I’m pleased to announce that we’ll be meeting with Suzie Boss and Jane Krauss tomorrow morning at 10:15 MST to discuss their book and project-based learning with technology in general. Better yet, I’m pleased to invite others to join us for that conversation.
But, CyberCampers, as we all know, a good conversation requires some good planning. So I’m asking – how would you like to spend that time with our guests? Focusing on the “middle” of the planning process, as you’re geting closer with yoru proposals? Thinking through involvong students in your projects? Asking questions about obscure factoids from the book (No? Didn’t think so.)
In the comments, talk a bit about what you’d like to get out of the time and what questions you have for our guests. They’ll be checking in with this post and your comments to help guide our conversation – so the folks who respond will get to drive tomorrow, metaphorically speaking. (Also – this might be the place to thank the authors for this handy text!)
If you’re not a CyberCamper, we’d love to hear from you, too – and you’re welcome to join us in Elluminate. Here’s the link for the conversation space, which has been graciously loaned to us by Steve Hargadon. Thanks, Steve!
5 responses so far ↓
1
adellwardt
// Jun 10, 2008 at 2:59 pm
I’m feeling overwhelmed with the idea of how to keep up with the latest in technology and education. How do you keep up with the “latest” with the least amount of time?
How do you get parents involved without over involvement or control?
2
Joanne
// Jun 10, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Questions for authors’ Suzie Boss and Jane Krauss:
In Section I you wrote, “This book is about the journey that unfolds when teachers decide to move away from traditional teaching and toward this new vision of instructional design.” Also, you state that “This is a journey that involves calculated risks.”
Can each of you briefly tell us about your journey and what may have been one of your biggest calculated risks? Perhaps you have a story about taking a risk and failing, or a story about taking a risk and the final project surprised you.
Thank you,
Joanne
3
kwillmann
// Jun 10, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Here are my questions
1. Why project based learning? It seems to leave out a number of other performances: speaking, multi-genre, and even relatively straight forward writing, that could benefit from the same approach.
2. One of the great issues facing education today is the segregation of high schools and increasingly middle and elementary schools into tracks. Project based learning offers easy ways to accomodate heterogenous classrooms. What experience have you had with teachers in tracked classrooms, both high and low using this approach? Bluntly, what do you tell teachers who say: ‘They don’t do this in college.” and/or “My kids need to learn the facts and basic skills before they can do this stuff.”
3. Why so little time devoted to grading in the book? It may be the single biggest impediment to to project based learning. Group grades, the appearance of subjectivity, fairness issues, content v. bells and whistles, measuring higher level thinking, all weigh heavy in teachers heads. Can you give us some more help in how to take risks, yet still fit student project work into letter grades?
Thanks for the book and for participating in this forum!
4
Jane Krauss
// Jun 11, 2008 at 12:17 pm
In response to adellwardt who asks how folks keep up to date– My answer, I don’t try very hard. I do let others pay attention for me and I pay attention to THEM. And, I wait. Something viral happens with the best ones and I’m not succeptable early on– I heard about Diigo repeatedly, even saw a demo, but didn’t “catch the bug” until I had a reason– When I heard there was a PBL social bookmarking group in Diigo, viola, my reason!
There are too many tools to track, but only a handful of major functions I want them to deliver, so I let that be a sorting factor also. Tools appear, morph, sometimes disappear… the good ones persist, improve, end up as our ‘killer aps’ – like flickr!
5
Jane Krauss
// Jun 11, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Re: Joanne’s request: ‘Can each of you briefly tell us about your journey and what may have been one of your biggest calculated risks? ‘
I started teaching with pbl ten years ago when technology was just coming to the fore. I started small because, though I was hopeful, I was also tentative and risk-averse! I bet my first project was a lot more proscribed then any I would do now, with kids following defined steps to a predetermined outcome. PBL “lite” I’m sure! I did know kids would profit from cooperative learning (a new practice teachers were starting to adopt) so I designed for group work. Once groups dug in the picture in my mind’s eye had to shift! Different groups interpreted the tasks differently, oh no! It took me a while to realize this was a good thing, even with my tight control there was some ambiguity. (I now recommend “optimal ambiguity” so kids have to negotiate, interpret, decide what’s important.)
Other things I had to get used to in project work? I had to change what I paid attention to and learn to listen differently. I had to fall out of love with my own voice and learn to ask probing and guiding questions. I had to get used to groups of kids working on a variety of tasks during a single period. I had to redefine workflow and call attention to the stages of work so kids could stay on track. I had to get better at getting kids to be reflective about their own learning. I had to help them learn to learn together.
Biggest calculated risk? Our grade level team decided to design a comprehensive project together. We’d never planned cooperatively before and I’d never had to put voice to what I thought was important or how learning should proceed– I was used to making decisions and doing my work in comfortable anonymity. It felt risky to talk about my decisions and classroom practices. Luckily, we liked and trusted one another and were kind when we shot down each other’s ideas ! I’d never take on a solo project again.
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