Unit 1: PBL Exemplars (G. Morgan)

After reviewing the PBL resources, I learned many things. There were several similarities between the three examples. The role of the teachers were all very similar in that the teachers served as facilitators to the students. The teachers helped with prompting questions, but for the most part the students were the leaders of the lessons and/or activities. The teachers were all enthusiastic about the lessons and really showed how the skills they are applying make sense in the real world. Each teacher did a great job of striking interest from the little kids to the older kids. The teachers all were able to make these Project Based Lessons cross-curricular. 

In all three examples, the role of the students was to lead the lesson. The students were all very excited and engaged. The teacher allowed the students to take on the roles to be the scientists, architects, or the leader stepping up to further knowledge and relate concepts to real life. 

The examples all showed that students were engaged and understood the material at a higher level due to the project based learning. It was nice having two elementary-based examples and then also an example with older students. It goes to show that any age group can dive into Project Based Learning. Each example related the concept to real life. 

Technology is leveraged to enhance and transform learning for many reasons. The video with the monarchs made me chuckle due to it being on an “old school” television, and made me so thankful how technology has changed over the last 10-15 years. The video with the worms had more up-to-date technology. The architect PBL was more about the blueprints, which I am sure now can also be done much easier electronically. Today, the use of Google Suite makes my day a lot easier since it is very user friendly and compatible with the chromebooks used at my school.

After reading the Buck Institute for Education Gold Standard for Project Based Learning, I do feel that these project examples reach the “gold standard”. I feel all of the projects hit the “Seven Essential Project Design Elements” making them great examples to use as a baseline for our own projects. 

Larmer, J. (2020). Buck institute for education: Gold standard pbl: essential project design elements. retrieved from https://www.pblworks.org/blog/gold-standard-pbl-essential-project-design-elements

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