Hi Heide and all,

[This turned out to be a much longer email than I intended! Sorry!]

I appreciate Heide pointing out the difficulty of maintaining a project in an ESOL class when students do not attend regularly. For two years (2004-2006) I volunteered teaching EL Civics two nights a week (2 hours a night), and I could depend on about 5 core students with the class sometimes reaching 13 and sometimes going down to 3. I wanted to teach through / with / using projects. I should point out that there was no required textbook in this program. 

[An aside...] I was already 100% convinced that PBL worked because I had been successful working with refugees and immigrants on various projects when I worked in Washington state. There I had many volunteer helpers in my class and a regular group of about 15 students 2 nights a week for 3 hours each night. Some of the projects they did were to make up greeting cards (originally to give to the other ESL class at holiday time, but expanded to send out to family), to map out the parks they could get to on the bus, to create a walking tour of downtown Olympia using a Polaroid camera (we had no video cameras) for new immigrants / refugees to the area.

When I started volunteering here in central Texas, and then heard Heide talking about the Border Civics project, I was ready to try PBL out here. But the sporadic attendance of the adult learners in my class threw me a bit. I knew, from past experience teaching night ESL classes in Texas, that this would be the case, but it took a while for me to learn HOW to listen in order to figure out what the class might be interested in doing and HOW to think in terms of smaller scale projects that could be done in a single class period, a week, or no more than two week slots.

So, here is one that we managed to get done in two weeks - maybe a total of 6 to 7 hours.

Using an idea from Heide, I asked the class one night to list 3 great things or positive things about living in San Marcos and two problems or negative things about living in the city. They worked in three groups (there were 9 in class that evening) and wrote their lists on flip chart paper. The groups did not contain themselves to three positives and two negatives, but had about five or six things in each category. We put these on the walls around the classroom and focused on the similarities in the positives (the river, the parks, the schools, the location) and repeated negatives (only one hospital, the traffic problems, the lack of police patrol in their neighborhood, the schools). After this, we did some language practice explaining in more detail the positives and negatives, then class was over. It was a fun class, and there was a lot of talking and interaction. For those who I did not see the next two class periods, this was the end of the "project." 

For those who were in the next class (5 students) we pulled out the list, and I asked them who might want to know about all the benefits (great things) about living in SM. They said new people moving in or new immigrants. How do we get these new people this information? They thought that they could make a brochure or a poster and put it at the learning center, a clinic, maybe Wal-Mart showing new people all the great things about the city using photos. Good idea...no camera; limited access to computers for brochures. So, they made a poster of the great things and cut out pictures from magazines (conveniently available) of rivers (the Amazon - not the San Marcos, but it was the idea that was important)and parks, a school building, a university, and one student drew a picture of Austin and San Antonio and put San Marcos right in the middle to represent the good location. Each student talked about their contribution to poster and why what they added was a positive part of the city. We put the poster up in the learning center; the students talked to the staff and students in other classes about the positives while the poster was up (about 3 weeks). Class over. End of that part of the project. Now the weekend.

In the next class, there were about 7 students with only a few who were there for the "great things" poster and a few others who were there for the first evening of the project. Now, we were going to focus on giving suggestions to improve the negatives or problems. In other words, what could they do to fix / minimize the problems (this was EL Civics). Making suggestions (even when any suggestion was okay) was much harder and small groups only came up with many suggestions for the traffic problem: fix the traffic lights, build bridges over the railroad tracks, change the speed limits, make people drive together (carpool), tell the students at the college they can't drive, everybody has to use a bike - and for schools: build more, hire more teachers. As for the police patrol in their neighborhood (one in particular), this became THE problem and everyone wanted to talk about it. The traffic and the school problems (and suggestions) were forgotten. Their suggestion to fix the sheriff / EMS / Fire problem was to move the county line so their neighborhood was part of Hays Co. and not Guadalupe Co. and so then they would get police, fire, EMS coming from only 5 minutes away instead of 20 minutes away. Their children attended school in Hays Co., so why not have all their taxes go to Hays Co. so they can get their services from Hays Co? After many stories about problems with the fire / EMS in that neighborhood - class was over. HW: Write a letter to the county about the problem and your solution.
 
I was driving home that night completely lost as to where to go with this one. Who do you write to if you want to move a county line? How were they going to get this issue "out there"? 

So, now it is the fourth class of this "project" and there are five students in class - four from the class before, but no one came in with a letter - I wasn't surprised. I came in that night having talked to many people about the problem (including the Sheriff's department, the school district, the director of the ESL program, some county official, but no city council person since the neighborhood was outside city limits - I learned that during my afternoon of telephone calls), but all I found was that it had been a problem for a long time and there was no solution. In this last class of the project, I had everyone write their letter to the county commissioner; these were short letters - one sentence introduction, two sentence problem, one or two sentence solution, then one sentence close - formatted like a business letter (but hand written). The second hour of class, the students shared their letters with each other (all suggesting that the county line needed to be moved!)- I put up some sentence structure issues on the board, they rewrote their letters in ink, I handed out envelops, had them address the envelops to the county clerk for Guadalupe Co. and gave them each a stamp. Project over. I did not go back and pick up the traffic issue. 

I don't volunteer at that school any longer, but I keep in touch with most of the core students from that class. Of the five students who were in that last class, three told me that they sent their letters off. They still talk about their letter to move the county line. They did something about it even if it is still a problem. They used English. They laughed a lot. It was a short project, small scale, but I think it made a difference for a few.

If you got this far...thanks for reading!

Peace, Linda

Linda Muñoz
Texas State Intensive English
Texas State University - San Marcos
601 University Drive
San Marcos, Texas 78666
512.245.7810 
LMunoz at txstate.edu

 

-----Original Message-----
From: professionaldevelopment-bounces at nifl.gov [mailto:professionaldevelopment-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Wrigley, Heide
Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2007 1:36 PM
To: The Adult Literacy Professional Development Discussion List
Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 1556] benefits of projects - large scaleand small scale

Hi, Jeffrey and thanks for your insights 

Yes, seeing a project in action in person, at a demonstration, or
through a video makes a huge difference. Any time I've attended a
showcase that the students present, I get goose bumps and the benefits
are immediately obvious (I'll let some of the teachers who have done
projects fill in details here). 

The Paper Clip project is unusual inasmuch as the students not only took
on a really big idea, but carried it out over a number of years, digging
in, learning, sharing, and reflecting. There are other terrific examples
of middle and high school projects (many with a focus on digital story
telling) that have tackled larger social issues: Students interviewing
teenagers who had gone through Katrina and putting the resulting video
on a website is one example. 

Certainly, carrying on a week or month long project as Lee, Jan, Lauri
or Robert and others have done is much more difficult in an ABE or ESOL
context where students come and go and it's hard to maintain continuity.
Just having students realize that they can be in charge of their own
learning and seeing them take on a project and run with it, can make a
huge difference in how they see themselves not only as learners, but
adults with expertise who have important things to share with others. 

Sometimes even small scale mini-projects can make a difference and shift
the nature of the class as the teacher fades into the background and
students take over. 

Heide


-----Original Message-----
From: professionaldevelopment-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:professionaldevelopment-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of jeffrey A
fantine
Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2007 8:40 AM
To: The Adult Literacy Professional Development Discussion List
Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 1551] Re: Benefits of project-based
learning

Jackie:

I think this is an excellent question!  ...and speaks (I think) to the 
biggest challenge in PD.

Usually, it is difficult for any teacher to implement new practices that

they may hear about or learn about through some PD activity without
truly 
knowing the "how to's," and whether that new practice will truly be an 
effective replacement of the skills-based curriculum they may be
required 
to follow and comfortable doing (or whatever it is they are already
doing 
in the classroom).

Most often it's not enough to hear about a practice at a workshop or
read 
about it online, but to see it in action (and practice it and reflect on

it) and to hear from students who've experienced it.  Your question is
the 
very reason I offered the Paper Clip documentary as a resource and 
encourage you, if you haven't seen it, to view it.  You will see how
this 
particular PBL affected the learning of those involved (and also how it 
affected teachers, administrators and the community) - it becomes 
transparent how this type of learning environment (PBL) teaches and 
reinforces basic skills in a real life context.  The students discuss
what 
they've learned as a result of this project in terms of academic skills.

This documentary tracks these students over the course of many years -
this 
class becomes one of the most successful (in terms of achieving academic

skills) classes in the history of that school. Often we have to see it
to 
get it, which is why I referenced this documentary as a resource.  I
wish 
we had a similar resource available to demonstrate PBL in adult
education, 
but I'm not aware of any.

-J



--On Thursday, September 06, 2007 9:11 AM -0400 "Taylor, Jackie" 
<jataylor at utk.edu> wrote:


>

>

> Hello Everyone!

>

> Thanks for sharing all of these outstanding examples of PBL in

practice.

> First, just a note -- Guest discussions often generate a lot of

off-list

> discussions, which is great. But I also encourage you to ask questions

of

> one another by posting them on the list. Then post responses to one

> another (no need to wait for Heide). Your questions and responses

might

> spark discussion that other subscribers would find beneficial.

> Oftentimes, I find that when I have a question there's always someone

> else who has a similar one. And if you would like your question posed

to

> the list without attribution, feel free to email it to me as you would

> like it to read. Then I will post it anonymously on your behalf.

>

>

>

> Which leads me to a question for the group: If I may play devil's

> advocate for a moment...Some of the challenges I've heard so far is

that

> in facilitating a project, I may be stepping outside of my comfort

zone,

> and if I don't target their interests well enough, it may not go very

> far. It sounds like an investment of time and resources. So what are

the

> benefits of project-based learning? Convince me why I should try this

in

> my ESOL or GED class, especially if I have a skills-based curriculum

to

> follow.

>

>

>

> Thanks, all!

>

>

>

> Jackie Taylor, List Moderator, jataylor at utk.edu

>

>




Jeffrey A. Fantine
Director, Literacy Center
College of Education
Ohio University
340 McCracken Hall
Athens, OH  45701
800-753-1519
Fax: 740-593-2834
www.ohio.edu/literacy

"You must be the change you want to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi
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