Friday Oct 16 - PBI FALL 09 Project Development and Field Experience

Course Syllabus: PBI FALL 09 Project Development and Field Experience

Enacted Curriculum: Lesson planning. Students were given the class time to work with TAs and master teachers. Roberto Castenada was a guest master teacher with Math experience. Class began by returning revised concept maps for their Projects. They were also given hard copies of a lesson planning template. Students then began identifying specific lessons (benchmark and investigations) that would be needed during the development of their project based unit. Students made excellent progress and seemed to realize how “lessons” fit into a project as scaffolding and that they would not necessarily create all of the lessons that would be needed to implement their projects. Students were instructed to consider these lessons as potential stand alone lessons that they will be able to use during apprentice teaching and beyond.

Next students were put into their Field teams. They then worked on their three-day planner for the field experience (two days in the classroom followed by one day in the field). Students turned in what they had thus far for the three-day planner. These will be evaluated and returned to students for editing and revisions to submit to classroom teachers at the end of next week.

Picture: Using a GPS system in the field. This particular system can then hook up via the Internet to GoogleMaps and tell you exactly where you are and where you went.

Wednesday October 14 - MID TERM EXAM

Course Syllabus: MID TERM EXAM (take home)

Enacted Curriculum: Cooperative Learning and Problem Based Scenarios: Student are introduced to the differences between problem based scenarios and project based units. The idea that problem based scenarios can be used as scaffolds within projects or as stand alone lessons for “outlier” standards.

Students are introduced to structures which can be used to make problem based scenario using groups. Each member of the group is given a specific color of pen with which to write thus allowing the teacher to monitor who is contributing to the solving of the problem. Also students are introduced to how to conduct a Know/Need to Know assessment as part of a problem based scenario.

The culminating discussion is about assessment during a problem based scenario as well as how to expand or elaborate a relatively straight forward problem based scenario into even more complex problem.

Picture: Use of the Blanton Museum on campus for some PBI units ideas.

Monday October 12 - Collaboration in PBI STEM

Course Syllabus: Collaboration in PBI STEM (Krajcik Chapter 5)

Enacted Curriculum: Master Teacher Denise Ekberg began class by explaining the math and science classroom schedules at Bedicheck Middle School. PBI students signed up for teaching slots to launch their mini-projects the week before the field investigation.

Then, Professor Petrosino lectured on cooperative learning and ideas for effective practice in PBI STEM classrooms. He emphasized the role of teacher as designer and discussed definitions and traits of cooperative learning, ways of structuring interdependence (common goal, joint rewards, divided resources, complimentary roles), ways to assess and ensure individual accountability, and the importance of providing opportunities for group processing. The information provided in the PowerPoint presentation is based upon the “Learning Together” model developed by Johnson, D., Johnson, R. & Holubec, E. (1988). Circles of Learning: Cooperation in the Classroom. Edina, MN: Interaction Book Company.

Friday October 9 - PBI FALL 09 Project Development and Field Experience

Course Syllabus: PBI FALL 09 Project Development and Field Experience

Enacted Syllabus: Professor Petrosino showed a video about a PBI field trip to the coast. The class discussed key components of PBI, the role of field experiences, challenges with field trips, and ways to potentially overcome those challenges. The video is professionally edited and includes comments by Dr. Petrosino, Dr. Joe Polman, and Dr. Gail Dickinson concerning field experiences in project based instruction.

After the video, Dr. Petrosino had 2 challenge questions. Question 1 asked "What are the key components of project based instruction?" and Question 2 asked "What challenges are there to incorporating field experiences in project based instruction?" We then broke the class up into pairs of 2 in order to discuss their responses.

Wednesday October 7 - Collaboration in PBI STEM

Course Syllabus: Collaboration in PBI STEM (Krajcik Chapter 5)

Enacted Curriculum: Planning investigations, what are the large ideas for your field experience?

Monday October 5 - Scientific Investigations and Their Development

Course Syllabus: Scientific Investigations and Their Development (Kjajcik Chapter 4)

Enacted Syllabus: Continue Concept maps of Projects an Intro to Benchmark/Investigation lessons: Students are issued a handout summarizing the benchmark/investigation cycle that they will use in planning their PBI unit.

Picture: Aligning measurement with topographic map readings- McKinney State Falls Park, TX

Friday October 2 - PBI FALL 09 Project Development and Field Experience

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

Enacted Curriculum: Continued from Wednesday, students use their project map to begin building a concept map for their project.

· Build a [draft] concept map of the knowledge and skills your students should

o Know BEFORE beginning your project

o Develop DURING the project

o Demonstrate AFTER the project is completed

o Begin to identify concepts that will require either a benchmark or investigation lesson. A specific lesson for that concept or concepts.

Evaluate your concept map.

· Help you define what students will need to know and what they will learn during the project?

· Describe links between concepts?

· Rank terms, topics and concepts in a hierarchy?

· Demonstrate a linear sequence or structure?

· Show interconnections between all related terms in a web? VERBS

· Decide what Benchmark lessons and investigations you need to plan for your unit?