Course | Practicing PBL for Elementary (PK-5)

Instructor

Ginger Lewman and Katie Perez
Ginger and Katie have nearly 2 decades of combined classroom PBL experience. Now, working with ESSDACK, a non-profit eduction service center based in central Kansas, they are both PBL coaches, consultants, and keynote speakers who believe that teachers teach how they are taught. If we want teachers to teach in a particular way, then they need to experience their learning in the same or similar style.

Ginger has over 25 years experience teaching grades 5-12.
Katie has over 16 years experience teaching grades PK-6.

Together, they're able to meet the varied demands of every curriculum and instruction coach working to support PBL teachers, even if that coach has never taught in a PBL environment themselves.

By the end of this Practicing PBL course, you will have not only created a phenomenal PBL unit that will make your students beg for more, but also be able to create any PBL experience for any unit and topic you choose from now on, following our LifePractice PBL process.

Learner engagement, content relevancy, and deep learning will never be an issue again!

Who should sign up? Educators who want to learn about PBL fast. or who feel they need less support. or who are self-starters and self-disciplined finishers. or who want to go slower, practicing and applying each portion as they learn. Want to go fast, slow, and/or deep? This is the class for you!

What will you gain? You will learn the continuum of shifting yourself and your students to PBL. Understand daily realities and move deeply into the portions you know you need more help. Skim those parts where you need less help. This course is self-directed and self-paced.

Course Curriculum

Before You Dig In
• College Credit Information
• Suggested Tips for Success

Welcome - Establishing Why PBL
• Welcome (3:26)
• Who is this Course For?
• Establishing Your WHY for PBL

The Culture of a PBL Driven Classroom
• Establishing a Culture for PBL (2:00)
• Teacher to Student Interactions
• Student to Self Interactions
• Student to Student Interactions
• Teacher­ to ­Teacher
• Teacher Characteristics
• Common Teacher Traps (3:20)
• Common Myths about a PBL Classroom
• Communicating PBL Goals with Parents

PBL as a Neuro-informed Instructional Approach
• Neuro-Informed Elements of PBL
• Learning Brain vs. Survival Brain
• Self-Determination Theory
• Stress and Learning
• PBL Builds Executive Function
• PBL as Neuro-Informed Instruction

Project Based Learning for Elementary Aged Learners
• Creating Authentic Projects for Young Students (PK-2)
• Where PBL Fits into the Primary Grade School Day (PK-2)
• The Role of Background Knowledge

The Prep
• The Challenge: Let's Start Building
• Essential Components for PBL (1:16)
• Timeline for Implementation (1:07)
• Making Sure They're Really Learning... (1:17)
• Considering Assessment (0:54)
• Materials (1:29)
• Teacher Collaboration (1:58)
• Student Collaboration (0:36)
• Publishing and Media Outlets (0:49)

Craft a Driving Question
• The Challenge: Write your own DQ! (0:51)
• What Exactly is a Driving Question? (1:09)
• Features of Effective Driving Questions: (2:58)
• Look for your Driving Question
• Write, Refine, and Share your Driving Question

The Launch
• The challenge: Launch the Unit! (2:19)
• Criteria of a Successful Launch (1:29)

Setting High Expectations for the work and for how to work!
• The challenge: Setting High Expectations
• Balancing Excitement of Launch with Quality of Work (1:05)
• Quality Cited Research (2:25)
• Collaboration and Competition (1:33)
• Strategies for Goal-Setting/Time Management. (2:01)
• Soft and Hard Deadlines (2:56)

Build Great Groups
• The Challenge: Purposeful Grouping (4:37)
• Other Strategies for Grouping (18:25)

The Work
• The Challenge: Organize the Work (1:26)
• Explicit Teaching vs. Independent Learning (2:44)
• Side Workshops (1:35)

The Mid-Point Re-Group
• The Challenge: Keeping Urgency & Quality High When We Hit that Lull
• Virtual Coaching Session

Assessing the Learning: You know they're learning. Here's how to prove it.
• The Challenge: Building in Assessments Along the Way (0:50)
• What to and When to Grade - Formative Assessment (1:57)
• What to and When to Grade - Summative Assessment (6:59)
• Facets of Understanding (1:48)
• Rubric for Skills (0:59)
• A Quick Soapbox on Grading (3:26)
• Checklists

The Closing: Bringing it in for a Landing
• The Challenge: Intentionally Designed Closing (1:41)
• Presentations
• Publishing Our Work
• Congratulations! (0:51)
• College Credit Request