Ways to Customize PBL Implementation (Secondary Students)

Hello today,

we're gonna be going over some ways to customize project based learning

implementation and these are tips that

are particularly helpful for secondary students,

but some of them can be applied for others.

So one of the ways that you can really customize,

probably project based learning implementation is by starting with a real

world problem that the learners are impacted by uh passionate about,

curious about and having it go from instead of there being

a project that the teacher has and is bringing to the learners

basically finding the projects that are uh coming from

the learners themselves based off of something that they

are passionate about or curious about.

The only thing with this is that one of the things that I've seen,

especially post covid is that there are a lot of learners who have social anxiety

now and sometimes having those like whole group

conversations uh can be a little tricky.

So if you have a situation like that,

making sure that there's opportunities like

a virtual conversation opportunity too.

So maybe some of the learners who are deliberate processors who need a little

bit more time to think about things or who have social anxiety now,

you can also like contribute and you can figure

out where their heart is on certain matters too.

So

making sure that there's opportunities to be inclusive of everyone.

Having a virtual form can be, can be really good at that too.

Another way that you can customize project

based learning to increase engagement is letting

them choose to work solo or in groups and this is something that can also

be connected with some of the um social anxiety that comes out and also like

general like awkwardness being a teenager and just kind of all of those things,

letting them know that they don't necessarily have to be in

a group if they don't want to be in a group.

Um but if you if you do allow for for for variation and choice with this,

making sure that everyone is clear,

if they're working in a group that

everyone is clear what their responsibilities and

their roles are having them sign those

contracts and letting letting that be explicit and

um agreed upon and known. Um but if they were choosing to work solo,

they are very familiar with the rubric and all of

the things that they're needing to do all of those

moving parts that they're going to be in charge of

making sure that's really clear and explicit is very helpful.

Another way that you can customize it

project based learning to make it more engaging,

impactful is letting them be in charge of how they present their final project,

the all of the important information that they have

learned um over the course of the project.

So

um

if there are learners who are dealing with a lot

of social anxiety or learners who don't want to be

necessarily like seen in the spotlight or that they have

an opportunity to um maybe create like a video that's annotated

um that kind of goes through all of the different

steps or the different things that has been learned,

so making sure that they have an option and

choice in how their final project is presented.

It can be very um

very relieving for some students and um engaging and um

kind of cool,

so something that can come up is that especially with secondary students is that

they've gone through the education system and so for a lot of students,

they might not necessarily

when, when being presented with project based learning,

they might not necessarily be super trusting or even necessarily have the skills to

uh get started because there's a lot of problem solving, a lot of creativity,

a lot of independent, you know, there's a lot of different things that are

required and expected

when when uh you're doing this approach, So really making sure that um if

you are going to be implementing project based learning that that relationship is

strong and it's

well, even if you're not please do this um anyways,

but making sure that that relationship is there and that it

is solid and that um the students can trust you,

there's not going to be like a gotcha or anything, they, they know that this is

um a safe space for exploring and learning and growing and making mistakes.

Um Also, another way to approach any kind of hesitancy or like

uh resistance um if there is any um is really also um

building up to the project like talking about it as

something that's coming up so that they are bracing themselves

and they're getting prepared and they're developing those skills that

they need to develop in order to accomplish it.

But also um

if you're, if you are

doing little little mini projects that kind of build up into a bigger

one that can kind of get them acclimated into this way of learning.

So and finally just a review over the different steps that we just talked about. Um

you can have them have choice for their project

by basing those in real world problems uh that they are

that they choose and then creating the project that way.

Uh that they have a choice of being able to work on their own or in group

groups. That can be very nice for increasing engagement.

That they have choice in the final project.

How that gets presented can be a way of increasing engagement.

And also just making sure that that that you have a really

good relationship with them if they haven't been exposed like in general.

But especially if they haven't been exposed to this kind of learning. So that way.

Um or at least building up like incrementally of um

what does having a little bit of agency in your

learning look like and working your way up to um

project based learning.

So that way it's not just a total shock to their system and they

shut down. So anyways, I hope this helps. Thank you,

mm hmm.

Ways to Customize PBL Implementation (Secondary Students)

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