Curriculum & Unit Design

A Step-by-Step Guide to Project Based Learning in a Virtual World

I hope everyone's doing as well as can be given current circumstances.

This past weekend I created a free eBook (link below) by synthesizing content from the upcoming book I'm writing with Erin Murphy, Project Based Learning. Real Questions. Real Answers. – Unpacking PBL and Inquiry.

This eBook was created while considering the current circumstances of students and educators. It makes PBL as intuitive as possible without sacrificing what makes this student-centered approach unique.

A Step-By-Step Guide to Project Based Learning in a Virtual World

If you use this resource with your students, I’d love to hear your story!

Thank you for all you do. And, of course, please feel free to share the eBook on social media.

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PBL Problems: I Don’t Know What to Do While the Kids Are Working #RealPBL

By Ross Cooper Leave a Comment

Before the summer hits, Erin Murphy and I will be releasing our new book on project based learning, Project Based Learning. Real Questions. Real Answers. – Unpacking PBL and Inquiry. To say we’re excited about this release is an understatement. And, more information to come! #RealPBL

In the meantime…Over the next month or so, I’m releasing a five-post miniseries, PBL Problems, which addresses some of the problems I had when implementing project based learning, as well as some of the problems other educators have had and/or continue to have.

Here’s a look at the five posts/problems, all of which will contain excerpts from the new book.

All of my students are creating the same exact product.
My students aren’t getting along.
I don’t know what to do while the kids are working.
My students aren’t learning what I needed them to learn.
Project based learning is so different from all my other teaching.

I Don’t Know What to Do While the Kids Are Working

One of the beautiful things about project based learning and inquiry are the opportunities for students to uncover new content on their own. Through exploration and problem solving, children make truly remarkable discoveries (many of which teachers will not foresee). We should not, however, assume students will naturally bump into all of the information we want them to learn. A teacher once told Erin he could not bring himself to embrace inquiry because he is “really good” at direct instruction. He believed his ability to tell stories and interact with students was his professional strength. Erin valued his transparency because it led to an honest conversation. Who ever said project based learning was void of storytelling and direct instruction? After all: Students can’t think critically about nothing.

Students can’t think critically about nothing. #RealPBL Click To Tweet

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PBL Problems: My Students Aren’t Getting Along #RealPBL

By Ross Cooper 1 Comment

Here’s a look at the five posts/problems, all of which will contain excerpts from the new book.

All of my students are creating the same exact product.
My students aren’t getting along.
I don’t know what to do while the kids are working.
My students aren’t learning what I needed them to learn.
Project based learning is so different from all my other teaching.

My Students Aren’t Getting Along

Student collaboration is a cornerstone of any thriving classroom culture, but collaboration can break down when students have differing ideas or opinions. At this point, students typically decide to “divide and conquer.” But collaboration is not defined by slicing up a workload and then smashing together independent pieces into a final product. Collaboration, not to be confused with group work, is an interdependent give and take, where the collective progress of the group improves the overall body of work.

The Job Outlook 2020 survey lists “ability to work in a team” as the second most sought-after attribute in prospective employees. Accordingly, this is a skill we should be teaching our students, both proactively (before projects, and before disagreements occur amongst students) and reactively (during projects, when issues arise).

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PBL Problems: All of My Students Are Creating the Same Exact Product #RealPBL

By Ross Cooper 3 Comments

Here’s a look at the five posts/problems, all of which will contain excerpts from the new book.

All of my students are creating the same exact product.
My students aren’t getting along.
I don’t know what to do while the kids are working.
My students aren’t learning what I needed them to learn.
Project based learning is so different from all my other teaching.

All of My Students Are Creating the Same Exact Product

While formulating our ideas during the planning of a PBL unit, we can rely on the three tracks of project based learning, which range from most restrictive to least restrictive. We can think of these tracks as a gradual release of responsibility, starting with Problem Track and ending with Open-Ended Track:

Product Track – All students create a product(s) or contribute to an event, but there’s flexibility regarding how this is done so students can exercise their creativity to own the process.
Problem Track – The project starts with a problem (usually, real world) that is either given to students or found by students. This approach is often referred to as problem based learning or challenge based learning.
Open-Ended Track – Students are presented with the project’s High Impact Takeaways (also called enduring understandings), learning targets, and possibly an Umbrella Question (also called essential questions or driving questions), and told they can demonstrate their knowledge however they’d like (with maybe a bit more direction provided).

One track isn’t necessarily “better” than the other. For any given project, the track we choose to use can depend on our specific context. For example, even when we (and our students) are comfortable with the open-ended track, depending on what we want to accomplish, it can still be appropriate to use the product track. And yes, more than one track could be tackled during a PBL unit – students debating an issue (product track) in the midst of solving a problem (problem track) – but one track tends to predominantly drive the unit as a whole.

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4 Keys to Student Self-Assessment

By Ross Cooper 2 Comments

At T. Baldwin Demarest Elementary School in Old Tappan, New Jersey, we’re in the middle of a two-year process of implementing Writing Pathways across all grade levels. More or less, Writing Pathways is an assessment system that works hand-in-hand with the Writing Workshop framework, and the system will help us to better align our writing instruction, horizontally and vertically.

In addition, whenever we’re dealing with assessment, student self-assessment should be our endgame for the purpose of students owning the learning as much as possible.

As John Hattie tells us in Visible Learning for Teachers:

…the greatest effects on student learning occur when teachers become learners of their own teaching, and when students become their own teachers. When students become their own teachers, they exhibit the self-regulatory attributes that seem most desirable for learners (self-monitoring, self-evaluation, self-assessment, self-teaching). Thus, it is visible teaching and learning by teachers and students that makes the difference.

That being said, taking into consideration Writing Pathways and my work with project based learning, here are what I believe are the four keys to student self-assessment.

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Here’s How We’re Moving Forward as an Elementary School…

By Ross Cooper 1 Comment

As I continue to document my journey as the Elementary Principal of T. Baldwin Demarest Elementary School (TBD) in the Old Tappan School District (which began about five months ago), here are my posts from oldest to newest:

Now let’s take a look at how we’re moving forward as a school.

Below is a slightly modified version of a document I sent out to my teachers and staff with about two weeks remaining in the school year. Going into the summer, I believe it’s beneficial for everyone to have this information, (1) in case they want to get a jumpstart with the learning over the summer, (2) so everyone knows what to expect when returning to school in the fall, and (3) so everyone can better wrap their heads around how the different areas of focus fit together.

For curriculum, this is what will serve as our main areas of focus for the 2018-2019 school year. For each area, for this blog post, I’ve included additional background information.

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It’s the Learning, Not the Lessons!

By Ross Cooper Leave a Comment

Not too long ago I tweeted the following:

“It’s powerful when we shift the conversation from ‘What lesson are you on?’ to ‘What are your students learning?’”

It's powerful when we shift the conversation from “What lesson are you on?” to “What are your students learning?”

— Ross Cooper (@RossCoops31) April 1, 2018

This tweet was motivated by a conversation I witnessed, during which a principal from another district said something to the effect of, “I’m working with my teachers to understand that it’s ok for students to demonstrate their learning in multiple ways, but we’re struggling.”

Although I still don’t know the entire context of this particular issue, I can say with confidence that a similar problem exists across countless schools and districts.

So let’s unpack it.

One of the Many Problems with How Textbooks Are Used

From what I have experienced, the majority of teachers still rely on a textbook when determining what to teach. And, if the principal’s problem is present, there’s an even greater likelihood the textbook is being used as a crutch, with teachers spending the year going through the textbook from cover to cover (more or less). This isn’t to say there is anything wrong with the actual book itself; the problem lies in how it is used.

The first warning sign is when the textbook is referred to as the curriculum, when in reality it’s a tool or resource that can help us to meet the needs of our students. And, if we’re treating the textbook as the curriculum, I’m more inclined to point the finger at the administrator (curriculum supervisor, principal, etc.) who is allowing for such abuse to take place.

So, if I’m a teacher heavily relying on my textbook, without the proper professional development to “move away from it,” I too would be baffled by someone telling me, “Teach Chapter 2 in a different way!” or, “Let your students show they understand Unit 7 however they want!”

At least three major steps are required for a paradigm shift to take place.

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Yes, Learning Targets Can Make Our Lives Easier

By Ross Cooper 11 Comments

My first few years in the classroom I wasn’t a big fan of learning targets or posting learning targets prior to each lesson for students to see. These feelings were mostly driven by my experiences as a student teacher, during which I had to write the standard on the board prior to each lesson. (I mistakenly thought standards were the same as learning targets. But, in reality, posting the actual standard was even worse.) I also thought the learning target approach to revealing content was both generic and lame.

However, I can say now that I started to “get” learning targets when I began to give my students more choices in regards to how they expressed their learning. In short, I was making the transition from, “Learn this in this way!” to, “This is what we’re learning, and you can demonstrate your understandings however you’d like!”

This shift was most evident when examining the rubrics my students and I used during our project based learning experiences. Initially, these rubrics looked like project directions regurgitated in another format, which promoted compliance, not creative learning. Many of my students were able to “play the game of school” and earn an A by simply following what had been outlined for them in their rubric/directions: appropriately title your work, include three photographs related to your topic, include at least ten adjectives, cite five sources, etc. Furthermore, in the end, all finished products usually looked quite similar.

Then, after a few years of this productive struggle, it was nothing short of groundbreaking for my students and me when I decided to start populating each rubric’s left-hand column with learning targets (as opposed to tasks). As students made their way through these projects, I gave them feedback in relation to where they were on the continuum of hitting each target (instead of telling them what hoop to jump through next in order to earn an A). Increasingly, feedback and assessment focused on what students were supposed to learn, not what I wanted them to do. And, because feedback wasn’t task-specific, students were able to naturally own how they learned and displayed their knowledge.

The Graphic

As I continue to wrap my head around learning targets, I’ve created the graphic (above), which illustrates the various degrees to which learning targets can impact learning. From top to bottom, choices range from most restrictive to least restrictive. For example, after choosing one from each column (as the graphic indicates), we can end up with, “Teacher chooses target(s). Hit the target(s) this way, by this date, at this time.” Here, we’re one-size-fits-all without student choice. The other extreme is, “Learner creates target(s). Hit the target(s) however you want, at your own pace.” This path resembles personalized learning. And, with all the buzz about personalized learning (and student choice, student agency, learner-centered spaces, etc.), I have found that these abstract (and sometimes, intimidating) approaches are much more concrete (and far less scary) when considered through the lens of learning targets.

Two more ideas related to learning targets…

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What Is School For?

By Ross Cooper 3 Comments

The other day, one of my former fourth grade students, who is now a high school sophomore, posted something on Facebook that struck a chord with me. And of course, as her former teacher (and as an educator), I saw it as my duty to appropriately respond.

Yesterday (about a week later), Faline followed up with another post, and I couldn't help but smile.

So, here are a handful of thoughts that come to mind:

In Seth Godin's must-see TEDx Talk – Stop Stealing Dreams – he repeatedly asks, “What is school for?” And in my opinion, one of the top priorities of school should be to help students accomplish exactly what Faline is asking – turning passions into careers. Seriously, if this isn't our goal, what are we doing?
If students are able to turn their passions into careers, we have to ask ourselves, “Is this happening because of or in spite of school?” In other words, do students play the game of school and then go home to do what's worthwhile and relevant? Or, does the worthwhile and relevant take place within our learning spaces?
In a previous post, I declared, “Not only should student be learning how to do their work, they should be learning and experiencing how to share and market their creations.” Why hasn't this approach become the norm in our schools? Do students fear making their work public, or are teachers' comfort zones serving as the main barrier?
Is school truly failing our students and/or entrepreneurs? (much like Gary Vaynerchuk tells us in this one-minute video)
In classes in which entrepreneurship is being taught (in isolation or integrated with other subject areas), could works by the likes of Vaynerchuk, Godin, Eric Ries, and Tom and David Kelley serve as “textbooks?” (much like I recommended today, at a middle school planning meeting for our project based learning school-within-a-school, which is scheduled to open next year)

And finally, if you haven't read Crush It! (the book I recommended to Faline), make sure to check it out. Also, I can highly recommend Empower by John Spencer and A.J. Juliani (the guys responsible for the quote in this blog post's featured image).

How can we help our students turn passions into careers?

Connect with Ross on Twitter.

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Project Based Learning in Math Class: Easier Than You Think

By Ross Cooper 5 Comments

When working with educators to implement project based learning (PBL) in their districts/schools/classrooms, the one subject area that is consistently met with hesitation is math. On a regular basis, math teachers (across all grade levels) ask something to the effect of, “Yeah, this is great. But how does it work in math class?”

Here are two reasons why I believe this skepticism may exist:

Math textbooks are the curriculum, when they shouldn’t be. From my experiences, math is the subject area in which teachers are most likely to march through the textbook from beginning to end, treating the book as if it’s the curriculum (and yes, I have been guilty of this mistake). In reality, the textbook is one tool or resource that a teacher should leverage to meet the needs of students. However, veering away from the textbook (potentially in the direction of PBL) can be uncomfortable.
Math is inaccurately viewed as black and white. In other words, answers are either right or wrong, and a deep conceptual understanding of content simply doesn’t matter (or, for one reason or another, it’s not even on the teacher’s radar). And therefore, PBL (which is commonly leveraged to promote deep conceptual understanding), on the surface appears to be nothing but a roundabout way to get to the same old answers. So, why bother with it?

So, what does project based learning look like in math class?

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