PBL Relfections

It was amazing to see the learning that was taking place in my classroom. Students were able to make the connection between the concept and the real world. They were able to answer the infamous question, "When will I ever use this?" If only Home Depot can build something on our campus every year to help the students see the importance of the concept. Although my school is located in East Cobb County and the majority, if not all, students will go to college, we have some choice kids from West Cobb County who will not go to college. The discussions that went on between the students and the men who were building the structure reinforced that you do not have to go to college in order to use math; math is all around us. Students enjoyed taking the knowledge gained and creating their own model. I am looking forward to implementing this project based lesson plan each year; of course, modifying it based on the needs of my students.
The project based learning (PBL) activity was a real eye opener. The development through online collaboration made me feel like this was way too much work to put into any activity, but in reality though face to face collaboration would be most likely way to create a plan for a PBL activity. In the end though I found that the budget project we created would go a long way to show practical uses of basic math to our students. Most of the time when we as math teachers are asked “When am I ever going to use this?” we find an answer with a career orientation. That answer is usually countered with “Well I am never going to be that.” The budgeting project answers that question in a way that no student can counter. All of them are going to be on their own and spending their own money. Even though the project started with students choosing a career path and looking for the amount of continued education needed for that career, one of our drawbacks was that not all students want to go to college. We discussed that these students can complete extra research into their chosen career and creating a budget on a high school dropout’s or high school graduate’s expected income. The project will help students see the reality and consequences of their choices. My group worked well together to help each other understand each step of the project in order for the group plan to come together as one complete project.
The project I developed was similar to one that had been brewing in my mind for some time now, so this was good to have a chance to think through some of the details. However, the project I am planning to implement in my class is somewhat different. Since I teach 5th grade instead of middle school, I would like to connect my class with another class near a historical landmark in the United States such as Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. My plan would be to have my class and the other class conduct book discussions online about a book related to the Civil War. An additional change would be in the technology used for the project. Rather than using a blog as the communication portal, I would set up a Moodle for the groups to use. One of the elements in developing this project that I found most interesting was reading articles about public library systems that are holding book discussions on Moodle for their student readers. It was useful to read about their successes and failures to better understand how I can make this work in my classroom.
One of the biggest discoveries that I made in planning this unit was the incredible amount of time I would need to allot to planning and preparation before the unit was to actually begin. Since this project involves another classroom with another teacher in another location, a lot would have to be set up in advance to make the project a success. Since time is such a limited resource these days, it would be very difficult to get teachers involved in a project like this unless they saw real value in it. For this reason, I think it might be necessary to try it on my own or with just one other teacher from my school for the first time. This would give me an opportunity to work out the kinks and demonstrate student success and engagement so that other teachers will be more likely to get involved in the future.