PBL Case Study #9: Exploring cuisine, dialects and low-age education in China
THE BACKGROUND Andrew Morrissey, a grade 10 Individuals and Societies IB teacher at Beijing City International School was finding his "Causes of World War One" unit falling on deaf ears. His teenage students, while finding the topic interesting from a History...
PBL Case Study #8: Building Community Through Community Gardens
THE BACKGROUND The community garden project started with a simple question: What impact can growing our own gardens have on our community? Lua Yagangagi, a mixed- age primary teacher in Rizhao, was hoping some of the problems of social distancing, anxiety, and...
PBL Case Study #7: Scrapping the mandated online curriculum to build holiday gifts from wood scraps
The holidays were fast approaching and Emily Burk, a Secondary Makerspace leader was wondering how to keep her students engaged. Her 9th-12th grade students were completely checked out of the mandated online curriculum, and because of CoVid, their opportunities for...
PBL Case Study #6: The Mock Election Project
Background As the presidential election neared its final stages back in October, Kristen Dickey's 5th grade students had a plethora of questions: What is the electoral college? How does it work? Why do some states get more votes than others? What's the difference...
PBL Case Study #4: Creating Eco-Friendly Busses
Story of PBL Transformation: Creating Eco-Friendly Busses When I first met Hirotake Wang as a facilitator/ co- founder of Futures Academy at The International School of Beijing, I knew he was special. At 12 years old, he was already trilingual, a standout tennis...
PBL Case Study #5: Improving Social and Emotional Well Being During CoVid
How do you ensure the mental, social and emotional well- being of students when you can't even see them in person? This is the challenge Mark Myers, a secondary Physical Education teacher faced when he arrived to his quarantined hotel in Ulabaantar, Mongolia. As a...
PBL Case Study #2: The Food Truck Project
Story of PBL Transformation: Community Food Truck When I met with the 5th grade team at Park Maitland, a small school in Orlando, Florida, they were hoping project-based learning could better develop their students as community problem solvers. And while they didn't...
Story of PBL Transformation Case Study #1: 10th Grade Theater Project
When Anne Robinson, the instructional coach at Gompers Charter School in San Diego approached me, she was hoping her teachers could develop projects that better connected students with the surrounding community. The major challenge was that teachers had no prior...
Five Sample Projects to Engage All Your Online Learners
A few days ago I called up my brother in California to find out how Evie (his daughter/ my niece) was holding up with the recent school closures. He assured me she is doing just fine. During 'music class,' she watches youtube tutorials on how to play guitar chords;...
Industrial Revolution: Assembly-Line vs. Tradesperson
School (s): The Harbour School Hong Kong Project Summary: In a Grade 6 social studies unit, students learned about the industrial revolution and its cultural and social impact on creativity. In The Foundry, they extended their learning by analyzing the efficiency of...