To respond to Heide's question, I think the measure of difficulty is closely
tied to the instructor's comfort level . which, like many things, improves
with practice.  As far as students "jumping at the chance to do a project" .
I must say my GED students don't!  But, I have found that if I describe the
"project" - without emphasizing that it's a "PROJECT" - and mention the
skills we are addressing (and tie those to some of the GED components - ie:
geography/social studies/history - or to some workforce skills - ie:
presentation skills, summary skills, etc), then they pretty much buy into
it.  I've learned that if I can explain why whatever we are doing is
relevant, worth the time, or important to their GED goals, they don't fight
it.  And even if my GED students were non-plussed about a project on the
front end, I can't think of a time when they weren't really proud of their
end result!

 

Jan Greening

Kyle Learning Center

Kyle, TX

 

  _____  

From: professionaldevelopment-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:professionaldevelopment-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Wrigley,
Heide
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2007 2:45 PM
To: The Adult Literacy Professional Development Discussion List
Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 1519] bumpy starts with PBL

 

Hi, Lee and others 

 

Thanks for identifying what it takes to make projects work (and we'll talk
about structuring projects as well as planning and execution a bit later). I
agree that listening to where the passion lies as students do their work is
critical, and just because the teacher decides that it's time to do a
project doesn't mean that adult students are eager to do one. 

 

Lee mentioned that she moved into PBL after a PD Institute and her first
attempt was a failure. I wonder what propelled others to make the jump and
how their first project worked out. 

 

Was it more difficult at first or did students jump at the chance to do a
project? 

 

Heide 

 

  _____  

From: professionaldevelopment-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:professionaldevelopment-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Lee Williams
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2007 1:02 PM
To: professionaldevelopment at nifl.gov
Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 1518] Difficulties and Successes with PBL

 

I began working on PBL with a cadre of teachers in Barbara Baird's Project
Forward initiative. Although we studied successful student projects across
the state (TX) and knew the many benefits of PBL, I didn't have a clue about
how to recreate that success in my classroom. I naively thought that the
students could choose a project from a list of suggestions and go with it. I
assumed that once they knew what the end product was, they would start
working to make it happen. Key pieces were missing like organization,
teamwork, initiative and desire.

The projects I've been successful with 1) have risen out of existing
curriculum and

2) the student's passion is visibly obvious. I expand the lessons to further
delve into those passionate topics and then make suggestion of possible
projects-ideas where students return what they have learned to the
community.  Once the product is identified, we create a list of steps to
make it happen and order them. Students need see these steps so they can
choose the areas where they fit and then they can take off.  This
scaffolding then becomes the basis of future lessons and culminates in a
final project. 

For me, student-centered projects take several months to identify and create
and are more likely a true product of the students. I have also done small
projects that I suggest, which are finished in a much shorter time, but
often result in more work for me. This is an area I am still refining at
this time.

 

Lee Williams

ELL II Teacher at the Kyle Learning Center

Kyle, Texas

 

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