Challenge Based Learning and Technology

Editor's Notes

• #2: \n
• #3: - 5-minute University\n- Not on the Text\n- Miguel from ALI/CBL home page: http://ali.apple.com/cbl/index.html \n
• #4: How many of these did Miguel deal with?\n
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• #6: This graphic represents what I think are the most critical components in a well-rounded view of education. \n
• #7: PBL/CBL, done right, incorporates the best of all these frameworks and critical aspects of education.\n
• #8: The terms Project Base Learning and Problem Based Learning are more prevalent. So why “Challenge” Based Learning? Ultimately it is a matter of semantics, but there are important concepts behind the terminology.\n
• #9: Too often Project Based Learning is dismissed as simply hands-on project work in the classroom. If students are manipulating something or producing some kind of product, either in small groups or individually, some mistakenly think of this as Project Based Learning. But real Project Based Learning is much more.\n
• #10: Some educators have focused on Problem Based Learning in order to raise the bar and present some kind of situation or environment in which students have to solve a problem. This is similar to the medical model of interns doing case work in teaching hospitals.\n
• #11: But why stop with problem solving? Challenge Based Learning implies a variety of approaches to learning by constructing meaning...\n
• #12: CHOICE: student-centered, student choice yields ownership and responsibility for learning\nENGAGING: students not engaged cannot learn; Technology key here, especially if significant\nAUTHENTIC: students will invest themselves in what they perceive to be real; Publishing and feedback is critical; requires a real audience; Technology key here, too\nCHALLENGING: students will embrace rigor when engaged and they believe it matters; they rise to the challenge, often exceeding expectations\nSIGNIFICANT: learning is too important to waste time in trivial pursuits; Taking action is more significant than Reporting\nTHE WHOLE IS GREATER THAN THE SUM OF THE PARTS.\n
• #13: Apple’s Challenge Based Learning draws from the work of Understanding by Design (Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe), the Buck Institute for Education’s Project-Based Learning work, and Edutopia’s collections of project-based learning and is informed by many ADEs around the world. See iTunes U (in the iTunes Store), select the “Beyond Campus” directory, and click on ADEs.\n
• #14: Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe’s UbD framework is based on the concept of backward design. Starting with the desired outcome (Stage 1--Big Idea, Enduring Understandings, & Essential Questions), determining how students can demonstrate understanding (Stage 2--performance assessment), and only then developing the Learning Activities (Stage 3). Intended as a curriculum development framework for use at the Unit level rather than individual, daily lessons. There is a natural fit with PBL/CBL.\n
• #15: This is how I see Apple’s CBL Framework and the UbD Framework dove-tailing.\n
• #16: You will have an opportunity to work on as many of these areas as you are able and/or wish to deal with during the workshop. However, the tasks and templates will continue to be available on the wiki for your continued use. You are also invited and encouraged to use the wiki for your own use and/or for use with your colleagues in your own practice. Keep me posted by email if you have questions or want to share your experiences with CBL.\n
• #17: So now it’s your turn. If you haven’t already, open the workshop wiki in your browser (Firefox recommended) and go to the Workshop Page. Scroll down to the Handouts and Templates and work on the Big Idea, Essential Questions, Challenge, Assessment, and/or Technology components of the CBL Framework. I recommend you take these in the order on the page, but use your own judgment and meet your own needs. Take as much or as little time as you feel you need in each section. The templates are provided in 4 formats (Word doc, Pages file, PDF, or RTF) -- select the one that works best for you and follow the directions. Once you download the template, it is yours to work on and use as needed.\n
• #18: Significant; Engaging\nMaintains focus on important understandings\n
• #19: Big Ideas are really big -- even broader than most Content Standards. Topics like freedom, natural resources, responsibility to self and others. Big Ideas easily encompass more than one curricular area. And learning is most effective — when students are able to transfer and apply understanding in new situations and novel circumstances. I encourage you to think beyond just a Big Idea topic, however, and state your Big Idea as an Enduring Understanding per UbD.\n
• #20: This graphic organizer comes from Wiggins & McTighe’s UbD Framework and provides another way to conceptualize the Big Idea relative to curriculum content and standards and objectives.\n
• #21: Again, from UbD, this demonstrates the relationship between facts and skills and the broad principles and generalizations represented by Big Ideas. But it is important to try to think beyond the confines of a single discipline and/or curricular area to over-arching principles and generalizations that connect broad fields of study.\n
• #22: Wiggins and McTighe recommend 3 to 5 of mixed type\n- Topical/Guiding Qs answerable by recall or basic research\n- Topical/Open & Guiding/Overarching Qs require higher order thinking; Context important \n- Topical questions focus on unit understanding but not sufficient for transfer beyond unit\n- Overarching/Open Qs don’t link easily to core curriculum and can be aimless alone\n- Guiding Qs alone can stifle more Qs, and inhibit or limit deeper learning & understanding\n
• #23: The Challenge frames and informs the Assessment; the Challenge should be actionable -- active learning that compels students to actually DO something rather than simply report or present information or ideas.\nWhen planning, think about what kind of evidence could demonstrate understanding and turn that into an actionable challenge.\nPerformance and Publication are more authentic than objective, easily-scored assessments, but no less rigorous with proper assessment planning.\n
• #24: Click for “Knowing is binary”\nClick again for “Understanding is a matter of degree”\nJay McTighe: Like the judicial system, we need a “preponderance of evidence to convict students of learning.”\n
• #25: Effective assessments match the type or format of the assessment and the needed evidence\nPaper-&-pencil tests & quizzes generally provide adequate and efficient measures for basic facts and skills\nDeep understanding requires more complex performances to determine if the goal has been reached\nGraphic shows relationship between assessment types and the evidence they provide for different curriculum targets.\n
• #26: Fits like a glove with CBL.\n
• #27: I like the analogy of the teacher as facilitator being like the scaffold as a building is being constructed -- similar to the Guide on the Side analogy. The CBL teacher scaffolds the learning environment and makes available the tools necessary for students to help them build their understanding. These tools ideally include a rich set of technology assets and add value to each of these aspects of the CBL framework.\n\n
• #28: This is a representation of Go2Web20 -- a website that catalogs Web 2.0 applications, websites, and online tools. Currently there are well over 3,000 listed! Some overlap, to be sure, but an ever-growing wealth of tools. And then there are the emerging category of mobile apps.\nUbiquitous technology assets not only facilitates learning, it can transform learning in transformative ways not previously possible through new means of communication, collaboration, creativity, research, and problem-solving, decision-making, and critical thinking (NETS•S Standards). \n
• #29: This is the framework from the perspective of how the student experiences CBL -- from top to bottom.\n
• #30: But, following the UbD framework of backward design, this is the order of planning & development:\n1. Big Idea, Essential Questions, and Challenge (with preliminary development of Guiding Qs)\n2. Performance Assessment (with anticipation of possible modes of Publishing)\n3. Guiding Questions, Guiding Activities, Guiding Resources (Tech Assets), Action/Solution, Assessment (revise, refine, realign), and Publishing\nHowever, the process is highly recursive (writing again?). The planning process is not as cut-and-dried as this might suggest.\n
• #31: The Buck Institute for Education gives some guidance relative to project scope.\nOften projects involve field research, interviews, library visits, and community inquiry. \nScope should be determined before projects start.\nConsider student experience/readiness, schedule, subject/content, teacher comfort/expertise, available assets and support as you determine the scope of your project. Scale down or up as necessary.\n
• #32: Consider also the student role in your project. This will not only vary based on student developmental maturity (not necessarily or always aligned exactly with age level), but also based on prior student experience with and readiness for PBL/CBL. Honors high school students can surprise you and balk at PBL/CBL because it takes them out of their comfort zone and their well-established patterns of success. Conversely, primary students can often take on far more responsibility and higher level thinking than their years might suggest. Be careful not to under estimate your students.\n\nfrom Buck Institute\n
• #33: again from Buck Institute\nIn addition to Student Role, PBL/CBL can vary according to the degree of autonomy students have -- not only in conducting their project work, but even in the development of the project including Big Idea, Essential Questions, and Challenge! \n
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