Tag Archives: CBL

Challenge-based learning

Synergy-PBL: Questions are waypoints on the path of wisdom #CFTSI12 (1 of 3) Appetizer Flights: Pre-Institute Assignment

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Synergy-PBL: Questions are waypoints on the path of wisdom #CFTSI12 (1 of 3)
Appetizer Flights: Pre-Institute Assignment

On Monday and Tuesday, June 25-26, Bo Adams and Jill Gough are facilitating a ten-hour workshop at The Center for Teaching Summer Institute (#CFTSI12 on Twitter). With this post and two more (coming soon), institute participants and blog readers alike can find a three-part outline of our session (at least as we intend it before we start!), complete with links to many of the resources we plan to use.

Appetizer Flights: Pre-Institute Assignment
Choose a Flight or Mix-N-Match to Make Your Own Three-Part Assignment

Inspired by Flights, a restaurant in Memphis, TN (dined at during #MICON12), that expands the idea of a “flight of wine” into a full-restaurant delight, our pre-institute assignment and CFT-SI 2012 structure come to you in Flights – “dining triples” that can be enjoyed as presented or mixed and matched to design your own tasty, three-part experiences. Before the CFT-SI begins, please partake in one of the three flights below, or create your own from the nine selections. For instance, one learning-diner may decide to immerse herself in the “Cozy-Chair Reading” Flight and consume all three reading selections. Another nibbler might decide to combine “Peak Learning” + “7 Essentials” + “Geoff Mulgan” for a diner-designed flight. We want your dining learning experience to be a culinary-cognitive delight! Bon-appetite!

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The “Writing-Is-Thinking” Flight

  1. Peak Learning Experience – “Think about your own life and the times when you were really learning, so much and so deeply, that you would call these the “peak learning experiences” of your life. Tell a story (you may include pictures, symbols, or other icons, too) about this peak learning experience, and respond to the question, “What were the conditions that made your high-level experience so powerful and engaging?” If you have already engaged this prompt in an earlier workshop, please describe another peak learning experience in your life, or “copy and paste” a previous story/response. (adapted from 21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times, Trilling and Fadel, 2009). 
  2. How We Hobby – Describe a hobby, interest, or passion that you WISH you had. How would you go about learning and developing this hobby, interest, or passion? Be specific and try to tell a story.
  3. Walking & Talking – Some would argue that walking and talking are two of the most complex human learning endeavors. Reflect on how your child or a relative’s child learned to walk and talk. Describe the experiences in some kind of recounting or storytelling.

The “Cozy-Chair Reading” Flight

  1. Reading from The Falconer re: Questions book excerpt
  2. “7 Essentials for Project-Based Learning” article 
  3. “What PBL Isn’t, and What it Is: 2 Videos from High Tech High” blog post

The “TED School Design” Flight

  1. Geoff Mulgan: A short intro to the Studio School (6:16)
    “Some kids learn by listening; others learn by doing. Geoff Mulgan gives a short introduction to the Studio School, a new kind of school in the UK where small teams of kids learn by working on projects that are, as Mulgan puts it, ‘for real.'”
  2. John Hardy: My green school dream (6:16)
    “Join John Hardy on a tour of the Green School, his off-the-grid school in Bali that teaches kids how to build, garden, create (and get into college). The centerpiece of campus is the spiraling Heart of School, perhaps the world’s largest freestanding bamboo building.”
  3. Gever Tulley teaches life lessons through tinkering (4:08)
    “Gever Tulley uses engaging photos and footage to demonstrate the valuable lessons kids learn at his Tinkering School. When given tools, materials and guidance, these young imaginations run wild and creative problem-solving takes over to build unique boats, bridges and even a roller coaster!”

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Coming Soon…

Synergy-PBL: Questions are waypoints on the path of wisdom #CFTSI12 (2 of 3)
The First Course: “School Tools” – PBL for the Adult Palette
(Day 1 – Monday, June 25, 8:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.)

Synergy-PBL: Questions are waypoints on the path of wisdom #CFTSI12 (3 of 3)
The Second Course: “School’s Cool” – PBL for the Student-Learner
(Day 2 – Tuesday, June 26, 8:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.)

Synergy-PBL: Questions are waypoints on the path of wisdom #CFTSI12 (After 3)
Coffee and Dessert: What Will Sweeten Your Teaching After #CFTSI12?
(180 Days of Possibility in 2012-13 – Keeping the Conversation Going)

[Cross-posted at Experiments in Learning by Doing]
[Cross-posted at Synergy2Learn]

Synergy – Questions are the waypoints on the path of wisdom #MICON12

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On Thursday, June 14, Bo Adams and Jill Gough are facilitating a double-session at The Martin Institute’s 2012 Conference (#MICON12 on Twitter). Below, conference participants and blog readers alike can find an outline of our session (at least as we intend it before we start!), complete with links to the resources we plan to use.

Synergy – Questions are the waypoints on the path of wisdom (Framework Plans) [100 minutes]

  1. Marshmallow Challenge [18 minutes + setup + debrief = 30 minutes]
  2. Synergy 8 Preso + Showcase Project Products/Q&A [15 minutes + 15 minutes = 30 minutes]
  3. Reading from The Falconer re: Questions [5 minutes]
  4. Gamestorm to share about others’ experiences/practices with PBL (see “Post-Up”) + Gamestorm to generate future ideas for PBL (see “Storyboard”) [30 minutes]
  5. Wrap-Up + Goodie Bag[5 minutes]
    1. “7 Essentials for Project-Based Learning” article + “4 A’s” protocol
    2. Peak Learning Experience Exercise – “Think about your own life and the times when you were really learning, so much and so deeply, that you would call these the ‘peak learning experiences’ of your life. Tell a story (you may include pictures, symbols, or other icons, too) about this peak learning experience, and respond to the question, ‘What were the conditions that made your high-level experience so powerful and engaging?'(adapted from 21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times, Trilling and Fadel, 2009). Jill and Bo often use this prompt as a pre-writing exercise in order to connect people with the project-based nature of our most enduring learnings throughout life.
    3. Synergy2Learn (resource on PBL)
    4. Synergy 8 Logo, Essential Learnings, and Learning Targets (via Scribd) [also embedded below]

Title of the Conversation
Synergy – Questions are the waypoints on the path of wisdom

Conversational Focus/Audience
High School
Middle School
Upper Elementary School

Short Description
Like a tribe around the fire, let’s discuss how we implement PBL as an entire course or as an input to a class. The conversation starters will describe Synergy – an 8th grade community-issues course. Then, through story exchange, we will share a variety of PBL ideas and implementation methods.

Extended Description
In Westminster’s 8th grade, we are experiencing year two of a new course called “Synergy 8.” Synergy is a non-departmentalized, transdisciplinary, non-graded, community-issues, problem-solving course. While we begin with an “alpha project” to practice project process, we use the “Falconer” method to empower student questioning and curiosity. From the student questions, the entire team generates the projects on which learners of all ages ultimately work.

Our conversational focus will be PBL (project-based learning, problem-based learning, passion-based learning, place-based learning, etc.). We intend to generate ideas from an exchange of current practices and possibilities. We hope to move beyond mere conversation and bridge into collaboration by building for the future more student-learner generated PBL…perhaps even “big, hairy audacious” PBL that unites our various schools and increases the mass of folks working on the problems which define our world.

For more detailed stimulus about “Synergy” and “PBL,” see categories and tags on Bo’s and Jill’s blogs: It’s About Learning (Bo’s blog) and Experiments in Learning by Doing (Jill’s blog).

[Cross-posted at Experiments in Learning by Doing]

CHANGEd: What if we connected students with city design projects? 60-60-60 #52

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One dynamic way to help schools move into “21st century” education – full of project-based learning, design thinking, and integrated studies – would be to partner secondary-school students with local architects, city planners and developers, new urbanists, sustainability scientists, etc.

In this 52nd post, what if we moved from a scholastic house of cards…to education that blurred more boundaries between school and real life?!

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Thanks to my PLN (personal learning network), I have been exposed to a few more profound thinkers and resources concerning school as ecosystem, learning-spaces evolution, etc.

 [View the story “Evolution of learning space…from 3D to 4D” on Storify]

Another great, related resource: Matthias Hollwich’s talk at TEDxAtlanta RE:Purpose, January 26, 2010 (this is when I first began to ask, “What if we could partner Synergy students with people like Matthias, working on future-city projects?”)

And another great, related resource: Announcing the 2012 TED Prize Winner – The City 2.0

Yet another great, related resource: Grant Lichtman’s blog, The Learning Pond

CHANGEd: What if…60-60-60 Project Explained

CHANGEd: What if I were designing one more faculty meeting? 60-60-60 #50

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[Disclaimer: This is my biggest failure on the “60-word target!”] For the past nine years, this last week of April has marked the moment when I would begin framing next year’s opening-of-school faculty meetings. New student registrations have just occurred, so I have made a habit of starting faculty meta-planning the morning after those student registrations. Students are registered…we need to start planning! I won’t be doing such faculty meta-planning this go around, but a habit is a hard thing to break.

I have always striven to design frameworks for faculty meetings that would make people want to flock to the events. Unfortunately, I think I have always failed. Yet, I have kept trying. What if I were designing the frameworks for an August meeting that would open the 2012-13 school year? What would some of the frame pieces look like?

  1. I’d probably create a Google doc in which faculty could contribute their ideas for faculty meeting topics and explorations. What do they want and need in our precious few meetings together? These tributaries would weigh heavily into the collective river of our work together. These waters would be the projects and challenges that are most relevant to us.
  2. I’d try to create an invigorating, exciting, compelling “need to know.” With a school vision that focuses on project-based learning, integrated studies, global connectedness, balanced assessment, teacher teaming, and 21st century schedules and spaces, I would likely try to model and simulate those very things into our meetings. If we wanted to learn to play baseball, then the best method would likely be to…play baseball (not sitting in a desk hearing about baseball!). So, I would want to start with a hook – a “need to know” – to get us playing.
  3. I’d be tempted to invite teachers to share IGNITE or TED-talk-like sessions about their practices and potential experiments. Maybe we would even workshop and construct these together, in small groups and teams, during the meeting.
  4. I’d want to utilize some “brainfood” – some stuff to which to react and respond. I think I might use the following:
    1. CHANGEd 60-60-60: OUR BRANDS, by @mmhoward
    2. Leveraging Learning by Organizing Technology Use: A Modest Framework, by @maryannreilly
    3. Educating the Next Steve Jobs, by Tony Wagner
    4. Lessons from Caine’s Arcade, by Seth Godin

    5. RSA Animate – Changing Education Paradigms…Sir Ken Robinson

    6. Kiran Bir Sethi teaches kids to take charge…TED talk
  5. And, perhaps, we would employ some quiet reflecting and writing time…and maybe some micro “FedEx time.”

I have loved serving as the principal learner at my Junior High School for the past nine years. I don’t have many regrets. I do wish I had done a better job each and everyday for the faculty. I wish I had spent more time interacting with each and every one of them. I wish I had spent less time in other meetings and more time in shared learning with the middle school teachers. So, I think I’d keep that in mind as I designed one more start to school.

CHANGEd: What if…60-60-60 Project Explained

CHANGEd: What if instead of filling their heads, we grabbed their hearts? 60-60-60 #17

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Enhanced information technology and advanced understanding of human learning make it strange that schools retain many methodologies geared for “filling heads.” Additionally, society faces challenges demanding “grabbed hearts.”

At yesterday’s MVPS Design Thinking Summit (#dtsummit12), we immersed ourselves in “Design = Utility + Significance.” At design’s core beats EMPATHY. Through design, doing-learners engage human experience to improve that experience. Insight into others’ needs grabs hearts. Grabbed hearts inspire active hands and feet…and wise minds. Isn’t that what we want need?

First 1/2 Highlights: [View the story “#DTSummit 2012 10:15 Storify” on Storify]

Second 1/2 Highlights: [View the story “#dtsummit12 Design Challenge (pm) Highlights” on Storify]

CHANGEd: What if…60-60-60 Project Explained