Top 8 PBL News Stories

 

Mar. 27-31, 2017

Each Friday we post a list of articles, blog posts, research studies, and other resources we’ve run across that relate to Project Based Learning.

Here’s what we liked this week:

March for Science
National Science Teachers Association
April is here, and for Earth Day the NSTA is calling for supporters of science – including science teachers – to join a big march in Washington D.C. and more than 400 satellite marches and rallies in 37 countries on April 22.

Why I’m Worried About the Future of Charter Schools
Education Week
This post lays out a dilemma: charter schools have always been championed both by conservatives (choice, competition, & deregulation) and liberals (social justice, freedom from bureaucracy, & innovative instructional methods). But now under Betsy DeVos, the author worries that the former view will take hold in America, and he calls for accountability along with autonomy.

Students Use The Internet of Things, Big Data and Big Ideas to Build Smarter Cities
EdSurge
Here’s a cool-sounding program: Exponential Education (aka Moonshot), run by Senior Google Engineer Katy Kasmai, uses a project-based approach and design thinking to help K-12 students create “10x solutions” to complicated real-world problems, such as sustainable cities and climate change.

High Tech High Student Projects
High Tech High
This is not a new resource to long-time PBL fans, but I was just reminded about it on Twitter and it’s always being updated. High Tech High has a fab collection of projects, with detailed project descriptions, products and deliverables, nice photos, and student reflections.

Assessment in PBL
New Tech Network
I missed this when it was first shared in Dec. 2016, but thank you again, Twitter: New Tech created a handy chart showing what to assess and how to assess it, in each phase of a project.

Collaborative projects to develop students’ global competence
Innovate My School
A science teacher at a high school in Bangkok, Thailand describes STEM and STEAM projects that connect his students to the world. He includes lots of links and tech tools, including this one I hadn’t heard about: “the popular Mystery Skype phenomenon, a critical thinking activity where students in one classroom try to guess the country of students in another classroom.”

Engineering Making Headway in Schools, Analysis Shows
Education Week
Good news for PBL, which connects so well to STEM programs and the Next Generation Science Standards: “Engineering is getting more attention in classrooms, especially in those states that have adopted the NGSS.”

The Do’s and Don’ts of Presenting
Walkerstone.com
This company, a provider of business writing courses, has created a nifty infographic on how to make effective presentations that PBL teachers and students would find very useful.

 

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