Sunday, April 28, 2013

An Introduction to PBL



AN INTRODUCTION TO PROJECT-BASED LEARNING
Before watching the video, I had the idea that PBL was engaging the children's mind by collaborating and communicating to explore real world issues. After working in groups, making choices and monitoring progress, students had to present their final project to their peers or parents. PBL has been a meaningful way to share experiences in different contexts in the last few years.

After watching this video, I can say that PBL means "hands on student directed activity". Students learn by doing. They create, design, build, research and evaluate to demonstrate what they have just learned at school. PBL can be a very effective way to teach any subject in different contexts. 
I consider myself using PBL in my classroom. Last month, my fifth grade students worked in small teams and created a website where they investigated and developed their own blog to show what they had learned from a science unit. I can also say they had a sense of motivation to be using critical skills to solve real life issues. It was  a challenging tasks for most of them.

I think if we learn to use skype in the classroom, we can ask experts from all over the world to supplement teacher knowledge and then students can practice 21st century skills in a quickly changing globally connected world.