The last day. Was I prepared? Did I have everything ready?
I was expecting to have to have everything done, but we really worked through a lot of things throughout the day.
I have to tell you...this was probably the best three days I have spent out of the classroom learning new things. (Except for Responsive Classroom! That's a whole other topic for another day!)
So, a recap of the first two days. We decided on a topic and a Driving Question.
Mine was Community. The whole first grade takes a community walk at the end of the year. I wanted this to be more meaningful for the kiddos. Right now, we walk around the village and visit the fire station, library, police station, and court. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE our community walk. The kids get to see some of "behind the scenes" part of our community. I just wanted to go deeper.
My Driving Question was: How can we as mayors of our town make it better?
We really worked through the basics of PBL and how we were going to incorporate it into our classrooms.
We decided on a final project. I was going to have my firsties write a letter, make a poster board, or use Frametastic (on iPad) to present to the mayor or town board. They needed to persuade (through opinion writing CCLS) the mayor or town board that whatever they had decided was the best thing to add to our community.
We did some research on other PBL samples and went through all the things that it covers. APPR (if you are in NY, this is something you should really look into!), CCLS, 21st Century Skills, and of course much more.
The last day was yesterday. I was so nervous to present my project to the rest of the class.
We used the Critical Friends Protocol.
It was so powerful. I was very nervous at first.
My "friends" gave me so much meaningful and purposeful ideas.
I am changing some of my project. Most of it is staying the same.
Come back tomorrow to see what my BRAND SPANKIN' NEW PBL project is!!!
Have a wonderful day!
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