The information in these slides was presented during a poster session at ISTE 2017 in San Antonio, TX, Wednesday, June 28, 2017 by Louse Maine, TeachersFirst contributor and MySciLife Implementation Coach

1. The Nitty Gritty of Designing
Project Based Learning
Prepared by
Louise Maine
TeachersFirst Contributor and
MyScilife Implementation Coach

2. Disclaimer
Not just a project but
a way to move
through the content.
Every move towards
project based and
inquiry will provide
great benefits.

3. Goal: Change the education experience
● Problem solving
● Collaboration
● Critical thinking
● Voice & choice
● Empower
students

4. PBL vs. Design Thinking
PBL
● Encourages inquiry
● Used for students to question and
learn info along the way
Design Thinking
● Focuses on divergent thinking -
look at all possibilities first
● Encourages inquiry
● Process not the product
● Begins with empathy
● Solution focused

5. Design Thinking for Teachers
● Problem in curriculum
● Generate ideas
● Test solutions
● Develop new plans

6. Backward design - what should students know?
● Look at Big Ideas or
standards
● How is content grounded
in life?
● What should they really
understand?

7. Identify question or problem
● Meaningful
● Expand open ended questions
● Introduce project first
● Require collaboration
● Problem with no right answer
● Content needed to have more
info to answer problem
● Reframe the question

8. Design your class
Project students will work for
● Anchors the unit
● Essential question
● Project information
● Include resources
● Balance of team and individual work
Unit content
● Playlist of content to learn
● Scaffold
● Create Hands-on Challenges to use content
Assessments
● Formative
● Metacognition
● Summative - Self and group

9. Collaboration
-Inclusion
-Equity
-Fluid groups
-Individual work informs
group work
-Modeling
-Rely on each other as source
of information
-Build check ins

10. More than content learning
● Problem-solving
● Decision-making
● Critical thinking
● Creative thinking
● Organization
● Communication
● Collaboration
● Leadership
● Self-direction
● Curiosity
● Ownership

11. Assessment
● Identify the skills
and content
required
● Formative
● Summative
● Self-assessment
● Peer assessment
● Metacognition

12. Reflection
● What have you learned
by doing this project?
● What skills have you
developed which you
can use elsewhere?
● How do you feel about
your project?
● What are you
most/least proud of?
● What would you do
differently next time?

13. Issues
Teamwork
● Balance choice vs. choosing students
● Skills, ability, motivation
Motivation
● Grades
● Focus on content more than product
● Create challenges to meet
Focus on Skills
● Writing clearly
● Speaking clearly
● Organizing information

14. How to help students
Issues
● Areas of interest
● Concerns
● Skills they need
Process
● Scaffold
● Provide info to start
● Caution jumping to early decisions
Product
● What will it look like?
● Options
● Feedback and critique

15. Creating a Design Thinking project
What will students learn?
What can they create or solve?
What are the interests or passions?
How can they make an impact?
Provide settings and people that are
interesting. Focus on empathy.
Redesign the ___(situation)___
experience . Design a way for
___(specific group of people)___ to
better ___(situation)___ . How might we
help ___(achieve some goal)___?

16. Examples of Design Thinking project
● “Welcome to Middle School
challenge”
● “Design houses for animals”
● “Design a wallet for your partner”
● “Redesign the morning routine”
● “Determining rules to live by”
● “How might we tackle a problem our
community faces?”
● “Apply the history of immigration with
the problems of today”
● “Propose your own monument”
● “Create your own state”
Require questioning, empathy
(put yourself in another’s shoes),
and solving another’s problem.

17. Designing a unit or module
● What is a problem that they need to
solve that is engaging?
● Provide the problem and parameters
at beginning of unit. Student work
informs them of the content.
● Identify content and activities to
acquire needed knowledge.
● Hands-on challenges to put the
content into practice.
● Scaffolding and differentiation as
needed.
● Encourage thinking differently:
brainstorm multiple ideas first

18. Biomolecule module

19. Design a Food Project

20. Design a Food Project

21. Cladogram Project

22. Ecological Issues/Tombstone project

23. Scientific Method

24. Greenspace Redesign

25. Greenspace Redesign

26. Biome “Amazing Race” Survival

27. Cell Model
Choose items to
represent cell
parts by matching
the structure or
the function of the
cell parts with the
materials that you
choose. Defend
your choice.

28. Mission to Mars

29. Mission to Mars

30. Bioengineering Design Challenge
What are
the structural
and functional
barriers to
duplicate
a cell?

31. DNA Replication Project

32. Zebrafish Adoption
Take care of
a developing
zebrafish and
learn about
its structures
and importance
to science

33. @TeachersFirst
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