to the top. At the top gravity would take over and the marble would soar down the tube track I had designed. However, for some reason mine was defective and the marble would get stuck on the last step. I was not one to give up quickly, so I started problem solving.

First, I unscrewed the steps to see if there were any issues inside them. Nope. Next, looking closer at the last step, I thought there might have been a little extra plastic getting in the way so I found a nail file and filed away. Well that just made it worse. So, I did the next logical thing and grabbed a match and began to melt the step down. Suffice it to say, that was far from the solution and I had hit my wall. I ran to the couch, began to cry and, while my mother tried to console me, I would not be calmed. My entire science project was over, so I thought.

If you watch Phil’s TEDTalk below you will see that he hit a wall as well. Having focused on his passion for pointillism for years he injured his hand and was unable to create art the way he wanted. This type of art required fine motor skills his hands could no longer deliver. First he also tried to problem solve focusing only on the one way he thought he could create art; pointillism. He held the pen tighter and tighter until he could not longer create the fine points he needed. So, what did he do? He gave up. That was until his neurologist said why don’t you just create art a different way?

The simple fact was that Phil did not lose his creative ability. He had only lost the physical ability to tightly grasp a pen, which only limited his ability to create art one specific way. When he finally accepted that the limitation was only his hands and not his creativity, he was able to realize the limitless creative ability he always and still had. He just had to get unstuck from his focus on why he could not create one specific way and start thinking about how he can create a thousand other ways. Once he realized how he was limited he become limitless.

My 6th grade roller coaster disaster certainly was not the same as Phils struggle, but I did get stuck thinking that the only way for the coaster to work was to use the stairs. However, after some consolation from my mother, she asked me why don’t you just drop the marble from the top yourself and not use the stairs? Um…….yea! Why not? I had been so focused on what was not working and not accepting the limit that I placed on the project, that I was not exploring alternative methods to accomplish the same goal.

It is easy to get hyper focused on what does not work when something does not go the way you had hoped. However, as Phil said at the EdTekTalk, “embracing a limitation can actually drive creativity.”

So, can we apply Phil’s embracing of the shake to our classrooms?

As educators we want our students to have as many options to success as possible. However, for this to be true it first requires more pathways to success integrated into the curriculum and the models of teaching and learning we use. We can’t have only one way to learn or illustrate learning. This is not how it is in the real world and is not the way it should be in our classrooms. Yet in our current system of standardized testing, drill and kill lessons and industrial bell schedules herding our students from class to class embracing a limitation means failure without opportunity for relearning. This is not real world learning. A rigid classroom does not drive creativity, it destroys it.

So, while I loved Phil’s message and see how valuable it is to the classroom, it requires a transformation of teaching and learning. This is certainly possible and is slowly happening in classrooms and schools around the country. However, maybe it could happen faster if our teachers “embrace the shake” and realize the limitations of our current system so that they, like Phil, become limitless.

Oh, if you were wondering, I did very well at the science fair and went to the county science fair taking home the third place ribbon in physics.

Cross-posted on EJsCafe.com

The other day I was walking down my street crossing an alley when it began calling to me. In the corner of my eye was the magnetic force compelling me to draw near, something on any other day I would have rightfully ignored. However, today was unlike any other day and the large glimmering cardboard box begging me to give it the attention it deserved was no longer just a cardboard box. It was an endless opportunity. You see, last week I had the privilege of leading a Cardboard Challenge, with my friend and colleague Dina Rabhan, at the 2014 Innovation in Jewish Education conference (iJED) in New York and my relationship with cardboard will never be the same.

“Inspired by the short film, `Caine’s Arcade,’ the Global Cardboard Challenge is a worldwide celebration of child creativity and the role communities and schools can play in fostering it. (Organizer Playbook)”

The event challenges kids to create and build using cardboard, recycled materials and imagination.The first-ever Global Cardboard Challenge had 270+ events in 41 countries and to date there has been over 1 million kids from over 70 countries engaged in this event. It also paved the road for the Imagination Foundation, a non-profit guided by increasing creativity in our schools. Here is the follow up film to Caine’s Arcade where you can see the full impact finding the creativity in one child has had on the world.

However, while the attention has clearly been focused on Caine, the video reminds us that there is a Caine in all of our classrooms and, in my humble opinion, the true hero of this phenomenon is Nirvan.

You see it all started not because Caine was this awesome kid with such creative talents. Caine was awesome way before the first youtube viewer clicked play. It all began because one person, Nirvan Mullick, saw what was unique and special in Caine and took action. There are so many Caines around us, but it takes the adults in their lives to see them for what is unique and special about them, then take action to nurture it, support it and celebrate it. That is what Nirvan did and by doing so showed us not just how creative our students are and can be, but how important a great teacher is who recognizes their talents and does something about it.

At iJED, we were given the wonderful opportunity to view Caines Arcade as a group and be surprised by the appearance of Nirvan himself after the showing. He inspired the crowd of amazing Jewish educators with his first hand telling of meeting Caine and all that followed. He then engaged in a Cardboard Challenge where the educators who participated were tasked with designing an interactive Jewish game out of the materials provided, which included 400 pounds of cardboard, markers, paints, toys, paper, glue and more. What followed was nothing short of breathtaking.

The effort put into these cardboard games and the sheer joy I saw on all the educators in that room was moving. What they created was thoughtful, creative and, frankly, much more than I had expected. Yet, to see the smiles, laughter and excitement was even more telling. Whether we are a young child or older adult, we all have capacity for creativity and it simply makes us happy. Why we don’t celebrate creativity more in our classrooms and encourage it as we get older is beyond me. It is a lifelong skill that is critical to success and one we have been promoting more and more in our schools as of late, but we need to see more of it. We are doing a disservice to our students and ourselves if we don’t value individual creativity. The educators at iJED modeled it so well and are primed to bring it back to their schools. Based on what I saw the future for Jewish education is bright as more students and staff will be given opportunities to create and be celebrated for their unique talents. Thank you Nirvan and thank you to all the Jewish educators who attended iJED and showed us that our students are in good hands.

You can check out the awesome games they created below:

iJED 2014 Cardboard Challenge from JFilms on Vimeo.

And if you are interested in running your own cardboard challenge in your school you can get everything you need right here: https://cardboardchallenge.com/ . It is pretty simple to put together and will:

• engages student and/or educators in creative play

• fosters creativity, ingenuity, resourcefulness, perseverance and teamwork

• gives our student and/or educators an opportunity to explore their interests and passions, and make things that have an impact on others

• provides an experience and model a method for schools to actively foster and celebrate child creativity which increases global happiness and makes for a happier, more playful world.

• just be plain FUN! (from the Organizer Playbook)

Originally posted at www.ejscafe.com

Sometimes I go to a session and feel lucky if I get at least one new resource for my time there. However, as I wrote about a few weeks ago, I attended the Meet the Makers: Making a Case for Making in the Classroom workshop and not only did I learn a lot from the presenters and activities, but they also shared a list of wonderful resources. Below is the list of websites, videos and resources they shared with us. You can also go to Invent To Learn to learn more about the book of the same name by one of the days presenters Sylvia Martinez as well as additional resources. Enjoy!

Maker Resources (in order sent and not in any order of importance):

Belkin Lego iPad/iPhone Case Video

Caine’s Arcade Video #1

Caine’s Arcade Video #2

Imagination Foundation Video

Makey Makey Video

LittleBits

LittleBits Video

Zome Tool

Wowee

Wowee Video

If You Can

Make Magazine

Make Education

BIE

BIE Partners

Duck Duck Go

Barney Saltzberg

Barney Saltzberg Video

LeapFrog Tablets

Originally posted at www.EJsCafe.com

When I was young, like most kids, I liked to tinker. From trying to fix a broken lamp by taking all of its parts out and putting it back together again to making a cabbage patch doll light up like a glow worm, it was generally encouraged or at least tolerated at home. It was also generally encouraged in school as well. However, as I got older the encouragement for tinkering in school seemed to quickly fade away. Play, experimentation, curiosity and learning by doing was replaced by memorization, standardization and boringazation (yep, I just coined a new term. Take that Mrs. White - my 6th grade English teacher!).

Why did growing up mean the end of learning by trying new things and getting my hands dirty? There are a host of reasons unimportant to this post (but important to know) and of which none validate the unnecessary stubbornness of remaining in the one-size-fits all classrooms that many of us grew up in and find our children sitting in today. Yet, there is hope.

Despite the notion of “learning by doing” being a siren blown for centuries on seemingly deaf ears, through the lower costs and rapid advances in technology, hands-on learning is becoming more mainstream than ever before. With more talk about Project-Based Learning, Gamification and, reason for my post, the Makers Movement, John Dewey, one of the original “learn by doing” educational gangsters would be proud.

The Makers Movement if you are not familiar with it follows along the lines of John Deweys idea of “learning by doing” or Piagetian idea that “to understand is to invent.” Dale Dougherty (click here for his Ted Talk on Makers), the founder of Make magazine writes in his essay titled The Maker Mindset (2013):

Yet the origin of the Maker Movement is found in something quite personal; what I might call “experimental play.” When I started Make magazine, I recognized that makers were enthusiasts who played with technology to learn about it. A new technology presented an invitation to play, and makers regard this kind of play as highly satisfying. Makers give it a try; they take things apart; and they try to do things that even the manufacturer did not think about.

I, like Dougherty as he mentions in his TED talk, think we are all born makers and we are often at risk for having that part of us extinguished in school. The truth is I never really stopped playing in school and often brought toys with me to class. However, my teachers did not seem to appreciate my wonder of how the sparks came out of my toy tank or what made my gameboy tick. I was often asked to put my toys away and listen. I did not want to listen, at least not for the lengthy period of time they were requiring of me. I wanted to learn and for me that meant investigating, exploring and creating. It did not mean sit and stare at a chalkboard for an hour and try to keep up with whatever the Charlie Brown “blah, blah, blah” teacher was saying. I am not suggesting there was and is no value in direct instruction. It is critical, but it must be strategic and personalized. Students today have more access to information than ever before giving the teacher more room to teach for the true goal of knowledge which is personally meaningful application. This is where a master educator can shine and give over the gift of education to their students. Thankfully we are seeing more and more of this happening in the field.

Just check out Innovation Academy, High Tech High, New Tech Network and Science Leadership Academy to name a few schools who used Project-Based Learning at this core with plenty of tinkering happening and check out this teachers “dive into the makers movement.”

Recently, I had the privilege of sitting in a session at the RAVSAK/PARDES Jewish Day School conference led by Sylvia Martinez, President of Constructing Modern Knowledge and co-author of Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom. I just began reading it and for the first chapter alone it is worth the price of admission, but I am sure as I read more I would recommend it in its entirety. The session reinforced and opened up my mind to more of what is happening with the Makers Movement in the K-12 space. It also inspired me to sign up for the “Meet The Makers: Making A Case for Making in the Classroom” event I will be attending next week and hope to share more wonderful learning in this exciting area of education.

So, whether you call it a Makers lab, Fab Lab or just plain Project-Based Learning, learning by doing is alive and well in our schools and growing. There are many ways to think about how to increase real world application of knowledge taught in your schools. Integrating a Makers lab or Making in your classrooms is certainly a very exciting option. Below are many resources I collected about Making from the session I attended. Enjoy and go to school and play!

Looking for computers to tinker with?

https://www.makeymakey.com/

https://www.raspberrypi.org/

https://arduino.cc/

Looking for something 3D to tinker with?

https://www.makerbot.com/

https://tinkercad.com/

https://www.shapeways.com/

https://www.thingiverse.com/ (The above image is a design you can download here at Thingiverse)

Looking to tinker with cardboard?

https://mymakedo.com/

Are you a girl who wants to tinker?

https://diygirls.org/

Looking just to tinker?

https://www.instructables.com/

https://www.sparkfun.com/

https://makezine.com/

Looking to read more about tinkering?

Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

Makers: The New Industrial Revolution

The Maker Movement Manifesto: Rules for Innovation in the New World of Crafters, Hackers, and Tinkerers

The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices: How the Digital Magicians of the MIT Media Lab Are Creating the Innovative Technologies That Will Transform Our Lives

Originally posted at www.EJsCafe.com