Reflections of a Techie

Rocky Road in PBL--Failures Welcome as Part of Design Process

All this year I've been working to empower students and turn learning over to them.  We've just started my newest attempt at PBL with the rock cycle as the centerpiece.  In this first day of the work, I've seen such encouraging change in student attitudes.  They embrace the chance to try things out...they see the trial and error part of this kind of learning as tolerable and, dare I say it, almost enjoyable.  When things don't work out the very first time, they have enough experience to realize that it will if they hang in there. 

They buy into the idea that it's a design process.

So if you're a teacher or student you've seen this chart a million times.  I wanted students to take it to another level...one where they experienced it.  Clearly they're not going into the mantle or not top of a volcano.

How could they build a model to show their understanding?

What questions do they have about how this re-cycling works?

I told them that we were going to do this unit without cookie cutter lab directions and they would be in charge of defining how to go about learning these concepts.  Loads of eyerolling went on.  Hey they're middle schoolers and it goes with the territory.

As we built background information, they've developed some amazing questions.

• How does the rock cycle work in a volcano?
• Why do some rocks never go through the cycle?  Where are these rocks located?
• How do we show the kinds of processes that rocks take...the melting, the pressure, the cooling and the breaking apart?
• When you build a model of something, what makes it a good model?
• How do you make dangerous things not dangerous so it can be in your model?
• What can we melt that can happen in our classroom and that can be broken up later?
• Do other planets in space have rock cycles?
• Is this really just re-cycling and why is it called a cycle instead of re-cycling?
  

You can see that the questions were pretty far ranging.  I also think it indicates they've started going beyond the obvious questions.

One of the best parts of this phase of PBL

Now that we've been doing this kind of inquiry for a while, students are much more tolerant of the process.  They know they're going to be stumped here at the beginning and it will all become more transparent as they work with the ideas and question.

They know that I'm not going to leave them out there, grading-wise or curiosity-wise, without a net.  They believe that I wouldn't ask them to do something that they can't do or figure out.  And that it will take a bit of experimenting to figure out what works.

We've gotten to the point where they know that some of their ideas will work and some won't.  For example, one of the groups realized they would need to break down rocks in their model.  They're using crayons as minerals and bricks to represent the rocks that scrap past.  Unfortunately as they tested their idea, it didn't work.  This would have been a diaster for the group in August.  Now they realize that this idea didn't work, but if they just tweaked it a bit, it might. 

They didn't see this first attempt as a failure because they get it's a design process.

They have belief that they'll figure it out on a future attempt.  That's huge.

Adapting Google's 20% time to my classroom

I read about something called 20% time at Google where employees are studying their own questions for 20% of their workweek.  Supposedly many innovations come from letting people follow their interests.  I can't even relate because I work in an industry where there are "scripted lesson plans" that tell you what to say, not just to give you the direction for your work.

Anyway...onto a more positive note.

I decided to take this urban legend of an idea and try it out in my own classroom.  I had three students who were finished and who wanted to "hang out" while all the others finished.  Instead I proposed they come up with something to do ala the Google 20% time.  My only boundary was that it had to fit into school learn somehow.

Honestly they had no idea what questions interested them.  They were stumped and frustrated.  And after quite a bit of letting them work on it, interjecting questions and trying to lead them....I suggested they might look at some creative websites for inspiration.  I suggested using the Exploratorium's Tinkering Studio and Make. I love reading about all the cool things they do.

From looking over these sites, they chose Light Painting.

So I dug out my yearbook camera, the camera manual and suggested they print out the materials to read over.  Since the rest of the class was working on their library projects, we asked to borrow the backroom where all the equipment was kept as their painting studio.  It took them only a day to figure out how to re-set the camera's shutter and to trial and error some pretty neat shots.

For their light source, guess what they picked?

You betcha.  A cell phone....what else would a 2012 6th grader pick? 

So these are some of their paintings.  Now they've super excited and asking more questions.  NOW they are full of thier own unanswered questions.  NOW I have them hooked.  This will fuel many days of trying new ways and ideas.  Who knows where it will go.  But it will be fun and it will be their path.

I'm always looking for ways to get my students curious and interested in learning.  Maybe this 20% isn't a myth.  At least not in my classroom.   Wonder what the folks at Google would think of our implementation!

 

July's reflection comes true

In scrambling across the web, I've found a treasure chest of opportunity.  Science for citizens is actually the name of the chest.  And it was a bit of a treasure hunt that brought me to their front door...more about that later.

Science for Citizens offers regular folks like me (if I'm regular I guess) the chance to participate in science projects from right where we live, doing pretty normal stuff and then sending in what we learn to the principal investigators.  Here's their nutshell of a mission

In a nutshell...

If you're a citizen: This is the place to find out about, take part in, and contribute to science through recreational activities and research projects.

How cool is that?  And the mission statement is this

ScienceForCitizens.net will bring together the millions of citizen scientists in the world; the thousands of potential projects offered by researchers, organizations, and companies; and the resources, products, and services that enable citizens to pursue and enjoy these activities. We aim to:

• Enable and encourage people to learn about, participate in, and contribute to science through both informal recreational activities and formal research efforts.
• Inspire greater appreciation and promote a better understanding of science and technology among the general public.
• Create a shared space where scientists can talk with citizens interested in working on or learning about their research projects.
• Satisfy the popular urge to tinker, build, and explore by making it simple and fun for people—singles, parents, grandparents, kids—to jump in and get their hands dirty with science.

Who could resist something like that?  To be sure, not me!!!  So I've nosed around the website and found at least a couple of projects that I'm already working on.  The first one is very low key and super easy.  Robins.  Yep the birds that hop around my yard all day and night...little brown and orange-breasted birds.   They are sweet, they love my bird bath in the front yards, although it's very hard to photograph them there. 

The idea is for citizens everywhere to document where and when someone sees a robin and then upload the observation report.  There's a very cool map that locates your robin observation and you can see where the robins can be found in the United States.  The scientists running the project are monitoring climate change and weather changes on where these little guys migrate.

Then on June 21st, I'm getting excited for another super simple, easy to participate in science project.   From the Science for Citizens Blog comes "Snap a picture and mesure albedo!!!"  By taking a picture of a piece of white paper...yes, a picture of white paper...you could help scientist to take measurements from all over the world on albedo.

But what's albedo, Marsha?  Albedo is the solar energy that bounces back back to space after it hits the Earth's surface.  Not all of what the sun sends out and that makes it thru the atmosphere all the way to the surface, stays on the surface.  Some of it richocets off the earth's surface & back out of the atmosphere.   

"For three years Dr. Kathleen Gorski and her students at Wilbraham and Monson Academy near Springfield, MA have been snapping pictures of white paper and using them to measure albedo by comparing the white paper to the surrounding ground surface. "  the blog reports.  So how much fun would it be to participate in a project that tries to take the most accurate measurement of something as scientific as this?  And simple.

If you're like me....well, just remember June 21st between 5-8pm is the time and place.  Snap your picture and you're in the loop....a citizen scientist.  I first came across this idea of albedo when we were studying climate...and learned the more that the earth absorbs, the hotter we become in theory.  So studying things like how much is reflected back, helps to monitor how climate change is or is not happening.

 

Treasure Hunt    So how did I find this jewel?  Well, thanks to my newly acquired Twitter skills, I'm beginning to read the Tweets of very interesting people.

Responding to those Small Strategic Steps

A teacher that I follow closely is  Shelley Wright.  I somehow feel we must have separated at teacher's college as I feel she's my twin science teacher.  Doesn't matter that she teaches AP Physics and I teach 11 and 12 year olds....we struggle with lots of the same things?

Take her most recent article at Voice From the Learning Revolution she talks a series of small strategic steps.  Right off the bat, I'm in....because I can do almost anything that's small and if it's strategic, all the better.

She talks about the shift towards being a student-centered classroom as a roller coaster ride.  This describes my personal journey towards becoming a teacher who does more coaching of students towards our science learning targets than one who pours into them.  It's full of bends in the road...you don't expect students to react in a certain way and you really have to become a nimble responder.

Students need lots of help to make this transition and when you see them struggling, you have to change your course in a heartbeat.  Doesn't that remind you of some of these corkscrew kinds of curves?

Shelley recommends

You can jump in and change everything at once like I did, but that’s slightly crazy. Instead, if you design one unit in one subject, at the end of each day, or week, you can analyze what worked and what didn’t.

While I see the wisdom in this approach, I also needed to have a strong understanding of how this learning would fit into everything else I'm doing.  I couldn't do just one.  For me, I had to conceptually get how this one change was going to fit into the bigger picture.

I think my reasoning goes something like this....my little guys are so inexperienced at science that you can be doing things differently without causing them to falter around.  So if I'm going to do inquiry, I have to do in such a way that it doesn't jolt them.  So maybe I could design a series of inquiry experiences that ease into the different skills they are going to need to do inquiry.

For example, I might need to teach them how to write a whole sentence or draw a picture with diagrams.....so when they tell others what they learned there will be information there.  Honestly my students arrive....masters at the one or two word answers.  It's back to the whole fill-in-the-blank mentality.

As some of my other colleagues say....I have to help my students "unlearn" first.  Then they can do inquiry.  And as Shelley recommends....talk about the learning.  Boy there couldn't be any better advice than this.  No matter how well or how badly something has gone...having the chance to discuss it with students to get their perspective and reaction...helps so much.  It develops their voice as a learner, as an important member of the classroom and I get more insight by chatting with them in  a class debrief for 10 minutes than if they write for that same period of time.

Strategic steps are critical to any kind of instructional strategy you're going to deploy.  Inquiry because it emphasizes student independence and pushes them to be question-askers as well as question-answerers......depends on taking small steps.

Right on Shelley.

 

Thanks to http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuckincustoms/682213181/sizes/s/in/photostream/  for their CC license rollercoaster picture.

Three things to learn from the research part of PBL

Reading 120+ sets of research notes gives you loads of insight about what students learned, where they had problems and where they excelled.  It's first-class feedback for me, as the teacher and designer, about this unit.

Evaluating what they learned

I can see where students maxed out their searching, writing and learning so they could answer their Focus Question.   Here's where most of the 120 kids excelled...probably because they were answering questions that interested them.

You can see how this student is working at comparing the difference between the kinds of tusks mastodons, mammoths and moeritheriums  had....that's what piqued his group's interest.  One of the research notes that made me chuckle aloud was mammoths don't have cracked teeth while mastodon teeth have cracks....why?  because mammoths mostly ate grass while mastodons ate tree branches.  Who knew?  All my 6th graders now understand that the fact and I hope it wins them a $1,000,000 on Jeporady sometime.

Reading this also reminded me how out of touch I am about what interests middle school kids.  Most of their Team Focus questions, I would have never picked or thought about.  Yet here all these amazing questions and I can see how hard they worked to find out the answers to their questions.

They helped me define three by which I would judge their notes:  comprehensiveness, how well what they collected helped the team answer their question, and originality of their research (ie they didn't copy their notes from someone else).  I just made up a checklist where I could evaluate these three things and then jot a small note.

Things I need to improve on next time

1. Create a checkpoint earlier in the project where I look over these notes as a prequisite to moving onto the product phase.  I could tell some of my students didn't do their part because their notes were too sparse and incomplete.  If I had caught this earlier, I could have required them to  continue reading and researching.
2. Improve my mini-lessons on notetaking. I should take more time to define what I think the notes should look like when they're finished and get that firmly in my mind and design the lessons that will help students get there.  Sometimes they clearly ran out material or just stopped looking....and restated what they had already written down again and again and again.

Next week we'll do a reflection where they have to use these notes to actually write an answer to their Team Focus question in class and they'll rate their experience with teamwork, creativity and time management.   So these three measures...the research notes & reflection, their product presentation and the unit test will be my comprehensive measure of how well this unit succeeded.

Mini-scientists....uncovering the mastodon dig

For a change of pace today, we took a breather in all our activities and I decided that I would show students the video that the Discovery Channel made about the mastodons.  I'm not much for using lots of longer videos...but this is a good exception.  Mastodons in your Backyard explains how a family found mastodon bones which led to a local scientist along with many, many volunteers uncovered one of the most intact mastodon skeleton ever discovered.  And this video helps students to see what part they are playing as Citizen Scientsts.

 

 

What was so much fun was that students began to recognize the large Ziploc bags.....

"Hey those are like the bags we had our marl in".....

"Hey are they talking about a place like where our mastodon came from?"

"Hey wait a minute,"......and they'd sort of re-group...."that IS our mastodon!!"

"No way....that's our project!!"

They were so excited.  As they watched the video, they recognized many of the details and ideas they had gathered in their own research.

Here students are creating a comparison between mastodons & mammoths

Most wished they had the chance to talk to the scientists that ran the project because now they really have questions.  This group wants to discuss how they compared the mastodons and the mammoths. And students appreciated  how the scientists wanted to share the discovery of this mastodon with others....and in particular with classroom like ours.

One student asked me...."does that make us mini-scientists?"  I think it does!!!

Once again I learn that asking students to do real work affirms them and gives them loads of motivation.  Watching their faces as they saw the mastodon skeleton rise up out of the muddy dig site showed me they were 100% involved.  And they could imagine doing that kind of work when they grow up.  Now I just have to wait about 15 years to see if any become paleontologists.

 

3 things to remember at end of PBL project

It's our last week at this work as students finish up their projects, put the last touches on their presentations and start studying for their scientific method unit test.  What I observed is a real focused investment of time and energy....I was almost un-needed because the classes knew what they needed to get done.  And they were doing it.    I'll have to admit that I totally cracked up with this group.  They had invested how large mastodon tusks actually were....and then built to scale models of them. Two of the students worked together because their life-size tusk was too big for just one person to manage.   They matched the length and diameter of the tusks for mastodons, mammoths and moritheas.....they went so far as to show the "rings" of the tusks in a cross section which reveals what conditions were present in that mastodon's life.  Much like you would see in tree rings, these same kinds of growth patterns can be seen in tusks.  they had a blast doing the whole project and now are dragging these tusks home on the bus to finish painting them....they are so excited.

I'm thrilled with their excitment don't worry.  But I'm even prouder of their commitment to excellence...the time they invested in finding out about those tusks and then figuring out how to build these layers into their model.  It wasn't easy....many layers of newspapers, masking tape and coat hangers (because I won't let them buy new stuff since recycling is green and it pretty much puts everyone on an even playing field). 

It was a very self-directed room.

Students went back to our driving questions board where we collected all the post-its that related to the class question just to make sure that their team question fit and would be finished on time.

In order to set that up, I walked through the next two weeks of calendar with them.  I thought if they could get a sense of all the upcoming due dates (yes again), it would help them priortize without me having to direct each day.  As a whole class, we wrote in communal due dates and then each team looked at what was left to do and they added in their team due dates.  When they finished that effort, I then had them transfer the big dates onto the monthly overview calendars.  They are using their planner's weekly calendars to keep track of the details of their work and the monthly calendar to get a bird's eye view.  Hopefully this will let them zoom in and zoom out in their thinking.

There's still lots to do.  I haven't yet gotten permission to have our museum in the grade level pod.  If we can't do that, we'll have our museum in the room.  The art teacher is going to help students assemble the mural....they are staging all the pieces on tables inside my room and will work with her to learn how to attach everything so it won't fall off the wall.  (A key thing since there's lots of traffic in this hallway everyday.) 

Here's the second important thing to have near the end....a passion about being excellent.  They now get that their product has to show exactly what they're thinking.  It's why they've drafting their placards, revised and then done it all again.  Once they saw high quality models, they have been working towards re-creating that standard in their own work.

We have to work on the study guide for the unit test....students have helped me write the questions that cover  What is a testable question? and Is this a testable question?---writing lots of examples and then leading the class review.....Explaining and showing the difference in quantitative and qualitative data.....Is this a question for science? where students must decide if the question applies to science or to some other kind of investigation. 

This is where the curriculum that is tested fits in with everything I'm doing along with all the time managment/organizational/teamwork objectives I'm fulfilling.  It's the piece that I thought was missing in my paradigm of PBL before I did this unit.  Now I see....we had 3 weeks of hard-core scientific investigation with the soil and data collection....another week of building driving questions and morphing those into testable questions for science.....and a final week of "fun" where they transformed their questions into presentations which they decided was to be a museum.  Now we'll have another week of mixed stuff (a little presentation and a little test review games).

Layering. Layering the 3 big things...passion for their projects, curriculum and  a real commitment to excellence.  It's all about the layering. 

 

Coaching PBL teams to focus question & delegation--critical steps

We are beginning to double back now that the arty part of our culminating projects are winding up. Students are beginning to spend more time working with their research notes and making sure that they've answered their Team Focus Question with the models and also with summaries that they're writing.

Since they were interested in putting together a Mastodon Museum, I scavenged some examples of what museum placards looked like.  Google quickly brought up many examples using the Images search function.  See these helped students remember what they themselves have seen when they've gone to places and they were able to get to work fairly quickly on it.

Where they struggled was knowing how to start writing.  Always I'm directing them to tie it back to their team question.  Asking "How does this relate to your team question", "Will this help someone understand how you've answered the question your team researched?"  or even "What were the things that kept coming up over and over again when you did all your searching?".  I watch students as they figured out that they should look for commonalities in their research notes that could easily be converted into a placard kind of thing.

Several groups realized that they didn't have enough examples...I was thrilled to watch one group get up and go outside my room to look at another group's map.  The map group had pinpointed where different animals that were contemporary to the Hyde Park mastodon had lived and basic stats about those animals.  They used each other's expertise to expand the answer to their question.

I also think the big improvement I made in how we are approaching this culminating presentations is to have them do a better job with time management.  Before they jumped into working on their models, I insisted (and I had lots of sad faces and exasperated glances) that they draw up a plan that had specific tasks for each person with specific due dates.  And then they had to write it all in their planners so that I could see they knew exactly what and when their products were due.  These were all due dates they established within their teams and that will be interim steps to meeting my final deadline date.

They sort of cracked up when they realized it sounded much harder than it really was.  Most figured out that there wasn't enough left to do on their models so that one or two of the group could continue working on the placard.

This was a huge revelation for them.  Previously I don't think they had much idea about the practicalities of delegation.  This project helped them see that possibility.  What I had hoped for was that they would build on the strengths of each team member and delegate along those lines.  Sometimes it worked out that way....sometimes it didn't.  I'll have to see where everything sorts out in the end to see what I think is my best way to coach them through the next time.

PBL makes for a hectic but wonderful day

Another hectic, busy workday in Room66.  While our shake jar settle, students are putting to work all that they've researched about this 9000 year old timeperiod from books, the internet and other sources of information.

Here's the place where they're stepping away from my required lesson plan and my checklist of "Have To Do's" (you know those curriculum pieces that I was hired to teach).  Here's where they are asking and answering the questions about this mastodon or time period that interests them.  Here's where we hook 'em with things that interest them.

I'm loving it.

They're loving it.

It's working.

They decided that they wanted to show their research...much like a museum might.  They decided to build exhibits.

Here one of the groups is busy trying to build the layers of a mastodon.  They've gotten bits of wire that are bending into the shape of the skeleton, then (as you can see the girl in the green shirt doing) they are layering on the tissue of the mastodon.  To be followed, after the tissue layer dries, with the hairy coat.  It was this hairy coat that got the whole thing rolling.  They wanted to know how this coat helped them survive the cold times without being too hot in the warm times.  So they've read and read....and looked at tons of pictures/videos on the subject.  Now they're trying to build a model that is half a mastodon so you can see inside the creature to understand.

These might look like egg cartons to you...but they're in the process of being transformed into mastodon teeth.

This group studied what mastodons and mammoths ate.  They are using the egg cartons as the base for the mastodon teeth which they will contrast with a different kind of model to the mammoth teeth.  Again...this is their idea and their creation.  It's very nifty...even though they forgot to bring a paint brush and they had to make shift one out of an old sponge I found under my sink!!!!

This is my high energy group and they were busy with plaster of paris.  Boy was I nervous.  Nervous they'd forget and dump it down the sink and it would plug up.

They didn't and I eventually relaxed.

What they were doing is making casts of what they thought footprints would look like.  Someone had gone to Colorado over the summer.  In a cave where they were vacationing, they saw dinosaur footprints from the underside.  The rock had eroded and weathered away from below....leaving just the indentations of the footprint.  So they were trying to re-create this kind of thing only with mastodon footprints.  We won't know for a couple of days if it worked and if the mold they built worked. But they tried and it was all their idea.

This is another kind of project. 

Maybe one that doesn't look so spectacular, but one that is full of amazing info.

These are my quieter kids...the ones that really dug deep into their topic.  They wanted to know what other kinds of animals lived as contemporaries of the mastodon we're studying.  So they've done an amazing amount of research to find out.  They chose to create this map and will have small articles that describe each animal they think is significant.  It's a thorough piece of research that took the 4 boys about 4-5 hours to put the map and all the animals together.  The amazing thing about this was that they got together over the weekend....they were so excited they couldn't wait to get back to school.  So they met and worked on drawing out the map at home.

Social lessons of PBL...what I didn't expect but am learning now

Lots of creativity. Lots of energy.  Lots of fast moving, free flowing learning.  It's been a fantastically positive experience for all of us, most of the time.  It's loud but if you were there, you see that they pretty much all talking about their projects and the things they're building.

Using passion research to make product from Marsha Ratzel on Vimeo.

 

A few tears along the way.  Groups couldn't come to an agreement and harsh things were said to each other.  No one would compromise, so I had to broker a treaty.  Honestly one group had a couple fo members that wouldn't budge...both parties felt like their position was the "right" one.  It was a different kind of teaching victory...because I didn't let them go on until it was resolved.  The next day people had better attitudes...still not happy and certainly not forgotten. 

They're learning to listening to each other...trying to listen more than they talk.  It's hard.  Boy I can understand that.

 
I think this will be a journey not only for students but for me.  I need to continue to grow in my ability to lead students thru this kind of conflict resolution.  Asking those questions and being quiet enough...not rushing in to be Bob the Builder/Fixer.....because they won't learn if I do it for them.  Yet I have to make sure that everyone feels like I'm not watching the fireworks take place....it's my presence and proximity that has to lend the mantle of civility on the words and actions that they deploy in trying to solve their problems.

Some students really haven't had to learn to compromise and find that third solution out there...adults have solved it for them or they've been allowed to work by themselves.  I'm not saying that neither of those solutions are possibilities at other times, but this was a group project and that means learning different social skills than you will in other situations.

Other students have had to learn about craftsmanship.  Pride in product.  Doing the best on your project because it's yours. 

Did I forget to mention this....this is an un-graded project!!!!  No grades.  It's all about the learning.  I tried to free myself and them.  That hasn't gone well either.  Parents have emailed to say that their student has worked so hard and isn't getting any credit.  "Well no", I say but " they've learned a lot.  They knew going into it they weren't getting a grade so this isn't a surprise."  That doesn't sit too well with some parents.  Other parents couldn't be happier.  I just have to keep on moving forward believing what I see before my eyes.

 

Students have worked on this way more than I required.  Mostly because they were so interested and wanted to do all these creative, performance based things.  It's a good thing and I'm glad for the bumps in the road.  It's where I learn the most and I think I'm building up my PBL muscles.

Boxing match photo was from Flickr.  Licensed under a Creative Commons attribution license.   http://www.flickr.com/photos/pedrovezini/6156189348/sizes/s/in/photostream/.  Listening ear was licensed under the CC Attribution License http://www.flickr.com/photos/hansvanrijnberk/2598234846/sizes/s/in/photostream/