For the second year in a row, Carl Hooker arranged for a presenter from High Tech High in California to share the school's passion and expertise in the field of Project Based Learning. This year's presenter was Alicia Crump, an 8th Grade Teacher with an Engineering background. While it would be easy enough for these presenters to simply repeat last year's agenda, Alicia did anything but that. The learning was new and fresh and VERY engaging. Below is a summary of the training.
Four Design Principles of High Tech High
1. Personalization
2. Adult World Connection
3. Common Intellectual Mission
4. Teacher as Designer
PBL at High Tech High
1. many pathways
2. multiple entry points
3. reflection (see presentation for 40 reflection questions)
4. demo learning publicly
What the Heck is Project Based Learning? article from Edutopia by Heather Wolpert-Gawron
Here are some notes taken on the video titled Project Based Learning at High Tech High. This video is well worth watching if you are even remotely interested in PBL.
1. High Tech High ignore all notions of segregation.
2. These schools are often known as great liberal arts school in disguise.
3. Every time the country gets into trouble there is an investment in STEM to the detriment of the arts. PBL believes engineering and art are integral.
4. You can study the world through almost anything.
5. Kids feel like they are doing the work of adults.
6. School is designed for exhibiting student work. They are designed for curation more than anything else.
7. Bathrooms are not divided into student and adult either. If you treat kids as adults, then they will behave as such.
8. Admin needs to be evocative with teachers. Find out how they learned best and ask them to do the same.
9. One common misapprehension of rigor is that it is more work and more content. If your kids are producing work that is worth doing, you are a good teacher.
After we watched the video, we read and article and then followed this protocol for group discussions - The Final Word.
Plan projects where the work is high quality.
1. Complexity
2. Craftsmanship
3. Authenticity
We watched a video on the making of the book Food for Thought. Students had their own garden and composted. Watched videos like Food Inc. Visited organic garden. Learned how to take good pics. End result was a cookbook with healthy recipes. Then we judged the quality of this project based on the above characteristics.
Complexity:
Understanding what a compost pile needs
Complex from start to finish
Craftsmanship
The final product was a work of art.
Photography
Authenticity
Product could be used by the community
Fractions
Elementary projects
http://www.hightechhigh.org/schools/EECS/
High Tech HIgh projects
http://www.hightechhigh.org/projects
Center for Student Work
http://centerforstudentwork.elschools.org/projects
Spicy Seeds Activity:
Prepare a description for a project
Share it with the members of the group
Pass your paper amongst group members for feedback.
Accommodations vs. Modifications
Accommodations: Extended time, mini deadlines, strategic placement in a group, increased choice
Mods: student plays a supplemental role, additional students in group should be chosen for sensitivity
Alicia’s digital portfolio
https://sites.google.com/a/hightechhigh.org/acrump/
We spent a good deal of time making a Stop Motion Video on a subject of our choosing. The intention was that we would develop the product and then build a rubric to fit it. It was a great exercise and one that she recommended that we use when building a PBL experience for students. Doing things in this order allowed us to see what we could have done better on our project so that we could know what our student expectations should be.
Four Design Principles of High Tech High
1. Personalization
2. Adult World Connection
3. Common Intellectual Mission
4. Teacher as Designer
PBL at High Tech High
1. many pathways
2. multiple entry points
3. reflection (see presentation for 40 reflection questions)
4. demo learning publicly
What the Heck is Project Based Learning? article from Edutopia by Heather Wolpert-Gawron
Here are some notes taken on the video titled Project Based Learning at High Tech High. This video is well worth watching if you are even remotely interested in PBL.
1. High Tech High ignore all notions of segregation.
2. These schools are often known as great liberal arts school in disguise.
3. Every time the country gets into trouble there is an investment in STEM to the detriment of the arts. PBL believes engineering and art are integral.
4. You can study the world through almost anything.
5. Kids feel like they are doing the work of adults.
6. School is designed for exhibiting student work. They are designed for curation more than anything else.
7. Bathrooms are not divided into student and adult either. If you treat kids as adults, then they will behave as such.
8. Admin needs to be evocative with teachers. Find out how they learned best and ask them to do the same.
9. One common misapprehension of rigor is that it is more work and more content. If your kids are producing work that is worth doing, you are a good teacher.
After we watched the video, we read and article and then followed this protocol for group discussions - The Final Word.
Plan projects where the work is high quality.
1. Complexity
2. Craftsmanship
3. Authenticity
We watched a video on the making of the book Food for Thought. Students had their own garden and composted. Watched videos like Food Inc. Visited organic garden. Learned how to take good pics. End result was a cookbook with healthy recipes. Then we judged the quality of this project based on the above characteristics.
Complexity:
Understanding what a compost pile needs
Complex from start to finish
Craftsmanship
The final product was a work of art.
Photography
Authenticity
Product could be used by the community
Fractions
Elementary projects
http://www.hightechhigh.org/schools/EECS/
High Tech HIgh projects
http://www.hightechhigh.org/projects
Center for Student Work
http://centerforstudentwork.elschools.org/projects
Spicy Seeds Activity:
Prepare a description for a project
Share it with the members of the group
Pass your paper amongst group members for feedback.
Accommodations vs. Modifications
Accommodations: Extended time, mini deadlines, strategic placement in a group, increased choice
Mods: student plays a supplemental role, additional students in group should be chosen for sensitivity
Alicia’s digital portfolio
https://sites.google.com/a/hightechhigh.org/acrump/
We spent a good deal of time making a Stop Motion Video on a subject of our choosing. The intention was that we would develop the product and then build a rubric to fit it. It was a great exercise and one that she recommended that we use when building a PBL experience for students. Doing things in this order allowed us to see what we could have done better on our project so that we could know what our student expectations should be.