Project Based Learning Discussion Forum

My K-5 Project: How does an insect’s environment affect its life cycle?

2011-03-23T14:07:52Z

Hi,

I am just learning about Project Based Learning; although I do not know much about it, I think that it will be beneficial for my students. Because of this I’m planning on trying a project based learning lesson in a few weeks. I would like some feedback on my driving question, possible assessments listed below and any other guidance that you could provide me with. I teach 2nd grade. Thanks in advance for you help! - Natasha

Driving Questions:
How do animals depend on others and their environment to survive and could animals exist in other environment types (than their own)?
How does an insect’s environment affect its life cycle?

Assessment Activities:
Accurate notes about animal life cycles
Students will create an eduglogster or video or powerpoint describing how animals depend on their environment and others to survive.
Students will create an eduglogster or video or powerpoint describing the life cycle of an animal and how the environment affects the life cycle. Students will conclude with an oral presentation of this.
Students will create a travel brochure describing an environment and will how that environment affects living organisms

PBL in MultiAge classrooms

2011-10-26T11:28:21Z

I have been asked to give a presentation on PBL to an elementary school in my district that is all multi-age classrooms, and the Principal would like me to link the two. I can think of many reasons why PBL would be a great fit in multi-age classrooms, namely the ability to group students for project-based work, the opportunity to have older students work collaboratively with the younger students, the ability to design a project that hits multiple standards from each “traditional” grade level, etc. However, I am looking for suggestions for the following:

1. Any scholarly research that supports the use of PBL in multi-age classrooms
2. A place to look for sample PBL multi-age units

Thanks so much!

Amy Garrigan
Organizational Training and Development
Kenosha Unified School District (Wisconsin)

How do I effectively incorporate PBL in Kindergarten Special Education Students(12:1)?

2010-09-29T07:36:43Z

Do you have any suggestions how to effectively incorporate PBL protocols in a Kindergarten Special Education class? We have a class of 8 students who range from autistic to learning disabled. Some have weak fine motor skill issues. We try to make every lesson fun and have the students teach me. They love it and go exploring.

We use all modalities - songs for auditory, lots of visuals, tactile. We do movement every morning.

We want to design a Social Studies/ELA/Science lesson using PBL that’s appropriate to our students.

Thoughts?

Do you have specific elementary materials or training?

2010-04-06T18:10:31Z

Shannon, I was forwarded to you to have you help me locate more samples or specific information for K-5 PBL, as our district is extremely interested in your professional development, However, there is current hesitation because of limited information found so far for the younger age levels. The books we received are for middle-high school. Although we know that the same principals apply, we need some samples/video clips/etc. to ignite our elementary teachers to PBL. Can you assist?