Pre-made, download-and-go PBL plan? Ask these questions first! #HackingPBL

Once upon a fifth grade classroom, I hosted a student teacher from a local university. As she began to take over more of the instructional load, she integrated some of my classroom management techniques, including my routine for gaining student attention before giving a direction. This routine, which felt natural for me and was quite effective for my students, always seem to fall short for our student teacher. She struggled to gain student attention and eventually she ended up raising her voice. During one of our weekly reflection sessions, I asked, “How does it feel when you implement that routine?” Her honest response was, “It works for you, so it should work for me, right?”

At the time, I didn’t fully appreciate the magnitude of this “it works for others, so it should work for me” mentality. Recently, I have been struck by the assumption that copy and paste works in classrooms. After presentations and workshops, teachers and leaders often request pre-made projects they can immediately turn-key. My co-author, Ross Cooper, and I hesitate to share or promote these ready-made PBL units, because they often fall short in classrooms and thus leave teachers feeling discouraged about the experience. Much like our old-school approach to a standard textbook, it is a slippery slope to assume that a pre-made resource can account for the intricacies of your classroom. A traditional mindset coupled with potentially innovative practices, ultimately results in the same old thing. In other words, thrusting a copy and paste project upon you and your students could result in unanticipated conventional outcomes. That being said, we know the constraints on time and resources leave teachers looking to pre-made projects as an approachable entry point into the PBL experience, and there are, in fact, some hidden gems out there waiting to be discovered. So, if a download-and-go project is what you need to get your feet wet, we urge you to consider these questions first:

How does the PBL plan account for your students’ skills and interests?

Chances are the project creator has never met your students and an absence of student context is one of the main reasons a project fails. Rather than an immersive student experience, the project ends up feeling arbitrary and disconnected from the world of your learners.

You can share the project plan with your students and allow them to provide their own feedback and ideas to revise the unit to meet their needs and interests.

You can shift the context of the project to create a more relevant experience for your learners.

You can connect with local organizations or community members aligned with the project mission.

How does the plan promote inquiry and autonomy for your students?

In an effort to provide teachers enough information to turnkey the unit in their classroom, pre-made projects often offer a tome of directions. These directions are then turned over to the students, and subsequently suck all of the choice and inquiry (and joy) out of the experience.

You can provide students just enough directions to get them started, rather than directions for the entire project.

You can turn some of the directions into questions to discuss and model best practices for learning. For example, “Research the causes of natural disasters,” can become, “How can we research the causes of natural disasters?” Create a classroom chart/poster with class’s plan.

You can read Sweet Spot Project Directions; start by downloading the free e-book.

How does the unit assess student learning?

Probably the most cringe-worthy element of a download-and-go project is often the associated rubric or scoring guideline. Typically these rubrics/guidelines (1) imply that assessment happens only at the end of the project, (2) rob students of the opportunity to self-reflect, and (3) include components which put the focus on compliance rather than learning (ex: project includes 3 images).

You can identify student learning objectives and conference with students regarding their progress toward their learning goals. Using a Progress Assessment Tool can help with this process.

You can model how to self-assess and provide students time to practice this skill.

You can teach learners to provide peer feedback which is specific and actionable.

You can provide students another assessment, other than their project, if you must issue a grade. A performance task usually works best for this purpose.

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As educators we have a plethora of resources at our fingertips. There is a (huge) haystack of educational resources, and we must be critical consumers in order to find our shiny needle. What questions do you use to evaluate pre-made resources you find online?