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What Are We Driving At?

Inquiry Questions from PBL & CBL

Ian Hoke MAT, MEd

Secondary School Principal - AIS Mozambique

@ianhoke

Resources at: https://tinyurl.com/1td1vxot

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Agenda

  • Defining inquiry & PBL
  • Identify standards &/or learning outcomes
  • CBCI - Unit Web
  • Writing Generalizations
  • Formulate a Driving Question
    • Brainstorm assessment pathways
    • Single point rubric & mastery criteria
    • Next steps
  • Feedback

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What is inquiry?

  • An approach to teaching and learning that involves students in the investigation of questions, problems, and/or issues of significance.
    • Seeks to develop students’ essential competencies as learners and equip them with a set of transferable skills and dispositions.
  • An active, learner and learning centered approach, which aims to develop deep understanding (Murdoch, 2015)

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What is Project-Based Learning?

  • a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging and complex question, problem, or challenge.
                  • bie.org

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Why Project-Based Learning?

  • Capitalize on motivation theory
    • Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose (Pink 2011)
  • Deeper learning
    • Productive struggle (or “hard fun”)

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Why Project-Based Learning?

  • Personalize
    • Design to non-negotiables
    • Give over the rest
    • Gain expertise in how each student learns

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What is Concept Based Curriculum?

  • Lynn Erickson - seminal thinker
    • 1995 to present on Concept-Based

Concept-based curriculum is designed for student-centered inquiry, facilitating “synergistic” thinking by connecting rich, relevant, rigorous content to important, key concepts within and between disciplines.

A driving consideration of concept-based curriculum & instruction is facilitating deeper learning and transfer, which may be viewed as the application of skills and content knowledge across contexts.

    • Lois Lanning - Structure of Process
    • Jennifer Wathall - Concept-Based Math

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Why Concept Based Curriculum & Instruction?

  • Expert knowledge is organized conceptually
    • Patricia Alexander (1997, 1998, 2003, 2004)

  • Articulated curriculum builds on existing knowledge

  • Rich content; real skills for transfer

Ormrod, 2014

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Caveat!

  • Learning is messy

  • Inquiry is hard

  • Embrace a learner’s mindset (Pu)

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Let’s Begin (at the end)

  • Identify learning outcomes
    • PYP/MYP/IBDP?
    • Academic standards sets
      • Get specific & granular
      • What, exactly, would the ideal knowledge, understanding, & performance look like?
      • For transdisciplinary, go into various disciplines & pull from there
        • Communication, problem solving, core content, etc.
  • Consider time frame
    • 3 weeks? 6?
    • Select a robust set of learning outcomes. For now, more is more.

blucolt [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons; Cropped

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What is a Concept?

  • Mental constructs drawn from a discipline or between disciplines, abstract to varying degrees, & not fixed in place and time.
    • That’s a fact.
      • Seriously, facts are fixed in place and time.

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Identify a Potential Conceptual Lens

  • What overarching conceptual lens might work for this unit?
    • Or, think of it this way:
  • Are there a few big, important concepts that might unite the content and skills within this unit?
    • Jot these down...

  • MYP & PYP Key Concepts are very similar, but this is more flexible & likely to be discipline-specific.

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Unit Web - A Brainstorming Move

  • Jot down single words or short phrases from standards onto Post Its
  • Dump onto chart paper or a Jamboard
    • Knowledge Disciplines - Science, Social Studies, Math
    • Process Disciplines - Arts, Languages, English, PE
  • Organize by grouping related terms & concepts
  • Label groups

"Brainstorm" by Andy Mangold is licensed under CC BY 2.0

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Choose a Conceptual Lens

  • Is there an overarching conceptual lens bubbling to the surface?

Math - Scale, Derivatives, Location, Relationships

Science - Structure, Motion, Transformation

Language Arts - Conflict, Structure, Intention

Arts - Audience, Scale, Color, Perspective

PE/PHE - Power, Space, Boundaries

Social Studies - Conflict, Resources, Power

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Generalize!

Aim for 5-7 understandings.

What essential understandings will drive this unit? Start from the conceptual lens

  • Connect terms & concepts within each labeled strand into a sentence with a strong verb that follows the stem:

Students understand that...

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Driving Question

  • The driving question in PBL is for the teacher and student.
    • Focuses the inquiry
    • Helps teachers choose important, meaningful content
    • Provokes student engagement with a real challenge.

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Driving Question

  • Which generalization or understanding statement seems the most essential?

  • Wordsmith into a compelling question.

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Driving Question

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Generate - Sort - Connect - Elaborate

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Generate

  • Begin in a generative mindset
  • Seek to list as many possible ways students might demonstrate learning of generalizations.

User:MatthiasKabel [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], from Wikimedia Commons

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Sort

  • Organize your ideas from the center to the edge of the paper with most concrete or closely related ideas at the center and the most tangential or abstract at the edge.

Photo by See-ming Lee; cropped

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Connect

  • Draw connecting lines between ideas as you see connections
    • Does an idea link to more than one element of the Gold Standard target?
    • Can two or more ideas be linked into a challenging project for kids, covering more of the Gold Standard?
  • Seek to explain or describe the connection in a short phrase or sentence

Viephoto Studio [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

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Elaborate

  • Elaborate on these ideas or your thoughts at this stage.
    • How might one or more of these opportunities to demonstrate learning become the backbone of a deep inquiry that asks students to solve or deal with real problems, issues, or challenges?
    • What might a coherent story be on that learning journey?

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich

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Mastery Criteria

(Gonzalez, 2015)

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Mastery Criteria

  • As a first draft, on a blank single point rubric, label each strand of mastery criteria.

  • Then, describe what good looks like.

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Toward Gold Standard Project Based Learning...

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Next Steps

  • Consider an engaging entry event
    • Begin exploring the “problem space”
  • Engage with Professional Learning Community
    • Local
    • International
      • Twitter - #PBLChat

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Feedback

Session 2: https://bit.ly/2FPcxno

Learning Outcome 1

Learners will use concept-based curriculum design steps to write 3-7 “generalizations” for a unit of study from which to design inquiry.

Learning Outcome 2

Learners will craft one robust “Driving Question” as the basis of a project-based unit.

Learning Outcome 3

Learners will brainstorm project outcomes for PBL unit.

Learning Outcome 4

Learners will build familiarity with PBL & basic CB design processes for units of student-centered inquiry.

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Works Cited

  • Erickson, H. Lynn, and Lois A. Lanning. Transitioning to concept-based curriculum and instruction: How to bring content and process together. Corwin Press, 2013.

  • Larmer, John, and John R. Mergendoller. “PBL Blog.” The Importance of Project Based Teaching | Blog | Project Based Learning | BIE, The Buck Institute for Education, 21 Apr. 2015, www.bie.org/blog/gold_standard_pbl_essential_project_design_elements.

  • Murdoch, Kath. The power of inquiry. Seastar Education, 2015.