After a few days into PBL I began Day 3 by introducing students to what waves do - waves carry energy (or information). I find the best way to get this across is by doing Derek Muller's demonstration of How Does a Slinky Fall? I show this video (partial), demonstrate the choices of how it could fall, and survey the students. If you haven't seen it check it out below:
After the students vote, I show the rest of the video and then proceed to the stairway down the hall to drop a mega-slinky. The idea here is that the bottom of the slinky does not know the top has been dropped until the information gets to it - in the form of a wave! (this gets to the NGSS Waves standards)
Next, we moved onto the Guidelines for the Project courtesy of Dan Jones and J. Collier. After I read these for the first time, I wondered why I had not written these! They are very in line with my thinking of project creation. I especially like #8 which tells the students - if you tell your friend your project idea and they say it's great, it probably isn't! My thoughts exactly. PBL is a time to take risks, to fail, and to rise up and be awesome!
At the end of class, I asked students to further research the concepts of waves. I told them to define them by watching the video lessons, use of websites, and searching out Quizlets. They don't need to understand them (this is the goal of PBL), but they do need to be able to be familiar enough to have a conversation about them. This is in preparation for the Design Lab tomorrow.
Day 4 - Design Lab for Waves
What Is Design Lab?
The Design Lab was created by Dan Jones and something I learned about in the Flipped Learning Level II Certification I completed last Winter. Design Lab provides students with the opportunity to discuss the content and come up with their idea for their project. You can learn more about the details of the Design Lab on his blog,
I began the day by introducing Design Lab and the goal of moving from content to project idea. Students first began in pairs - one student stating all they knew about waves while the other took notes on their ideas. After 3 minutes, the students switched roles.
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| Student describing what she knows about waves. |
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| Student taking notes on what her partner knows about waves. |
Students were then asked to spend some time clarifying the concepts - that is to look at their notes and fill in the blanks (complete any definitions, correct any ideas, etc.). Each student proceeded to summarize what their ideas are about waves.
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| Students taking individual time to summarize their ideas about waves |
Each student took their summary and moved into a new group of 4 students to share their summaries aloud. They further combined & categorized their ideas about the concepts of waves while noting 3 things:
1. Concepts they all stated about waves, hence the most important/need to know concepts of waves.
2. Concepts they weren't sure about (definitions or relationships).
3. Concepts they knew they had to dig deeper and look into more detail during the project.
From this discussion, students generated sticky notes to determine what they felt were the 3 most important ideas of waves.
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| Students generating the big ideas of waves on sticky notes |
Now that students have explored the content and come up with the big ideas about waves, it was time for each student to figure out their project idea to best represent these concepts. I asked students to brainstorm 5 ideas they have to possibly represent the concepts of waves. They proceeded to choose the one idea that interested them the most and state 5 reasons why it would be a great idea for a project. Each student further created a rough draft of the idea (what it would look like, materials list, etc.). Students then moved into new groups of 3 to share their idea and get feedback from their classmates.
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| A student (left) shares her project idea with her classmates |
Takeaways from Design Lab
All in all Design Lab was a success! It was a low-risk way for students to interact with the content without fear of failure. As I walked around I noticed lively discussion - students defining concepts in their own words, providing examples, and asking each other questions to further clarify concepts. I saw a lot of learning going on!
I also liked that it was fast-paced and had students constantly moving. We started in groups of 2, then to a group of 4, then to individual time, then moved to a new group of 4, then to individual time, and then finally to a new group of 3. This provided students with opportunities for new interactions and kept the discussions fresh.
If you are familiar with the suggested times for each part, I do want to note that I made small adjustments to the times as necessary for pacing. If students had completed a step, there was no need for down time to give them a chance to get off topic. Keep the line moving!
When it came to project ideas I noted a three types of students:
Student A who had an awesome idea!
Student B who had a "safe" idea, and needs to be pushed to make it awesome!
Student C who had no idea what their project could be.
Let's take a look at an example of each student in my classroom. One Student A has the idea of creating a children's book (the ones that use Velcro to attach concepts and pictures) as she enjoys writing. Now she might tell someone about this idea and her friend might say, "That sounds great!" However, what really makes this idea awesome, is that she is in 11th-grade Honors Physics and wants to create a children's book for her project - that is crazy! Obviously her challenge is simplify these ideas, whilst demonstrating a high level of detail in her presentation.
One Student B has an idea of doing some demonstrations with lasers and making a video of it. Now this sounds great, but how can this student make it awesome? Will they create a YouTube channel with a playlist of original videos? Will they make a children's science show?
Student C has no idea. Why? For most of my students this is their first time doing PBL (well, hey, it is my first time doing PBL too!). Their learning experiences have mostly been compliance-based (doing homework, taking notes, doing prescribed labs, taking tests, . . . and repeat). Thus, PBL aims to empower the student to take ownership of their learning by allowing them to chose how they can best represent the concepts in a meaningful way to them.
For these students I am providing a list of project ideas to inspire them to chose one or to come up with their own.
Project Ideas*
- Collage - edit photos using picmonkey.com or try easel.ly or canva.com
- pearltrees.com to create a web linking a variety of sources
- Use reclaimed wood to paint over and bring your ideas to life
- Lego animated movie or stop-motion
- What can you do with a shoebox? or shoeboxes?
- draw my life video on a whiteboard
- Board game - how will the pieces, gameboard, and rules apply to the concepts?
- Storyboard and make a video come to life
- Make a quilt
- Design a piece of fashion to bring the concepts to life
- Create a book (print or digital)
- Baking, cake decorating
- Minecraft
- Art - paint, sculpt, draw to represent the concepts or design a mural
- Code a video game
- Design and create a calendar
- Write a play (and perform it!)
- Create a website
- Construct an interactive model
- Podcast
- Create a YouTube channel with original videos on the concepts
- TV show (documentary, children’s show, infomercial)
- Interactive timeline
- storymap.knightlab.com
- sketchup.com to create 3D drawings
- Create a display for the school or local library educating the community about the concepts
- First person narratives as the physicists who researched the concepts
- TED-style talk
- Infographic using piktochart.com
- Shadowbox theater
- more coming soon . . . !!!
Next class we will reflect on the Design Lab process - what did they learn about the concepts of waves? Where are they at with their project idea? They will also start on their weekly schedule that will look something like this:
Thank you for reading and I welcome any comments below. How have you embraced PBL in your classroom? What are some project ideas you can share that I can add to my list?
* these ideas compiled by reviewing Dan Jones' website, BIE.org, learninginhand.com by Tony Vincent, and Edutopia.
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