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By: Joe Steele, High School PBL Facilitator
Columbus Signature Academy New Tech High School
Columbus, IN
Implementing PBL can be a very daunting task. With so many moving parts, knowing where to start and what to consider is essential once you’ve been assigned your classes for the coming year. I incorporate not only the state standards but also our school-wide learning outcomes while making sure to balance the frequency of assessments in a weighted grade book. All of our courses require evaluations in oral and written communication, collaboration, and personal agency assessments on top of content-specific assessments. We can be overwhelmed planning during the school year and overlook crucial elements, or not fully address all of our standards, so it is crucial we have a map for those moments we feel directionless and need to be reminded of our hopeful destinations. Here’s my step-by-step process for how I plan out my PBL year.
Step One: Unpack Your Standards
Regardless of what or how we teach, our first and foremost responsibility is to ensure all students in our class address all of the standards within the span of the course. Thus, as soon as I am assigned my courses, before I begin planning anything, I unpack each of the standards. In unpacking, you identify the objectives of the standard, connect your standards to real-world applications, and create a rubric by which you can create standard assessments, which can be incorporated into project rubrics during the year. Once this huge undertaking is complete, you can use this resource each year until standards evolve and update. By identifying real-world actions and jobs that require your standards is also the first step to solidifying project ideas for the year.
This is the document I am building for Indiana English 9-10 Standards, unpacked with my Rubrics. I am by no means perfect, so you may unpack and see the standards in another level of rigor or focus; you may know of more creative real-world applications of standards. Feel free to reach out and expand my horizons!
Step Two: Distribute Your Standards
As an English teacher, after unpacking the standards, I disburse natural categories: non-fiction reading, fiction reading, poetry, grammar, speaking, listening, informative writing, persuasive writing, and narrative writing. I then set out to create a four-quarter plan which evenly distributes these sets of standards as students follow the yearlong path of my course. Before packing my quarters, I must consider if the standards require sequential distribution or can be taught asynchronously. Though English standards appear asynchronous, I’ve found students need clear expectations on grammar and punctuation before diving deep into writing. In developing readers, non-fiction tangibility acts as scaffolding and works better before fiction. Listening skills should be developed before speaking, and thus we start to see a path. Below is a possible disbursement I created so that all standards are covered by the completion of my course.
Step Three: Connect Standards to Real-World Applications
From this disbursement of standards, I can start to seek out or design projects that require the objectives of these standard groupings. When you unpacked the standards, you identify the actions required to fully address the standard, the real-world objectives of the standard, and create a list of the real-world applications of the standard. I am constantly examining the world, gathering all of the possibilities to apply the standards’ objectives. Now that I have my standards distributed across the year, to get closer to a realized project, I list the actions I could envision my students completing to address the standards. Below are the results of a brainstorming session where I list possible moments or products the standard categories cover. I have bolded the authentic applications that will become the core of the project idea I will pursue. None of this is written in stone, and as I continue to brainstorm, projects may combine or move or evolve out completely by the start of school.
Step Four: Connect Real-World Applications to Related Careers
Not only am I addressing the Indiana academic standards in my courses, but I am also as I like to call it “multiplying each moment” the students are in my course by doing everything in my ability to have students practice the real-world application of my standards so that they are prepared for, and anticipate the moments they will need these skills in beyond our halls. I need to have students model the actions of those whose career requires my course standards. For English, these are authors, editors, policymakers, journalists, advertisers, etc...At this stage, I will also start to define the types of community partners I will need, moving closer to having fully formed projects. Below is how that process may look as I list possible community partners and the student roles for each set of standards:
Step Five: Turn the Standards Applications into Viable Projects and Assessments
Now that I have categorized and distributed my standards, I have identified possible real-world applications, and connected community partners, I can solidify my projects for each quarter. I have found that (2) projects within a nine-week quarter work best for my pacing. Once projects are placed on the calendar, I can begin planning how to ensure I have a balanced grade book that evenly addresses each aspect of our weighted categories. To ensure each course assesses students beyond course content, our grade book makes oral communication 10%, written communication 10%, collaboration 10%, and personal agency 10% of students’ final grades in every course. Thus, course content standards are only 60% of the student’s grade. This forces non-English classes to create activities/assessments where students speak, write, and collaborate as they address the standards. As a school, we’ve agreed that each quarter, we agree to have at least three assessments or grades in each of the five categories. To be proactive, with every quarter, I will begin identifying opportunities for these assessments based on the projects listed. Below is how that could look:
Step Six: Weave in School-Wide Learning Outcomes
Once I have a clear vision for my course projects and some possible assessments, I begin to identify which projects, activities, or moments will make the most impactful time to address, teach, or assess our school-wide learning outcomes. To our school, proficiency in our identified outcomes is as vital as students showing proficiency on our course standards. Below, is the list of our eight school-wide learning outcomes:
Columbus Signature Academy Outcomes- Our students will:
1. Know themselves and their talents well, identifying areas for personal growth.
2. Create and identify paths that will fulfill their own destinies.
3. Learn through collaboration with family, business, and community.
4. Possess a strong sense of civic responsibility.
5. Embrace and celebrate differences and appreciate individuality.
6. Think critically and practice 21st-century skills.
7. Think creatively to solve authentic, real-world problems.
8. Sustain healthy, trusting relationships that support a safe learning environment.
With eight outcomes, you can reasonably try to address two each quarter, but I consider each project, whether the work will be individual or in groups, and even the emotion of the content to inform when and how students will work on improving their outcomes. Some moments can be multiplied to address any number of outcomes! Below, you can see the projects assigned to each quarter, then below each project, I place the number of the outcome that will be focused upon during the work, along with a brief explanation as to HOW the outcome will be addressed so that all are accounted for by the end of the year. For example, the first project will have students read, edit, and review a non-fiction book for an author. This work will require a focus on their grammar and punctuation, as well as reflect on their talents and areas of need for personal growth. So, after I launch the project, students will understand why they need to take a grammar diagnostic test, and they will be shown how knowing their strengths and identifying weaknesses can lead to personal growth. As I plan further for my day-to-day activities, I will continue to use this lens to make sure I am continually creating moments where students work toward all of these goals.
Step Seven: Reflection, Revision, and Reaching Out
At this point, I have all of my standards addressed within seven projects, leaving me room to adapt at the end of the year. I have identified possible assessments that will ensure I have a balance of each of our weighted categories. And finally, I have a map of when and how I will address our school-wide learning outcomes within the coursework. Once I am at this stage in my planning, it is time to reach out to community partners for my first quarter projects, gather resources, and create launch materials. I want to have my first project fully formed, and have reached out to my possible community partners for the second project before the start of the school year.
Step Eight: Plan Your First Project in Detail
For the first project, I will reach out to a non-fiction author willing to have one of his books read, edited, and reviewed by my students. Preferably, I’d like an author who has a new book about to be released that is of interest to my students and can be connected to other desired outcomes. Knowing the layers and depths of my needs, I can be more selective in community partners, making efforts to find an author and/or book that can help multiply the moments by addressing various outcomes while forcing students to create using my course standards. I will then coach the community partner to create an entry document or event in which they ask my students for help with their book. I really want a rough draft of a book with obvious mistakes my students can find! By having students edit the book, they will realize the need for grammar and punctuation skills, which opens the door for me to teach those lessons through workshops and formative assessments.
Conclusion
As always, this is just a rough guide, a map I can fall back on as I face the unpredictable seas of the school year. I am always examining my personal and professional life, mining it for project ideas and allowing better ideas to replace the projects I’ve sketched, reacting to the unique needs of my classes. I hope this was helpful as you create your curriculum. Best of luck on your PBL journey!
Joe Steele works at CSA New Tech High School as Language Arts Facilitator and also serves as a Magnify Learning PBL Certified Instructor. He lives deep in the hills of Brown County with his brilliant wife, Bridget, a middle school science PBL teacher. They have three children, Kaleb, Savannah, and Weston.
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