Wednesday September 30 - Scientific Investigations and Their Development

Course Syllabus: Scientific Investigations and Their Development

Enacted Curriculum: Mapping your Project

PBL: pp 83

n Beginning = DQ

n Finish = Project

n List or include milestones, pieces of project, drafts etc.

You may want to write each component of the map on a post it and have the ability to rearrange as you go.

q Visit “Theory Behind Concept Map Making…” site first,

http://cmap.ihmc.us/Publications/ResearchPapers/TheoryCmaps/TheoryUnderlyingConceptMaps.htm

q Go to http://cmap.ihmc.us/

n Download CMAP tools to use in creating your draft concept map for your Driving Question

Picture: Student work from Sept 30, 2009

Monday September 28 - Developing Driving Questions

Course Syllabus: Developing Driving Questions

Enacted Curriculum: There was a class discussion about the field experience. The students were given three-day planning documents to begin the process of planning. Students were encouraged to begin by backward design by first thinking about the BIG enduring concepts they wish for their students to master through this project, and then thinking about what deliverable will assist in this. The planning document has spaces for students to fill out how they plan to launch their mini-project, the driving question, student objectives, TEKS, how they will get to know their students and foster a sense of community, how they will prepare their students for the field experience, inquiries/investigations, student artifacts / assessments, and resources. The first draft of the three-day planner is due on 10/16. After receiving feedback from the master teacher and TAs, students will submit their second draft to their cooperating teachers.

Saturday September 26- Field Experience (McKinney Falls – Blanton))

Course Syllabus: Nothing Listed in Course Syllabus

Enacted Curriculum: Saturday September 26 (McKinney Falls – JG & BMA - MC)

PBI participants and special guests (including UTeach Master Teachers, the UTeach Laboratory/Technical Services Supervisor, and a PBI graduate there to share her PBI field experience) went to McKinney Falls State Park to explore and collaborate about field teaching opportunities and potential mini-projects. After a whole group orientation hike from the Upper to the Lower Falls, the students were able to choose to participate in one of three field investigations in order to gain deeper understanding of approaches to engaging students in problem-based field inquiries: Estimating and Measuring Stream Flow, Mapping/Topography, and Monitoring Water Quality (Bioassessment and Chemistry). During lunch, students decided whether to plan their field investigations at McKinney Falls or the Blanton Museum of Art. They determined what problem or challenge they plan to pose to their students, what field sites will facilitate their students’ work, what they want for the students to do, what resources they need, what they would like for their students to get out of the experience, and how they will scaffold student learning.

Enacted Curriculum: Blanton Museum

Introduction from Jennifer Garner – Teaching in a gallery setting

Early development of field lessons

Fill out Saturday lesson document

Gallery time, look at works to use in projects

Discussion about lessons in the E-Lounge

Friday September 25- Visit to the Blanton

The entire class (both morning and afternoon sections) went to the Blanton Museum of Art from 2:30-5:00. After a short introduction, the class split into two groups to have an introduction to the museum. The first group went with Jennifer Garner (BMA outreach/education), who introduced general museum concepts and had PBI participants perform activities that students may perform during a visit. The second group went to three different galleries with Matt Chalker, who demonstrated the use of concept cards. Participants were given cards with scientific/math terms written on them (such as chemistry, graphing, scientific notation, symmetry, etc.) and then had to find examples of the terms being referenced in pieces of art in the gallery. Once each group was finished, they swapped guides. Following the time inside the galleries, everyone took a short walk outside to see some permanent installations that may be able to be used when they return to the Blanton for the field projects.

Picture: Students meeting in the lobby of the Blanton Art Museum on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin (Sept 25, 2009).

Friday September 25 - PBI FALL 09 Project Development and Field Experience

Course Syllabus: PBI FALL 09 Project Development and Field Experience

Enacted Curriculum: During class, students received group contracts (to negotiate their group goals and how they will hold each other accountable) and Project Planning forms from the PBL handbook. The students will use these documents to summarize the big ideas for their project; identify content standards, key skills, and habits of mind the students will learn; plan the assessment (define products and artifacts for the project); map the overall project and what they expect the students to learn; and identify potential problems that might arise and describe how they will manage the process. Students worked in their teams to write their driving question on a poster along with a description of what the student generated final product might be. Each team hung their poster on the wall and everyone circulated the room with post-it notes to provide feedback to each team. The teams were able to use this feedback to refine their driving questions.

BMA (MC)

Wednesday September 23 - Developing Driving Questions

Course Syllabus: Developing Driving Questions (Krajcik Chapter 3)

Enacted Curriculum: Field Orientation/logistics/ time to work on DQ’s Driving Questions) as well. Students used BB (Blackboard) discussion board comments to work on DQ’s.

Monday September 21 - Knowledge Construction in STEM

Course Syllabus: Knowledge Construction in STEM (Krajcik Chapter 2)

Enacted Syllabus: DQ Think Big, Think Community, Think CROSS Curriculum

Students begin developing and refining their driving questions. The students have posted 3 possible ideas to BB (Blackboard) individually; they have commented on each others DQ ideas and are now coalescing into groups based upon common interests and ideas. For Friday students will present the final idea for a DQ and student project as part of a gallery walk.

Friday September 18 - PBI FALL 09 Project Development and Field Experience

Course Syllabus: PBI FALL 09 Project Development and Field Experience

Enacted Curriculum: Petrosino Statistics project w/Barron & Petrosino (Krajcik Chapter 3)

Wednesday September 16 - Knowledge Construction in STEM

Course Curriculum: Knowledge Construction in STEM (Krajcik Chapter 2)

Enacted Curriculum: Rocket Projects and Developing Driving Questions Krajcik Chapter 2

Monday September 14 - Teaching STEM to Students

Course Syllabus: Teaching STEM to Students (Krajcik Chapter 1)

Enacted Curriculum: Standards DQ development.

Begin with the End in Mind

TEKS/DQ’s

· What is a driving question?

– Feasible

– Worthy

– Contextualized

– Meaningful

– Ethical

– Sustainability

– Provocative.

– Open-ended/generative.

– At the heart of a discipline or topic.

– Developed from real world dilemmas/issues that are relevant.

– Consistent with curricular standards.

· What do student deliverables look like?

– asking and refining questions

– debating ideas

– making predictions

– designing plans and/or experiments

– collecting and analyzing data

– drawing conclusions

– communicating their ideas and findings to others

– asking new questions

– creating artifacts (Blumenfeld et al., 1991).

· Two Key Elements of PBI:

– A driving question or problem that serves to organize and drive activities, which taken as a whole amount to a meaningful project

– 2. Culminating product(s) or multiple representations as a series of artifacts, personal communication (Krajcik), or consequential task that meaningfully addresses the driving question. (Brown & Campione, 1994).

Friday September 11 - See PBI FALL 09 Project Development and Field Experience

Course Syllabus: See PBI FALL 09 Project Development and Field Experience

Enacted Curriculum: Petrosino Rocket Project

Wednesday September 9 - Teaching STEM to Students

Course Syllabus: Teaching STEM to Students (Krajcik Chapter 1)

Enacted Curriculum: Professor Petrosino Lecture on Driving Questions

Monday September 7- LABOR DAY- NO CLASS

Monday September 7- LABOR DAY- NO CLASS

Friday September 4 - Project Development and Field Experience

Course Syllabus: See PBI FALL 09 Project Development and Field Experience

Enacted Curriculum: Standards Based Project

Curriculum Design and Standards

TEKS (Texas Education Knowledge and Skills)

This presentation introduces students to curriculum design and the close link between district, state and national standards and classroom curriculum. Students are also introduced to Project 2061 (criterion is listed below) as a way of evaluating text books and other curriculum modalities such as Instructional Planning Guides. It is proposed that these might be useful criterion for all planning including single lessons?

u Identifying a Sense of Purpose

u Building on Student Ideas

u Engaging Students

u Developing Ideas

u Promoting Student Thinking

u Assessing Student Progress

u Designing and Enhancing the Learning Environment

We discuss the importance of using standards to build a project to avoid creating a series of pretty fun activities.

Students were then directed to the AISD TEKS and IPG’s (Instructional Program Guides) website and begin considering the standards that were part of the scope and sequence during the 5^th 6 week period. This will be the major time period during which they will apprentice teach and the goal is to produce a project based unit that can at least partially be implemented during apprentice teaching.

Wednesday September 2 - General Lecture- Project Based Instruction in STEM

Course Syllabus: General Lecture- Project Based Instruction in STEM

Enacted Curriculum: PBL handbook sections I & II discussion from reading and BB posts to focus questions are used to drive the discussion. Part of the discussion is about some historical perspectives of PBI along with possible advantages as well as pitfalls of this mode of instruction. Sample student responses:

Benefits = Higher level of engagement and ownership by students, application of content, community connection

Pitfalls = Time/coverage, unfamiliarity, not suited for math, administrators push back, different styles.

We discussed each of these in terms of what the students have experienced thus far in the UTeach program.

Further discussion was focused around the following:

– Several equated manager w/ not wanting to see students struggle.

– Need more experience before PBL

– I feel most comfortable w/ direct teach.

– Still skeptical since experience is with conventional model

– PBL only with skilled students (mastered the basics)

– I’m willing to put in the time

This discussion will be continued on Friday. Sept. 4