I was sent this question the other day from a young man who used to attend classes virtually at my school and who is now in his own teacher ed prep program. As I was constructing a response, I figured it might make a nice post. So here you go!

Question:
Ginger, If you have the time, what were some of the strategies you used to catch your students “doing something right”.

First of all, I love this topic. So much of our time as educators is spent “correcting” kids or helping them to do better, which pre-supposes they’re doing something wrong. No, I believe to the very core of my soul that if we want kids to do better, we have to start from and build on the foundation we want to grow. We need to build on the foundation of kids doing Right.

So in response to that question above, I submit 10 ways we would catch kids doing Right:

Answer:

1.  I intentionally looked for it.
2. I put them into situations where they got to work in their strengths. In their learning styles.
3. I asked them to do work that they loved or were excited in.
4. We laughed and had fun. A LOT.
5. We created an environment of caring and sharing between students and students-staff.
6. I asked parents what their kids were good at. What they liked. What they wanted.
7. I asked kids what they were good at. What they liked. What they wanted.
8. We always celebrated doing the Right thing.
9. We made it ok to be weird (Everyone is somebody else’s weirdo. You think you’re normal? How weird is that?!), so it was a safe environment to be someone they might not normally be. To try new things.
10. I intentionally looked for it. (I put that twice because it’s doubly important, especially for those kids who NEED us to catch them doing right.)

What did I miss? What needs revised?

As adults, the reason we learn new things is because our lack of knowledge gets in the way of something we want to do. So we go out and find a way to learn what we need to learn. Right? Our recognition of our lack of knowledge and our need to know leads to learning. Authentic learning.

But school isn’t set up that way at all. School is set up for us to be “fed” all the information that we’ll ever need to know before we’re asked to use it. Before we even know that we might need it. Before educators even know that it’ll be useful for us. It’s all based on the assumption that “they” know what “we” will need to know.

What if school was set up to help us practice learning how to learn instead of spending time asking us to prove that we’ve retained something that’s been fed to us? Because in the real world, rarely is the information we need to know for our jobs, for our lives, fed to us. We have to go out and find that information.

Well, that is, unless we’re working on an assembly line that requires very little original thought or initiative.  —— long pause ——  And just how many of us in the US have those factory based, assembly line types of jobs now?

Right.

So if we’re preparing our kids for the real world, why isn’t school set up with a series of challenges that made us need to learn information-gathering, idea processing, and content creation? And the kids learn what information (and skills) they need to know through those challenges? And best of all, why couldn’t the challenges be set up in ways students would want to complete them?

And why is this concept so difficult for us to try?

If you’re intrigued, let me know. I think I might have answers but I can’t complete this challenge alone. I need your help too.

My PBL partner, Kevin Honeycutt and I are frequently asked questions like, “Do you know anything about PBL for (insert curriculum topic here).”
Usually the topic is something like “Financial Wellness for New Mothers” or “Religion of the 18th Century” or “Spanish for the Deaf” or “Advanced Mathematics for Budding Actuaries.” Really, it doesn’t matter the title of the class. What’s happening is that the school leader is struggling to help a teacher in a specialty area feel included in shifting education from something being done to kids to something that the kids are doing. And they see that PBL has helped in other classes. They’re really saying, “Can you help by giving this teacher resources that are specific to her area?”

Kevin and me, working with a great group of teachers in Texas.

The answer for this is yes, we can help that teacher with Project Based Learning, if that teacher is willing to work alongside sharing his/her content knowledge to build projects. But if that teacher is looking for a set of scripted lesson plans s/he can buy off the shelf and just “follow” for his/her specialty class…well, we’re probably not going to be able to help with that.

Because you see, Project/Problem Based Learning isn’t about a set of “wash n wear” lesson plans. It’s about engaging kids with the topic — whatever topic it is — in very active ways. If a teacher understands PBL, then any known academic content can be integrated. If you want to help that specialized teacher find lesson for that specialized content area, then allow him/her to learn the basics of PBL and s/he’ll be able to build the PBL for that specialized space.

So what about our LifePractice PBL recipe cards? Aren’t those lesson plans?

Actually, no. If you check them out closely, they’re not scripted lessons; instead they provide ideas and seeds for the toughest parts of PBL: driving questions, integrating, creative product, and creative grouping. They are not about someone who has never had any PBL training picking them up and using them like a traditional lesson plan. Like anyone picking up a recipe card for the first time, we still have to have the basics of cooking in our tool belts. And so would any teacher using our LifePractice PBL recipe cards need some initial training and practice in PBL. They don’t have to be experts to use them, but they do need some training.

If you’re a school leader who’d like to implement PBL in your schools, we’ll be there 100% for you and your teachers, providing engaged training to help all of your teachers partner their content knowledge with the tenets of PBL. If you want that specialty teacher to have assistance in moving her classroom toward a PBL approach, the first place to start is with high-quality learning for her.

Contact us for more information.