Guerilla Educators

Project Based Learning Development Guide

Developing the Project Concept:
•    What type of Project do you want to conduct with your students and why?
•    Will you be collaborating with other teachers in, or out of your school?
•    What content areas do you want to craft this project around?
•    Take a real-world topic related to the selected content areas.
•    Create a Driving Question that will drive investigation into the topic.

Develop a Driving Question that:
•    Is aimed at solving a problem
•    Will lead to deep inquiry
•    Will invite future learning
•    Is meaningful to the student, the school, the community, and/or the world
•    Is an issue that students believe in or have a passion for
•    By answering, they are having a positive impact on something or someone

Understandings/Outcomes:
•    What specifically do you want students to understand?
•    What facts and basic concepts should students know and be able to recall?
•    What will students know and what will they be able to do?
•    What curriculum, standards, and performance-based objectives will be addressed?
•    Will the learning be meaningful and applicable in their lives?
•    Project activities should be connected to curricular objectives.
•    Build planning time in to address curriculum connections.

Skills:    Students will be able to independently use their learning to:
•    Demonstrate citizenship and leadership
•    Work through real-world problems by trial and error
•    Collaborate and problem solve with others
•    Utilize technology to actualize and express ideas
•    Guide future independent directed learning across disciplines using the PBL process

Project Design/Features:
•    What teachers/colleagues should be involved in the collaborative brainstorming process?
•    Is the project part of a curricular unit?
•    Do students have choice of topic within a curriculum?
•    Will the teacher be guiding students in the framing of a driving question? Will students create their own driving question?
•    Is the project interdisciplinary and thematic?
•    Will you be collaborating with other teachers in, or out of your school?
•    Will students work independently or in groups or a combination?
•    Will the project involve class trips and or individual student experiences outside of the school day?
•    Does the project have community partners?
•    Will the project have a service-learning component?

Technology:    How will technology be implemented to enhance the Project by:
•    Communication Collaborating with other students/educators via technology
•    Information sources, information sharing
•    Creating, producing, presenting (Website, documents, etc)

Community Partnerships/Resources:
•    Which Community Partners can help you with your project?
•    In what ways will Community Partnerships model good citizenship/leadership?
•    What resources do you need to see the project through to completion?
•    Will project related class trips be taken?
 
Project Timeline:
•    Overall length of time
•    Time per week
•    Weekly Schedule

Project Activities:
•    Planned to achieve overall project objectives.
•    Connected to grade appropriate curricular objectives in at least 2 subject areas.
•    Engage students to take ownership of their educational processes
•    Are the activities FUN?

Benchmarks:
•    Set clear time referenced deadlines for each task and/or product.
•    Should be scaffolded to build on previously achieved objectives towards success of the project.
•    Help build the guidelines in which the project can take place
 
Reflection/Journals:
•    Student journals will offer students the opportunity to continuously reflect and assess their progress toward completion of the project.
•    Teachers can use student journals as valuable assessment tools.
•    Offer students the opportunity to learn from the strategies that did and, perhaps more importantly, did not work to achieve project objectives.
 
Assessment:
•    Will student be assessed throughout the project cycle or on a final project? Formative/Summative
•    An effective assessment program uses multiple strategies to demonstrate growth and performance, and should be closely correlated to your stated goals.
•    How are rubrics used as an effective assessment and evaluation tool?

Reporting Out:
•    Students will report out to peers, school staff, and the larger community:
•    How they addressed their driving question.
•    What they learned.
•    Their final project products.

Celebration:
How students will be celebrated and recognized for their important work at a Reporting Out Celebration!

Best Practices in Kindergarten; Service Learning

This from the Guerilla Educator archives...

In 2002, Education Ministers from the countries of Serbia, Russia, Kosovo, and Ukraine came to Philadelphia to learn about effective Project Based Service Learning.  They were here specifically to see the Alliance to Save Energy's, Green Schools program in action.  Green Schools is an international, student centered program where students devise and implement energy conservation strategies in their school.  As the Co-Director of the Green Schools, Philly programs, we had a kindergarten project in a Philadelphia public school.  Among other aspects of the project, the students were part of the "Energy Patrol".  These European educators saw hands on teaching and learning at its finest and went back to their respective countries with a deep understanding of Best Practices in action. Take a look...

Chris Lehmann at CEFPI Philly

Just found this video in the Guerilla Educators archives.   Chris Lehman was the keynote speaker at the CEFPI Northeast Region Conference in the Spring of 2010.  I shot Chris' talk in its entirety with an iPod about the size of a stick of gum, hence the narrow format.  Amazing!  As usual, Chris hit it out of the park like a Ryan Howard home run.  Take a look...

Professional Developments for Educators at Rose Tree Media School District

Guerilla Educators has added a new client.  We recently completed  2 day Professional Development for the hard working educators at the Rose Tree Media School District that focused on how to successfully implement and complete curriculum and real-world based Projects with students.  The workshop was given through the prism of our 12 Hallmarks of Effective Teaching and Learning.  We'll return to ongoing work with the teachers throughout the 2011-2012 school year to assist with implementation and successful completion of the proposed Projects developed in the planning phase of the training.  Welcome to our family of clients, Rose Tree Media, that includes:

• American Institute of Architects
• The School District of Philadelphia
• Council of Educational Facilities Planners International
• Delaware Valley Green Building Council
• SchraderGroup Architects
• Fielding Nair International
• Philadelphia University
• District of Columbia Public School System
• Milwaukee School District
• Alliance to Save Energy
• York Suburban School District
• University of Wisconsin
• Environmental Protection Agency
• Education Environment Planning Consultants
• Regina Board of Education
• Philadelphia Zoo
• Re:Vision Architecture
• Wallace Roberts & Todd Design
• LOTI (Levels of Technology Integration)
• IQity
• Journal of Teacher Education
• Edutopia
• Barack Obama Green Charter High School
• MaST Community (Math, Science, and Technology) Charter School
• Friendship Public Charter Schools
• Rose Tree Media School District

 

CEFPI Southeast Region 2011 Conference

Arrived in beautiful downtown Savannah for the 2011 CEFPI Southeast Region Conference.  Presenting Monday morning on the topic, "Connecting Students, Teachers, and Curriculum Via Project Based Learning". This year 5 themes will guide the event:

Collaborate

Educate

Facilitate

Participate

Invigorate

Here is how the themes will be related to my topic:

*Collaborate - Educational Facilities Planners/Designers/Architects can demonstrate that their design processes, when used in collaboration with educators and students will have powerful circular ramifications on more effective school design and more effective teaching and learning.

*Educate - The session will educate the participants about what we believe to be a vastly under-utilized asset, i.e. how physical teaching and learning spaces are powerful resources for effective teaching and learning.

*Facilitate - Understanding the participatory and Community Based power of Project Based Learning will facilitate more effective design.

*Participate - There is a tremendous feeling of satisfaction for Educational Facilities Planners that comes with knowing that they are participating in the whole education of the students who are their end clients. This process encourages school architects to establish real-world, in-class Community Partnerships with their clients and see the positive effects their participation engenders.

*Invigorate - Imagine students coming into teaching and learning spaces excited about being there because of active hands-on Projects in which they are about to participate. Imagine educators and educational facilities planners being active participants in those Projects. Imagine more effective educational facilities design as a result of the school architect as teacher/learner. This is what the session will address.

See you in Savannah!

Guerilla Educators at the CEFPI Southeast Region Conference

On Monday, March 28, Guerilla Educators has the privilege to be a Featured Presenter at the 2011 CEFPI SouthEast Region Conference. in Savannah, Ga.Our topic will be:

Connecting School Design to Students, Teachers and Curriculum Via Project Based Learning

Our Course Description is as follows:

Just as Project Based Learning is the gold standard of effective teaching and learning, school design is one of the gold standards of PBL. This session will explore how Educational Facilities Design processes can be used as a powerful resource in the educator's pedagogical toolkit. Through the prism of our Hallmarks of Effective Teaching and Learning, we will learn how Educational Facilities Planners can become real world Community Partners for curriculum-based Projects that use the physical facility as a 5 dimensional (including Real-Time and Cyber-Space) teaching and learning tool.  Once we understand the premise that the educational facility can be a catalyst for the development of academic and social proficiencies, regardless of demographics and  even independent of whether the spaces have been designed effectively, then Educational Facilities Planners can begin to see the positive effects of these “inside out” understandings on the bottom line. In the session, we will use authentic short videos of real students conducting real projects in and out of real classrooms with real school architects, to demonstrate these processes and to show how they may be incorporated into your Planning.  Plenty of time will be built in for discussion so Planners, Designers, and Architects can walk away with a deeper understanding of what takes place inside the physical teaching and learning spaces they create.

See you in Savannah!

I recently had the privilege of participating in a webinar conducted by Mark Sidding, RIBA, an architect from Watson Batty Architects in Leeds, UK.  Mark shares an innovative school project, the Dearne Advanced Learning Centre, below.  He covers three key principles: the impact of physical space on learning, changing the way that learning is delivered, and infusing technology into flexible environments for multiple learning modalities. The project is now complete and is undergoing a rigorous assessment to determine its success. Mark shares lessons learned from this project. The presentation was hosted by Cefpi Michigan Chapter and 21st Century School Design.

Find more videos like this on Relearning Learning

Service Learning Workshop at the Barack Obama Green Charter High School

In August, 2010, just prior to the opening of the new BarackObama Green Charter High School in Plainfield, New Jersey, Guerilla Educators conducted a Project Based Service Learning Professional Development for Obama Green teachers.  As part of the training, Projects Coordinator, Mr. Steven King, led the teachers in cooperative Project brainstorming to identify specific Project areas and activities that could be launched with the students in the 2010-2011 school year.  This video documents that powerful session where Obama Green educators began to plan for the implementation of Projects with their students.  Take a look... 

Guerilla Educators has provided all phases of Charter School start-up assistance for Obama Green and continues with mentoring services for the school's admin team.

12 Essential Questions for School Architects and Planners; Connecting School Design to Educators, Students, and Curriculum via Project Based Service Learning

In honor of the 4th anniversary of my Guerilla Educators blog, our first entry, posted below, was an interview conducted by Christian Long who, at that time was the online editor of DesignShare.  His first question was,    

If you had to pick a single educational technique, learning style, or pedagogy to drive the future of school design, what would it be?

My response centered immediately on Project Based Service Learning and prompted me to ask a series of 12 rhetorical essential questions in return.  The questions also became the genesis of the Guerilla Educators blog and ultimately became an article onDesignShare, a premier educational facilities website.  The questions also formed the basis of a long term, in-depth video based study centered on the merits of Project Based Service Learning as one of the most powerful and effective teaching and learning methodologies for ALL students and why school architects should design educational spaces to accommodate this type of pedagogical focus.

These 12 rhetorical questions for Educational Facilities Planners is now also a foundation for a forthcoming book based on my 10 Hallmarks of 21st Century Teaching and Learning. 

Here are the questions:

Question 1: Why is Service Learning the most effective way for students to achieve mastery of curriculum and state mandated standards?

Click here to view a short video compilation of authentic, student centered PBSL in action

Question 2: Why is the Service Learning process the most effective way to engender good citizenship skills in all students?

Click here to see a student directed, middle school anti-bullying skit.

Question 3: Why should school architects design educational facilities that facilitate the Project Based Learning methodology?

Question 4: Why should the school design process be used as a real-world, project-based teaching and learning strategy?

Question 5: Why is student involvement in the design process a desirable strategy for educational facilities designers?

Click here to view student participation in the charrette processes

Question 6: How can the school itself be used as a 5 dimensional textbook (including Real-time and cyberspace)?

Question 7: Why should school architects see the physical facility and the teaching and learning that take place inside as a seamless continuum?

Click here to see how Question 7 looks in real-time

Question 8: Why should High Performance, Sustainable school design be used as a teaching and learning tool?

Question 9: Why should school architects “give back” by coming into classrooms as Community Partners to use the design process to create hands-on projects?

Question 10: What is the role of teachers in the connection of design to curriculum and students via PBL/SL?

Question 11: Why should school architects design buildings that are fun places to attend?                     

Question 12: Why does school design that will accommodate Service Learning have a positive impact on the architect's bottom line?

Click on the Questions to see the responses.

 

 

 

Thomas Friedman at CEFPI 2010 World Conference

Thomas Friedman was the Keynote Speaker at the 88th annual CEFPI World Conference which was held in San Jose on September 24-27,2010. Mr. Friedman's presentation was based on his best selling book, "The World Is Flat" and was, by turns, poignant, controversial, funny, thought provoking, and always entertaining. His main premise is that technology has changed the world and offers keen insights into how we can live optimally in a wired world.  Here is Tom Friedman's talk presented in its entirety:
Watch Tom Friedman at CEFPI World Conference in Educational & How-To  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com