Aren’t you all a bit obsessed about PBL by now? I know I am. And as soon as I saw Courtney’s question “What kinds of projects could incorporate the websites that students already frequent such as You Tube and Facebook?” I suddenly felt very proud of a project I carried out last year with my 12th grade students.
The idea was to do some research on someone they considered an icon in terms of Democracy. As I didn’t want any copy-paste kind of work I told them they would have to present their work either by creating a blog impersonating the character or by creating a fake facebook page that they would update for a certain period of time, adding more and more information, comments, etc. It was a fantastic activity. They all got involved in it, interacted with other groups, learned a lot about the person they had chosen and in the end presented their pages and findings to the class.
I wrote an article about it for InEnglishDigital where you can find more details about this activity (Research work: an upgrade, page 20). Check it out here!
Ah, and there was a very careful and strict planning and assessment. They knew I was checking their pages every Friday and something new had to be there, they knew what type of information and material they were supposed to gather, they were expected to interact with other groups and comment their blog posts or status updates and they had guidelines for the final class presentation.
Maybe I am a bit of a PBL guru and I just didn’t know it. ;-)
Hi Luísa,
ReplyDeleteA PBL guru you really are! What a great project you did with your students on FaceBook. I would love to borrow your idea and do it with my class, but perhaps I will have to wait a little longer, because currently FB is inaccessible by a lot of people in Vietnam.
I am proud to be in the same class as people like you, dear friend, because you are such a skilled and well-published teacher. I am really learning a lot. Thanks so much for sharing your experience.
Ky
Hi Ky,
Deleteit was just a joke. I am not a guru, no way, but I found it funny how sometimes we are already doing things without even thinking about what lies beneath and I'm sure the same happens with all of us.
Hi Luisa,
ReplyDeleteGreat work!
Yes, we, by one or another way, tried to carry out new ideas with the wish of making our teaching more effective.
Maybe, I need your help more in the coming time as I expect to make full use of technological facilities in my university.
Thank you for sharing.
The
Thank you, The. I'm glad you liked it. Fell free to ask for help any time. I may not always have the knowledge, but I always have ideas. Sometimes that is the problem: too many ideas and too little time or so few resources to make things happen.
DeleteHi Luisa,
ReplyDeleteGreat work! I loved it!
It's true that many times teachers have great ideas and do extraordinary things with their students but don't value them enough. Or they can't imagine how useful it is to share their ideas. However, sometimes they are afraid that they would be envied. Is there such a mentality in Portugal?
I've seen that here several times which is a shame!
Keep on the good work! You are inspiring us!
Marina
I think everybody is inspired and inspiring, Marina. We are all learning from the rest of us. And it's good to start thinking about what we have been doing, because I'm sure we all have a lot to be proud of.
DeleteA comment from Yuliya (she sent it to my email as she cannot access blogger)
ReplyDeleteHi, PBL guru Luisa!
I will comment all three posts for this week. Very interesting insights into what we have been doing!
Luisa, I will certainly recommend your article to my colleagues: the idea is really worth implementing!
Luisa I feel in many ways the same as you do about the final project. “the one less travelled by” is more interesting and challenging to try. I do hope we will be able to see the light in the end of the tunnel. Good luck to all of us!
As for self and peer assessment, I think in my country it is a bit of a problem. I see roots of that in cultural background and mentality. We come from a more“collectivistic” than individualistic culture . When asked to give comments on each other’s work the students tend to either keep silent or find positive moments only, praising even if the project or activity was badly performed. That is the fact we have to face.
Yuliya
Wow Luisa...you are a guru...I love your idea. I know the feeling students get when they have the chance to be so involved. They don't notice they are learning. They enjoy! I recently gave a presentation in the NTC in Guatemala, and I actually talked about the underestimated idea to have fun. Have fun doesn't mean becoming a clown and having no rules in the class. Have fun means exactly what you did with this activity. Thanks for sharing. Keep it up! ;-)
ReplyDeleteThank you, Roxana.
ReplyDeleteNo, Roxana, I'm not a guru, but that doesn't mean I can't do interesting things sometimes. We all do.
And having fun while learning is one of the most important things if we don't want to lose our students. If I like to have fun teaching, I suppose they also like to have fun learning. So I try to please both of us.