DIY Project Based Learning for Math and Science

Heather Wolpert-Gawron

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317486404
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Are you interested in using Project Based Learning to revamp your lessons, but aren't sure how to get started? In DIY Project Based Learning for Math and Science, award-winning teacher and Edutopia blogger Heather Wolpert-Gawron makes it fun and easy! Project Based Learning encourages students and teachers alike to abandon their dusty textbooks, and instead embrace a form of curriculum design focused on student engagement, innovation, and creative problem-solving. A leading name in this field, Heather Wolpert-Gawron shares some of her most popular units for Math and Science in this exciting new collection. This book is an essential resource for teachers looking to:

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• Create their own project-based learning units.

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• Engage student in their education by grounding lessons in real-world problems and encouraging them to develop creative solutions.

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• Incorporate role-playing into everyday learning.

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• Develop real-world lessons to get students to understand the life-long relevance of what they are learning.

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• Assess multiple skills and subject areas in an integrated way.

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• Collaborate with teachers across subject areas.

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• Test authentic skills and set authentic goals for their students to grow as individuals.

Part I of the book features five full units, complete with student samples, targeted rubrics, a checklist to keep students on track, and even "Homework Hints." Part II is a mix-and-match section of tools you can use to create your own PBL-aligned lessons. The tools are available as eResources on our website, www.routledge.com/9781138891609, so you can print and use them in your classroom immediately.

Part I
PBL Lessons

1
The Genius Unit

A Unit Based on Informational Reading and Scientific Lab Reports

Table 1.1 Genius Unit Facts

Subjects Integrated	Writing—scientific lab report
	Science—brain-based research focus
	Reading—informational
	Technology—hyperlinking, Google Drive
Skills Used	Collaboration
	Problem solving
	Creativity
	Communication
	Questioning
	Role-play
Duration	2 weeks
Driving Question	What defines genius?

Overview

This unit was one of the first ones I worked on that was meant to experiment with a more truncated length. As it turned out, it served more as an extended Performance Based Assessment, even while it borrows elements from traditional Project Based Learning. It seemed to me that the only way to be able to totally teach using PBL would be to create units that varied in length to fit into the requirements of the district and school. After all, one can’t keep moving along a pacing guide that doesn’t permit for the occasional test or assembly or drill. I needed a few units that were shorter modules of learning that still had the elements of any deep PBL unit. This doesn’t have them all, but it hits on the following:

• ◆ subject matter integration
• ◆ role-playing
• ◆ authentic assessment
• ◆ blended learning
• ◆ outside expert.

The Genius Unit addressed this need. It also focused on brain research, something I wanted my students to begin to think about more earnestly.

The basic premise is that the students are role-playing as medical professionals. They have a young client/patient they have been seeing who is showing signs of being a genius. The students are given daily resources that represent everything from magazine articles to blog posts to the Mensa test in order to define genius, study the strengths and weaknesses of labeling, and learn more about the process of identifying a true genius. The students will be asked to take notes in various ways and modalities ranging from traditional dual-entry journals to creating their own assessments. In the end, as the culmination of the unit, the fledgling doctors must write a formal scientific lab report using what they learn in their resources and research in order to advise the patient’s parent of possible next steps.

Step-by-Step Lessons

For units of this length, I don’t necessarily provide a formal checklist, but I do give students an overview of the week(s) so that they can manage their time. I will provide them an agenda that would look something like this:

January 6–17

MONDAY
Practicing for the Performance Based Assessment
Quickwrite: What is genius?
Think Different ad
Forming new table groups

TUESDAY
Jigsaw genius resources
Reading articles/sharing out

WEDNESDAY
Shakespeare’s contributions to our language

THURSDAY
Taking the Mensa test

FRIDAY
DUE BY BEGINNING OF CLASS: Blog Post Jigsaw Activity
Compiling week’s notes

MONDAY
OFF

TUESDAY
Jigsaw genius resources
Reading articles/sharing out

WEDNESDAY
Viewing model lab reports

THURSDAY
Taking the Mensa test

FRIDAY
DUE BY BEGINNING OF CLASS: Blog Post Jigsaw Activity
Compiling week’s notes

MONDAY
DUE: Final Draft of Genius Blog Post
Changing your IQ activity
Learning about specific geniuses

TUESDAY
Quickwrite on Steve Jobs quotes
Interviewing a subject matter expert
DUE BY END OF CLASS: IQ Quiz

WEDNESDAY
Writing with numeracy
Brainstorming, organizing, and pre-writing

THURSDAY
DUE: Take the Quizzes
Argument essay using resources

FRIDAY
Argument essay using resources
DUE BY END OF CLASS: Scientific Lab Report

Let me walk you through it step by step.

1 Quickwrite: What Is Genius? This initial quickwrite will be a jumping-off point for discussion about how one perceives intelligence. By the end of the unit, we’ll loop back to this quickwrite to see if perceptions and definitions have changed once research has been conducted. This could be done as a blog post. Kidblog.org is a great resource for setting up simple blog accounts for students even if your school hasn’t bought into a huge LMS system.

Blogging and quickwriting address the requirement that all students must be writing in every classroom. For instance, we know that in the math standards, students must justify and explain via writing. This can feel very inorganic unless writing is more deeply integrated into the curriculum. If a student is being asked to hit the following standard, for instance …

Understand solving equations as a process of reasoning and explain the reasoning.

CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.HSA.REI.A.1
Explain each step in solving a simple equation as following from the equality of numbers asserted at the previous step, starting from the assumption that the original equation has a solution. Construct a viable argument to justify a solution method.

… that requirement to “explain” would be much easier for students who have already been writing through a more scientific lens than for those who are only asked to “explain” when being assessed. Encourage all forms of writing and the assessment writing will be easier to construct.

2 Think Different Ad: This ad serves as an entry-level event: a launching pad for the learning to come that sets the tone of the unit overall. This one is narrated by Richard Dreyfuss, but there is another one narrated by Steve Jobs himself: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmwXdGm89Tk

This video not only aides as a discussion starter, but serves as a guide for further research that can help a student as he or she progresses through this unit. You can have students research each of the “geniuses” shown in the video or put students in groups to share the task of discovering the contributions each subject gave to his or her society.

3 Jigsaw #1: This unit scaffolds the learning from multiple resources by using the traditional jigsaw activity as a means to learn more thorough collaboration. In a traditional jigsaw, a small group of students might chunk an article so that each student becomes an expert at, say, one paragraph or one column or one page. They then share out what they’ve learned with the other students who, in turn, also share out the section assigned to them.

In these activities, students are divided into groups of four, and each student must become an expert at a different resource. Then, using Google Drive, the students must summarize their resource and share their notes with the students in their table group. See the following for the full assignment:

Jigsaw #1

In your table group, divide up the following resources. Each person should read the article assigned to them and become an expert on its contents. Then, using a Google Document, write a summary of your article, including the title of the article, website/periodical, and author. Identify the main point and include at least 2 important quotes. You must also end your document with 3–5 questions inspired by your assigned article. You can use both proper paragraph structure and more interesting text formats in order to convey the information in your article to your table fellows. Please use proper APA or MLA bibliographic formatting to cite your article at the bottom of your page.

Share your document with those at your table and with your teacher. Give us all the ability to comment.

Here are your resources:

• Person #1. Time, Is Genius Born or Can It Be Learned? http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1879593,00.html
• Person #2. Creativity Post, How Geniuses Think www.creativitypost.com/create/how_geniuses_think
• Person #3. BBC, Tell-Tale Signs of a Genius Child www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-1770V2465
• Person #4. Psychology Today, The Downside of Genius www.psychologytoday.com/blog/innovation-generation/201307/the-downside-genius

A student sample of this activity can be found at the end of this chapter.

4 Student-Created Assessments: In my last book, ’Tween Crayons and Curfews: Tips for Middle School Teachers, I wrote about the power of students showing their comprehension, not by taking tests, but by developing...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• eResources
• List of Contributors
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Part I PBL Lessons
• 1 The Genius Unit A Unit Based on Informational Reading and Scientific Lab Reports
• 2 The Invention Unit A Unit Based on Inventing Solutions to Common, Everyday Problems Using Persuasive Pitch Writing, Crowdsourcing, 3D Printing, and Digital Commercial Production
• 3 The Galapagos Unit A Unit Committed to Funding a Mission to Save the Endangered and Unique Species of the Galapagos Islands Based on Student Research, Role-Playing, Writing an Executive Summary of Recommendations, and an Oral Pitch to the “Board” of a Major Institute
• 4 The Theme Park Unit A Unit Based on the Engineering of Building a Theme Park Focused on Mathematical Trial and Error and Various Thematic Genres
• 5 The Teach Them to Be Teachers Unit
• Part II Mix-and-Match Lessons to Design Your Own PBL Units
• References