Back to Middle School Pbl units

PBL Unit Name: Race to Real World Readiness  

Facilitator Name: Trisha Burns

Grade: 8th

Subject(s): Culture Project

Course Name: Pre-Algebra/Whole Team

Project Name: Race to Real World Readiness

PBL Unit Description & Content Topics Addressed: This is our culture project that we do the first couple weeks of school. We develop our agreements, learn about our School Wide Learning Outcomes (Agency, Collaboration, Written and Oral communication), and set goals for the first nine weeks. We do this all in the theme of training for the marathon that is the rest of the year.

A. Learning Goals: Content Knowledge & Skills Addressed (Standards)

  • Agency

  • Collaboration

  • CSA Culture

  • Written Communication expectations

  • Oral Communication expectations

B. Driving Question: How can we as CSAM8 (Columbus Signature Academy Central 8th Grade) marathon runners set high expectations to prepare ourselves for the real world?

C. Entry Event: Race to Real World Readiness Entry Event

D. Benchmarks & Scaffolding: Race to Real World Readiness Benchmarks & Scaffolding

E. End Products & Deliverables:

  • Ignite Talk with their goals for 8th grade

  • Presentation of how they are going to educate others about our program

F. Rubric: Race to Real World Readiness Marathon Rubric

G. Community Partnerships: Hoosier Sporting Goods (T-shirt company)

Authenticity & Relevance (Real-World Connections, Applied Learning, Active Exploration: Comparison to a marathon training for how they will be successful throughout the year in our PBL culture.

Inquiry: They got to choose what they wanted to do to represent our program to the 7th graders or to people who want to come tour our building

Student Voice & Choice: They got to choose if they wanted to work on marketing for our program, school tour training, or a team t-shirt design.

Employability (21st Century) Skills Addressed

We use New Tech Network’s rubrics. Here is the link to the rubrics we explored during this project: New Tech Rubrics

Formative & Summative Assessment Activities

Rubric: Race to Real World Readiness Marathon Rubric

Required Materials and/or Tools: 1-1 technology for some of the scaffolding

Examples of Student Work