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Chapter 7 Application Activity Review PBL Informational sites
Explanation Paragraph: The sites that were assigned were instrumental in developing an appreciation and a better understanding of PBL as a very effective curriculum model that promotes higher order thinking skills. Students love to engage in problem solving because it takes a normal departure from the regular chalk and talk sort of drill that goes on more frequently in the classrooms all over America. This approach empowers students to be the masters of their own learning and to arrive at conclusions systematically on their own with only teacher facilitation. Students that take part in PBL have a greater sense of self worth because they are constructing their learning themselves. I have used PBL a great deal in my classrooms and find it to be one of the most interesting and captivating forms of imparting knowledge. Carnegie Foundation: I found this site to be very informative because Mr. Cerbin used his own Educational Psychology class to demonstrate PBL strategies.
The students were engaged in the following steps to find solutions to the problems related to teachers in the Middle School classrooms. The steps to get them to think about how to solve the problem were as follows:
The problems were authentic to the students because they were analyzing strategies that were ineffective for other teachers and in PBL fashion determining solutions for problems that they may themselves encounter in their own teaching. I would have loved this sort of structure in my Ed. Psyc classes. There was no thinking in the two classes that I took. The last class that I took was simply very boring lecture on learning theorists. The odd part of the class was then the tests were all higher level Blooms questions where we were to synthesize the lectures and the text and put them into practice. I thought that this was counterproductive to the process of metacognition. We listened and then we had to synthesize, but there was absolutely no practical application in the classroom. How is a student able to synthesize on his own without any prior discussion or reflection on the material in class to activate the synthesis process. This was a case where the professor was trying to achieve higher order thinking skills and was utilizing a technique because it was new and innovative but not preparing her learners to use it effectively. This is a trap that teachers fall into. They want to use new methods but they do not prepare the environment for that sort of learning. We were not getting those concepts because we were not actively using them. We were using our auditory senses alone and for some that is not enough. This class was an example of how some educators get on "new technique bandwagons" and do not involve the learners in that process. That is the worst kind of learning experience one can have. It is the role of the teacher to help the students to understand the material in more relevant ways. Mr. Cerbin was deeply interested in the "why my students are not getting the concepts" so he engaged them in the learning about learning. Excellent strategies While exploring the problems of some of the teachers one of the phases was to reflect on the process for a deeper understanding. In exploring the site he describes the reflection and posing a question phase of the process as being almost painful. In this way he is asking them to verbalize or put into words the things that they noticed about what they were exploring. It is through following the steps of engagement, management, and reflection that they are in turn learning how to learn. They are metacognitively going through the steps of learning and in the engagement phase they are actively taking the role of learners. Through his facilitation of the process he is guiding the participants to go through the formative steps in learning how to learn. The Center for Advanced Research and Technology
The students are actively engaged in projects that connect to a profession or a course of study in which they have interest. Students are arranged in collaborative teams with professionals in the field that pose challenging problems about their course of study and the application to this study in a real world situation. They are engaged in projects that extend past the classroom and into the global community so what they learn is not just a mass of information but how it is relevant to their career. Students are involved in analytical problems that they have to figure out under the direction of a team of specialists in the field. They are involved in activities for example, two students built a cane for the blind using ultrasonic sensors when the cane approached an object. The possibilities are limitless in this secondary school setting. The students are able to use technology to develop new ideas in the fields of criminal forensics, medical technology and about 10 other career fields.
In this facility the authenticity comes from the marketability of these students when it is time for them to enter a university or career setting. Although only open since 2000, these students will be fully prepared to advance to a higher level of investigation of the fields that they have chosen to study in this alternative high school setting. The topics and classes are interesting to the students because they are active participants in the projects. They are out there doing and creating and as is described in one portion of the website, " They can do just about anything" The students are not braniacs, they are average students who are looking for a marketable alternative to rote memorization and a bunch of unrelated facts that have no relevance to their careers. This program offers them such an alternative.
Because of the level of engagement and reflection on the process contained within this program students are learning through doing. They are constructing actual crime scenes they are involved in going to places where medical technology is at the cutting edge. Quoting the CNN website "students will leave with more than just an understanding of chemistry, physics or technology. "They'll leave with a true understanding of how knowledge is applied to solving problems," says Wright. On a personal note, I have students that come to the Bakersfield Fresno area every year. They are coming from very specialized study in their own country, and although our thrust is English Language instruction our overriding thrust is education in general. I had no idea that this sort of high school existed. I plan on contacting them about allowing my students to visit the high school to see a representative model in progress. I think that my students will learn far more from this experience than going to Disneyland. Thank you for the information. The learning Tree of San Diego State University
Part of this sight addresses distributed course delivery or Distance Education where the full weight of the discovery lies with the student and the interaction between the student and the materials provided by the instructor. In order to engage in an interaction with the materials and technology the learner must function on a higher order of thinking for the program to be effective and for the student to achieve outcomes. DCD/DE is itself a PBL lesson. If you are to feel the full weight of discovery in DE, you the learner must take the information presented and synthesize it for a better understanding. The other half of the sight was dedicated to PBL and discussed its origin in the medical field where students were presented with a medical problem and had to figure out a diagnosis using existing schema. They were actively engaged in higher order thinking synthesizing that which they had learned relating it to the problem and putting it into practical application for a diagnosis.
This site brings out the point that in life, problems are not well structured. As with PBL lessons the student needs to look at the problem as in real life and ascertain the feasibility of a problem solution, identify the strategies that would give this problem a solution and admittedly identify if some problems can have real solutions. It is in the application phase of PBL that authenticity occurs. Is the solution something that can really work or is there faulty logic associated with the problem and/or the solution to that problem. Sometime authentic learning comes in the form of discovering that there is no solution to a given problem or that we do not have the resources at this given time to find a solution.
To spin off of what I have just written about authenticity we as learners must be cognizant that in the learning process or in the problem solving process there are times that our learning does not take us in the direction that we had hoped and that in and of itself is true learning. Making mistakes and experimenting with data with no real outcomes is learning. The site discusses that content knowledge is not the important part of PBL but the bi-product stemming from a deeper understanding of the concepts. The site gives a realistic view of understanding and discusses that sometimes, if not structured properly, the PBL lesson loses its meaning. Facilitation is the key to keeping the students on the right track and gaining understanding of the underlying concepts and objectives of the lesson The Reservation Controversies Scenario
The students in this PBL are asked to construct a situation where a Quaker is interviewing for a job as an Indian Agent but are given only links to gather information. As an adult it is obvious to me ( I hope) that the object of the lesson is to ascertain certain biases that may hinder the process of obtaining a job with a certain background. The Indians being the high spirited people that they are and the Quakers who are known for their reserved qualities are on opposite ends of the spectrum. From reading the books that are provided as links the students will gain a sense of the characteristics of people and glean a certain knowledge about both groups.
The use of mock interview takes the lesson into the realm of a real world job interview situation where the participant will not just read about job interviews but be put on the spot verbalize the answers to questions that the students pose. This is a think on your feel activity where practical application that they can draw from in the future is in place. There is probably nothing more tense than a job interview as you are trying to do your best and appear to have all the answers but a curve is always thrown that you do not expect. The lesson is teaching the students to research before going into a situation which will prepare them for more than a chance occurrence. Knowing more about the subject that you are going to be essentially quizzed on "interviewed on" will give the applicant a competitive edge. It will also give the interviewee, the ability to formulate judgments about whether this position would be right for them in the long run, forcing them to look past the situation of just applying for a job, and identifying if this job is appropriate for them.
The research process again is key to the learning how to learn process. They are to take information and from that information glean what it is that is specifically important to the problem at hand, that problem being how does this relate to the job interview. They are going through the steps metacognitively and doing self analysis of the material to put it into the proper framework appropriate for the job interview. The fact that they are active participants in the interview process, both the applicant and the interviewers, they are actively learning how to respond to questions, and how to ask questions in this scenario. By taking risks and making mistakes the learning is occurring with automaticity. They are logging this into their long term memory without really realizing it. Going through the steps and changing strategies of question answering and asking is enabling them to learn better choices for similar situations in the future. It is also teaching them about bias without spelling it out directly. They will infer from the reading that there is bias involved in the mindsets of Quakers about Indians and how these philosophies came about. They will evaluate whether the reasons that the Quakers had reservations, no pun intended, about the Indians is valid or invalid thinking. There are so many dynamics to this lesson that encourage the learner to learn about the lesson by virtue of the topic itself, far more than can be explored in this summation of the website. NASA’s Classroom of the Future at the Center for Educational Technology at Wheeling Jesuit University I have to remark that one of my English language programs when I was in charge of the French Division came from Wheeling Jesuit University. He taught a group for me in Pittsburgh, my hometown. His name was Dr. Noel.
All I can say is WOW! I had no idea that such projects existed. The mission statement envelopes the essence of higher order thinking when they state: COTF's mission is to develop curricular materials that improve mathematics, science, geography, and technology education in ways consistent with the national educational reform movement. This movement it to take the learner out of the traditional role of receiver of information to the producer of information. Through the exploration of the modules provided and the technology associated with these modules the students can draw conclusions that will effectively assist in problem solving abilities. The information is interactive and is of appeal to active learners. Within the active learning environment the information is taken to a higher level, challenging the learner to utilize it in other contexts. Streaming video and simulcasts are a part of this site to give additional information to the learner helping them make connections between it and the projects within the site.
The learners are engaged in practical problem solving in real world situations involving space, the environment, geography, all subjects that promote growth in the individual’s interest in pursuing this field in the future or simply amassing more knowledge about the topic enabling them to relate it to other situations in the future. The simulcasts are authentic broadcasts from NTV which illuminate studies that have already been done by other researchers on the topics. Space and the environment are timely topics heard on the news nowadays, the students can relate their learning in these scenarios to topics that they hear or read about in the news today. How more authentic can you get when a Texas student can go onto a website and study about the construction of a shuttle and formulating hypotheses about why it broke apart in their backyard.
Through the use of this technology intensive curriculum the modules are introducing learners to the effective use of technology and incorporating it into their learning strategies. The use of the computer has put the knowledge of the world at the fingertips of all learners. I remember my experience with research in 1970 when I was enrolled in my first university experience. The task of research was an arduous one, locating information, perusing the dusty shelves of libraries, information was scarce and sometimes non-existent. Our kids are far more fortunate than we were because now they do not have to just study about the moon through the use of a text with pictures, they can actually see the moon in its phases at any given time of the day or night. There should be no encouragement to learn necessary because the tools that this site is providing is encouragement enough, just exploring the many wonders should motivate them to want to gain more information. The brightly colored and detailed sights are a veritable plethora of encouragement to explore topics in detail. |
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