Project-Based Learning

This past week we looked at project-based learning, considering how this class structure could make lessons and assessments more relevant for students:

This cues into the video we watched in week 1 by Sir Ken Robinson "Changing Education Paradigms".  Both videos suggest that modern education should focus less on more traditional modes of education, and more on real tasks that allow students to work in teams (social learning - remember the 12 Brain/Mind Learning Principles?), and creatively problem solve.

One of the key challenges to this model is that it requires a considerable amount of personal responsibility on the part of the students, and an ability to cooperate as a team, neither of which may be present without some coaching on the part of the teacher.

Paul Anderson, in his experiment to "gamify" his classroom, notes that while the experiment was successful in engaging students, he lost a certain element of control that had previously allowed him to ensure that every student had achieved.  He likened it to the difference between putting the students on a bus - where the teacher can drive them all to the destination at a uniform speed and ensure that no one gets lost - and giving each student the keys to a car - some will make it to the destination quite quickly, while others can potentially "drive into a wall".

We followed this up with a look at our project planning space at dmtwires.teamlab.com, an incredibly powerful project management tool designed originally for small businesses.  In keeping with the agenda of our class to service the school in a capacity that aspires to professionalism, we'll use a professional tool to manage our workflow.  As projects are submitted to us, the TeamLab space will fill up, and you may find yourself working on several projects at once.  Some of you will be appointed as project managers, working with a team to accomplish the goal.

On Friday, we took a stab at using Minecraft, a game frequently mentioned in educational circles for its ability to teach a number of important curricular and life skills, with a goal of building a home within the hour we had to play.  I based the idea for the lesson off of this video that Minecraft pioneer Joel Levin used with a group of second-grade students:

In our class, I was impressed to see individuals taking on leadership roles, teaching others and helping to coordinate the effort.  I also saw how things can go wrong when a group doesn't communicate - as witnessed by the way each individual, in spite of collaborating on gathering resources, sought to erect their own home rather than build the coordinated structure intended.  We even had a troll, who worked against the aims of the group and sought to disrupt their progress.

If our efforts to accomplish our goals for teachers are to be successful, we will need to find a way to overcome these challenges, learn to plan ahead, communicate, and collaborate better than we did on Friday.