PBL Home Resources Standards Inspiration About the Author
Personal Profile
Reflections on the Project
This has been an amazing journey for me. When I first started at Vintage in the spring of 2012, I was given a workbook about doing PBL in my economics class. I tried a few projects and liked it, but felt I was missing a lot. I didn't understand why PBL worked or what it promoted besides content knowledge. I looked over many websites to learn how to do PBL better, but all I found were project banks.
In the summer of 2012, I attended PBL World 101 hosted by the Buck Institute for Education at New Tech High in Napa. During that week course, I was taught how to run PBL in my classes, which excited me. It didn't excite some of my peers, however, and after talking to them I realized that they still had reservations on running PBL in their class full time.
Since I still had some questions, and my peers had questions, I decided that there needed to be a place where these questions could be answered and a basic skeleton for PBL could be shown. Like all lessons, the more often you run a certain project, the more you will add to it and improve it's effectiveness. I had to remind myself this many times, especially when I would look at how detailed other teachers projects were. My projects can't compare to those at New Tech because they have been using those projects for years and I'm still new. Nonetheless, the PBL I was doing in my class was working and I'm glad I stuck with it.
In the summer of 2012, I attended PBL World 101 hosted by the Buck Institute for Education at New Tech High in Napa. During that week course, I was taught how to run PBL in my classes, which excited me. It didn't excite some of my peers, however, and after talking to them I realized that they still had reservations on running PBL in their class full time.
Since I still had some questions, and my peers had questions, I decided that there needed to be a place where these questions could be answered and a basic skeleton for PBL could be shown. Like all lessons, the more often you run a certain project, the more you will add to it and improve it's effectiveness. I had to remind myself this many times, especially when I would look at how detailed other teachers projects were. My projects can't compare to those at New Tech because they have been using those projects for years and I'm still new. Nonetheless, the PBL I was doing in my class was working and I'm glad I stuck with it.
Lasting Learning from the Program
Before I became a teacher, I was in sales and business for 10 years. I worked with college students and recent high school graduates as I taught them sales techniques and life skills. What amazed me was how unprepared for life most of these students were. Their approach to a problem most times was simply to do a half-hearted effort of what they were taught. There was no innovation and when they came to a problem they couldn't fix most simply gave up due to frustration or boredom. When I decided to become a teacher it became my mission to help students become better prepared so they would be able to thrive in the business world.
As I progressed through the credential program, I lost sight of my underlying goal and used direct instruction as my primary mode of teaching. I thought that because I was interesting and made class lively I was making a difference to my students. What I realized soon after starting my classes at Touro was that I was just teaching to the test and my students were not getting the skills I initially wanted to teach. After researching PBL I am convinced that my students are gaining abilities and skills that are crucial to success outside of high school when they learn in a problem-based environment.
Though I met with some push-back from some students, it wasn't until I gave a pop quiz one class period on material we covered 8 weeks earlier. Most every student was able to answer the questions I asked. What's more, is I asked them questions not related to the subject but that were important to know, and they answered those as well. A few weeks later I received an email from a parent telling me that he employs over 100 people and he wishes that his workers had the problem solving skills that his daughter is gaining while in my class. He thanked me for my work and for bringing PBL in the classroom. I feel so fortunate that Touro has this program that allows me to become the teacher I envisioned.
As I progressed through the credential program, I lost sight of my underlying goal and used direct instruction as my primary mode of teaching. I thought that because I was interesting and made class lively I was making a difference to my students. What I realized soon after starting my classes at Touro was that I was just teaching to the test and my students were not getting the skills I initially wanted to teach. After researching PBL I am convinced that my students are gaining abilities and skills that are crucial to success outside of high school when they learn in a problem-based environment.
Though I met with some push-back from some students, it wasn't until I gave a pop quiz one class period on material we covered 8 weeks earlier. Most every student was able to answer the questions I asked. What's more, is I asked them questions not related to the subject but that were important to know, and they answered those as well. A few weeks later I received an email from a parent telling me that he employs over 100 people and he wishes that his workers had the problem solving skills that his daughter is gaining while in my class. He thanked me for my work and for bringing PBL in the classroom. I feel so fortunate that Touro has this program that allows me to become the teacher I envisioned.