This article features a school in Texas - Manor New Technology High School - which is all project based.  The video provides a look at how two teachers collaborate when designing a project. 

Project Based Learning at Manor New Tech HS

Visit to Hillcrest High School (Queens, NY)

We went to this school in Queens today to represent our school and help inform us with decisions around the overhaul of academies at Furness. After being there for a few hours (and I know a few hours is barely enough time to even begin understanding a school), I wanted to write down the things that make Hillcrest "work"...generally speaking:

(1.) Staff

- 98% of the teachers (thats 147 of the 150 in the building) were hand-picked by the principal and/or a member of his leadership team. It shows. 

- A lot of time, resources, and money is spent to develop the staff. They have a rubric based on the Danielson Framework so there's a consistency of what "good teaching" looks like, and administration is in classrooms a lot. No one works in isolation. 

- There's a leadership role, it seems, for the majority of the staff - nearly everyone has their niche. Teachers feel like they are part of the success of the school. 

*So they get who they want, empower them so they don't leave, and then train/develop their staff (who again, stay). 

(2.) PLCs

- I don't think it was PACs goal for us to see this, but what Hillcrest showed us is that it doesn't matter what the hell your academies are - what matters is how they're set up and the support you give them. Each of the nine learning communities had their own guidance counsellor, their own section of the building, hours each week for teachers to collaborate and discuss students & trends, their own AP...essentially each learning community was its own school. Both staff and students felt like they were part of a team and the word "family" came up A LOT. 

(3.) Common Planning Time

- Different schedules each week - but within every "two week block", teachers have alloted time to meet departmentally, by academy, and with guidance counsellors to discuss PD, Danielson, assessment, trends, and students. 

This isn't a list of things that we should try to implement - many we have no control over - but its traits we saw first-hand at a very large school and should always keep in mind. But maybe the question worth discussing is what's something we can begin working on short-term and long-term from this visit that would have a positive impact on our school community?

PBL website

Here is a great website I found.

http://www.pbl-online.org/

It  helps you develop PBL's. It also has several PBL examples and templates for all subject areas.

http://www.bie.org/videos/video/it_really_actually_changed_my_life

Project Based Learning video about a student who was positively affected by PBL. The video may or may not work in the schools. You may have to watch it at home.

Project Based Learning Text

Project-Based Learning by William N. Bender

A hard copy of this text will soon be in the hands of all teaching faculty.  Until then, here is a link to the text on Google Books: http://books.google.com/books/about/Project_Based_Learning.html?id=UL0-vVkipKwC.

Senior Projects are Boring

Boring Things: British Literature

Senior Projects are (mostly) boring, right?

Boring for students to research and write, boring for instructors to facilitate and grade, and boring for observers to observe.   

This is not some disembodied, abstract criticism.  After all, I had a significant stake in creating the format for our Senior Projects here at Furness.  I envisioned the theme (Issues in Contemporary Society), I helped to compile the topics, I set the guidelines, and I developed the presentation criteria.  From the root to the fruit, I am responsible for a great deal of it.

This means that I am, by logical extension, boring.

It's time to rethink Senior Projects, and PBL provides a great format in which to do so.  To be fair, there are certain elements of the Senior Project that are indispensable; conducting research, using MLA/APA citation, and public speaking are all necessary attributes that are going nowhere.  Still, these are just the contours of the content, NOT the content itself.   

Donna Sharer recently shared with me the curriculum for something called "Student Voices"  that we may want to review in determining a new course for Senior Projects.  The link to the curriculum is right here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/94301129/Student-Voices-Senior-Project.  Please review it and share your thoughts on how we might reformat the Senior Project at Furness in the mold of PBL. 

The Big Flip...

This is a really interesting concept that I have been looking into for next year. A recent seminar at Rowan University was very enlightening. I think it could be an interesting way of incorporating Project-based Learning principles...

Of Synonyms...

Actually, let's see if we can stop saying "autonomy."  Here is a list of acceptable synonyms from which to choose:
 
ability, aptitude, autarchy, autonomy , home rule, license, qualification, self-determination, self-government, self-reliance, self-rule, self-sufficiency, separation, sovereignty

First Post!

"Silver in the mine."

Furness's flirtation with Project Based Learning started when Mr. McKenna first spoke the word "Autonomy."  Without completing an exhaustive review of the measures that have brought the School District of Philadelphia to this oft-repeated utterance, it should be noted that it spurred a discussion about what Furness would do if we could indeed do anything we wanted.  McKenna's response was that PBL just seemed so much more interesting and practical than the other alternatives out there, many of which we have had direct experience with.  

Direct, sometimes boring, and sometimes excruciating experience.

Pursuant to this, Sam Riccobono, Chris Steveline, Cliff Breese and I attended the 2012 ASCD Conference in Philadelphia, where we participated in a session on PBL by the Buck Institute for Education (http://www.bie.org/).  Short of saying that we experienced some sort of epiphany or rapture, we left the session feeling that PBL was indeed a very good idea.  

A good idea, yes.  Hopefully even a great one.  But as Ben Franklin put it in Poor Richard's Almanack, "Genius without education is like silver in the mine."

Now comes the real work.