Planning Reflection: 7 Essential Elements for PBL

 Which elements are evident in my planning?

I began the unit with a video posing the challenging problem: the Far North being cut off from trade and asking the students to add their ideas about how we would survive and what would be impacted to a padlet task. This seemed to be an effective way to engage students  as all seemed to be motivated to share their ideas. I also provided them with two Big Questions which I intended to delve deep into with them however the students ended up following a different path meaning it was directed more from the students than myself which is something I was not anticipating. I guess this proves that student voice was a major factor that influenced the success of the PBL unit. 

I then realised that I needed to focus more on teaching students inquiry type skills and stages to make sure their group inquiries would be sustainable. I provided a few tuning in activities to challenge their thinking such as the seed vault image to spark their curiosity, followed by activities around questioning and collaboration. These skills came in handy for students throughout their journey in working towards their chosen projects. 

Where possible, I planned for experts to come and share their knowledge with the whole class e.g. Making Rongoa Workshop. This was a good way for the whole class to benefit from experiencing and learning authentically even if it didn't necessarily relate to their own projects. I wish I put in more effort to organise more experiences like this and think next time I will organise more of these opportunities from the beginning. 

Throughout the PBL journey, a few students realised the direction of their group wasn't going the way they thought or they saw what other groups were doing were more interesting, and so they asked to change groups. I allowed them to do this as I felt for this journey to give them learning satisfaction was important. They did however need to do this in a respectful way and ask the other group if it was ok if they joined their group. This seemed to be successful and students commented about liking the opportunity to be able to make a different choice. 

When we should have been nearing the end of our projects, I realised many of the groups became a bit lost and unclear of the direction they were heading in. I spoke to Donna about this and she suggesting getting the students to identify possible artefacts they could make, to demonstrate their learning and maybe teach others. This really helped with getting students back on track, and gave them a boost in the right direction.

The unit ended with their presentations of their artefacts to the class. Some prepared presentations and others chose to speak about their artefacts and answer questions from others. 

At the end of the PBL journey I encouraged all students to fill in the reflection sheet containing four key questions (What did you learn/enjoy? What personal skills do you think improved after working on your project with your group? What would you do differently next time? What didn’t go so well with your project?). The purpose of this activity was to get students to reflect on their journey as a whole. Some students took the questions as being about the artefact they produced rather than the process itself. 

Areas that were not catered for in my planning were the opportunity for critique and revision and producing a public product that was shared beyond the classroom. If I could do it again, I feel I would encourage others to critique their peers' ideas to challenge them to think bigger than they did. I would also plan better to provide more real life experiences e.g. out of school visits, more experts...