Project Based Learning -Avoiding the Content Trap

I've made a mistake. I knew I would. I have been drawn into the content trap, again.

"We can build projects that engage students in their cultural roots and yet are academic projects to the core." Ron Berger.

I always start projects with the best of intentions of balancing  content and the skills and attributes, that's why I value projects. Projects can help build that classroom community so vividly described in Ron Bergers work, but buidling community takes time. Time, that in the heat of the moment seems too short to "fit" all the content, that culminate in the ever eating thoughst of " I'll just give them  more minutes to finish this task", and "they need to know this....." Content is dominating.

"My ethic of excellence runs deep, we care for where we live, the people here, not just our academic skills" Ron Berger.

The result is evident in our class blog. Barely any student reflection, student work, resources , class discusion are all there, but the time for all of us to take stock and value one another is missing. So far only two out of the three classes doing this project have had a whole classs discussion about how they are getting on. Even these were sparse in their conversations. Most of the reflection has been on a one to one basis and fleeting. I've made no time for our community. In fact, the class that have not had a whole class discussion are the class that need it the most. It's time we got back to what makes us good people and what good learning communities do.

"Building and maintaining a positive community takes constant vigilance. It's a job that's never really done....." Ron Berger.

So here's the plan.

The next lesson for all classes will start with a simple round robin discussion. Each student will be given one of these questions and a moment to compose a response. All responses will be accepted. Using a round robin allows me not to run the conversation, students will be asked to jump in, piggy back on answers, and agree and disagree. They, the community, will lead the conversation.

The questions are unashamedly positive (only one or two ask for potential negatives), I'm hoping for a small celebration of us as people, of what we can be like. If this does not happen and students don't have examples of listening well to one another or  been trustful of one another then that's O.K too. This task will at the very least raise the profile and the desirability of these qualities. It prompts a need to be emulative. I'm hopeful that it will further strengthen our classroom community.

How have you shown trust to others?	Who has helped you the most during this project? Why?
Who has impressed you so far during this project? Why?	When did you listen to someone very well? How did you do it?
When has someone listened to you carefully during this project?	What are the strengths of your team?
What are the strengths of the people in this class?	Who in your team has worked hardest during this project so far?
How do you feel about the class blog show casing your project?	How do you feel about inviting people from home into see your projects?
Describe a time when someone has helped you during this project?	Describe a time when you have said Thank you to someone during this project?
Describe a time when you have complimented someone’s work during this project?	Describe a time when someone has complimented your work.
Describe how someone’s feedback has made your work better.	Describe when you have given feedback to someone.
Describe when someone has distracted you from your work.	Have you distracted someone from their work.
How have you motivated someone in your group?	How has someone motivated you?
How has negotiating help your project?	How has critique helped your project?
How have you shared the responsibility during this project?	How have you made agreements as a team?
How have you discussed your project as an “adult” would?	What talents have the people in your team brought to the project?

UPDATE

Here is a recording showing these questions in use, although no discussion took place each student contributed in a sophisticated and positive way.I think the culture of this class is evident lets hope it shows and develops with  all  classes.

More student perspectives on Critiques.

listen to ‘Student perspective on critique’ on Audioboo


I love this students sense of community, that taking part so that everyone can learn, it was worth taking a risk for. She is very honest and says that it was "strange" to volunteer, but it was evident that she was enjoying it even during the scrutiny. I'm glad she articulates how she felt during it changed. It is obvious she felt safe during the critique and she clearly values the feedback norms established at the beginning of the lesson.

1. Step up, step back.
2. Hard on content, soft on people.
3. Feedback must be kind, specific and helpful

It is pleasing to note that not only has she got a clear idea of what she needs to do next but feels she is more bale to critique others. I love how students she critique and critiquing as instantly transferable.

i was curious about this transfer so I asked a student who was part of this whole class critique.

listen to ‘an audience member talks about critique’ on Audioboo

It's obvious straight away that the sense of community has extended to the audience, who were appreciative not only of the person volunteering work for critique, but of the comments of other students. However, it is clear that critiques go beyond giving feedback to one person. It is clearly away of establishing what is high quality and then a chance  for you to reflect upon your own work. These students may only be 12 years old, but they can distill a process. The teacher action of extracting the key ideas or success criteria, as the work was critiqued seems to be the key in allowing him to do so.

Establishing Pedagogical purposes

Pedagogy should at its best be about what teachers do that not only helps students to learn but actively strengthens their capacity to learn David Hargreaves, Learning for life, 2004.

This in a sentence is what pedagogical purposes are all about. The benefits are clear, greater teacher clarity, improved student teacher relationships and improved metacognitive thinking by students. These feature prominently on Hattie's table of effect sizes in positions eighth, eleventh and thirteenth respectively. The following quote from Ruth Deakin Crick bears this out and eloquently highlights the benefit with having a clear learning agenda and the sharing of pedagogical purposes.

there is evidence that the key themes which form the necessary conditions for building learning power in classrooms include the quality of the relationships between teaches and learners, the quality of dialogue in which listening to the ‘other’ is central to questioning and debate, the development of a locally owned language for naming these processes, student choice and voice, and resequencing the content of the curriculum, which involves problematizing’ and ‘contextualizing’ the content so as to create  challenge and meaningfulness  Deakin- Crick et al 2002.

 For me there are three ways of quickly establishing a culture of sharing pedagogical purposes in our classrooms. I think the enquiry based and Project based learning may be a more comprehensive way of doing this. However, the three strategies can be categorised as,

1. Using specific tasks to stimulate a discussion around the act of learning.
2. Stating and debriefing the pedagogical purpose of each "task"
3. Increasing the number of metacognitive strategies used.

A splendid example of a task being used to stimulate discussion is the PEEL projects "Dirty trick" strategy (a full description of the strategy can be found on their website). Whereby students are asked to copy a set of notes, which are filled with errors and general nonsense.I like to distract them form this by titling them "Everything you need to know about..." and the like. Here's an example with living rocks that they never notice!

An example of Dirty Trick

Responses can be quite emotive- so use sparingly

I only use this sparingly as students could feel cheated, I love this example as it shows this student cares about what they learn. . If like me you spend a long time building up trusting relationships you wouldn't want to use it inappropriately, so a brief task of no more than 5 minutes is best. However, it does open up discussion about active and passive learning and responsibility. The students tend check and question information before they make notes and some even start to challenge the information I present. I always throw in a few silly ideas into the following lesson to check that they are questioning the information.


Increasingly, my lesson plans that I write that others use  highlight the strategy being used and how to debrief it. This helps turn a complete this task/ worksheet style of approach to developing student knowledge of possible strategies they could choose to use when working on a project or in a more independent way. The debrief of each of these tasks is vital. I normally ask the following questions.

1. How did you go about using this tool?
2. What was difficult about using it?
3. What does it allow you to do? or Why would you use it again?
4. Where would you use it again?

Question 3 and 4 are obviously there to facilitate transfer of the tool or way of thinking.

This AudioBoo highlights how readily students take to this, I love how they try to persuade doubters to the value, and is a chance for them to show how much they enjoy and care for learning. These students had just used a Whole Part Map for the first time. I think it also shows how it is necessary for the teaching of learning strategies to have a content/ real learning basis.



I always find this table useful in analysing the tools I use during my teaching.


Developed by Jill Flack.(PEEL)

 The final way of establishing pedagogical purpose with students is to increase metacognition. This can be inextricably linked to the debrief above. Although, I find that specific tasks as render positive results too. A favourite are the metacognitive wrapper tasks asked at the start of a session to prime the kind of thinking wanted (including content) and at the end to see how that metacognition had changed or improved their thinking. Again spending a small quantity of time discussing these often brings out generic strategies that some students use, allowing others to mimic their style of working.

A lot of these strategies can be framed through the use of SOLO taxonomy. It has a clear pedagogical purpose, to highlight what high quality learning woudl look like and providing structure and guidance to get there. The shared language mentioned in the quaote from Ruth Deakin Crick, is clear and unambiguous and readily picked up by students. And, through the clever linking of specific tools to the levels will add another dimension to the student debrief on the tool by asking "Where on SOLO taxonomy does this tool help you think at?".

So why should we share pedagogical purposes with students? This is succinctly summarised in the closing quotation.

‘Effective teaching … should aim to help individuals and groups to develop the
intellectual, personal and social resources that will enable them to … flourish … in a
diverse and changing world.’ ESRC TLRP Evidence-informed principles for teaching
and learning: No 1, March 2006