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.

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.