Action Research – Project Based Learning (PBL)
Goal 1 – Creating lifelong learners - I plan on having my
on-level economics students produce several products originating from PBL
questions I have provided for them. The
students will be allowed some options as to what they want to answer. Options are very important to student buy
in. This gives the student power, and
that in turn gives the student an interest in the very schoolwork I want them
to accomplish. Truthfully, even if the
material isn’t exactly what I want them to learn, my true objective is simply
to get the student to learn new material they have never seen before. This creates an active, learning student who
has started down the path of a lifelong learner. It is much easier to educate a student who
has started down this path than one who has not.
Goal 2 – Promoting success through education – We need
students to be successful in whatever they do.
A lack of success generally leads to a reluctance to accept
responsibility and reluctance to attempt schoolwork. PBL should lead to success for students
because it is simply doing.
Goal 3 – Accomplishing success in the high stakes testing
world of today – This is going to be the difficult thing to accomplish with
PBL. I have personally seen a PBL school
at work, and the one thing that gave me pause were the products produced by the
students. They simply were not that
impressive. It is my hope that a
classroom student who is engaged in some type of school work, will lead to
success in other areas. Simply
participating in meaningful classroom work when no work was previously done is
the key.
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OUTCOMES
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ACTIVITIES
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RESOURCES/ RESEARCH TOOLS
NEEDED
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RESPONSIBILITY TO ADDRESS
ACTIVITIES
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TIME LINE
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Benchmarks/
ASSESSMENT
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Creating Lifelong learners
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- Conduct research through student grades to
determine success.
- Preparing PBL lessons and having students
participate in them.
- Create a large amount of PBL lessons to
create a variety of things students can participate in.
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- Previous classroom data
- Passing rates of previous years.
- Graduation rates of previous years.
- Workforce data
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Jason R. Pratt
Gwen Elder
Chrissy Hester
Steve Day
Randy Hootan
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Fall 2012 -
Spring 2013
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- Student interviews.
- High passing rates on exams.
- High passing rates on
projects
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Promoting success through
education
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- Create PBL lessons that are easy enough
for the lowest level student in the classroom, but also difficult enough to
challenge the high level learner.
- Create PBL lessons that are fun, so that
students will want to participate in them.
- Create an atmosphere of success and a
culture of success within the PBL model.
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- Time to produce these lessons.
- Continuing look at the Manor Tech model.
- Funds to get more COWS put into classrooms
so that technology can be an integral part of the PBL process.
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Jason R. Pratt
Eddie Coulson
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Fall 2012 – Spring 2013
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Graduation rates.
Low discipline referrals
from these classrooms.
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Accomplishing success in the
world of high stakes testing / Moving PBL to EOC classrooms
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- Produce some PBL lessons for the AP
classroom.
- Have AP students prepare some PBL lessons
they think are appropriate
- Move the PBL model to EOC exam classrooms.
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- Time is a key resource needed to produce
the high amount of lessons to move this concept to other levels.
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Jason R. Pratt
Debbie Lange
Samantha Krinhop
April Wilson
April Falco
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Spring 2013 – Spring 2014
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- AP Microeconomics exam.
- Benchmark exam
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Gather as much data as
possible as to what is most important for the school.
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- Interview my principal as well as the other
AP’s in the school.
- Interview the district superintendent and
discuss what the district has plans for in the future.
- Interview district
personal and have discussions as to the relevance of PBL
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Appropriate times for each
of the members to have discussions with.
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Gwen Elder
Jeff Mann
Matt Caffey
Courtney Smith
Leigha Gautreaux
Billy Hicks
Chrissy Hester
Eddie Coulson
Jason R. Pratt
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Fall 2012-Spring 2013
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Having a more complete
understanding of the needs of the district.
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Obtain or create at least 25
PBL for on-level economics classes.
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Make due diligence in
creating 25 PBL that have high quality as well as a variety of learning
styles.
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Money provided by either the
district or grant to purchase PBL.
Time so that I personally
can create PBL
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Teresa Benden
Jason R. Pratt
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Fall 2012-Spring 2013
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Completing the goal.
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Observe an increase in
graduation rates for PBL classrooms over traditional classrooms
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- Create an atmosphere of
learning and accomplishment in the PBL classroom.
- Provide alternative opportunities
for students who traditionally been ignored, or who traditionally haven’t
been reached.
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Patience by the district as
well as my school administrators.
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Jason R. Pratt
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Fall 2012-Spring 2013
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Completing the goal.
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Provide an alternative to
the traditional path in economics for students.
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Write a proposal to have PBL
be an alternative class choice for students provided in the course
handbook.
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Help by the councilor’s office
as well as patience by the councilors office.
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Jason R. Pratt
Chritie Cheshire
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August 31st is
the due date. The class can be
provided next year.
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Completing the goal.
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Provide an alternative to
the traditional path in Social Studies for students.
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Discuss and convince other members
of the Social Studies Department as to the benefit of providing PBL
classrooms.
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Time and effort by other
members of my department.
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Consolidated Social Studies
Department
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Fall 2012 - ?
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Any increase in provided PBL
outside of economics will be considered a success
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Provide an alternative to
the traditional path in multiple classes at Consolidated for students.
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Convince other department
individuals as to the benefit of having PBL classrooms and the necessity of
having alternative learning environments for students.
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School wide effort.
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School wide effort
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Fall 2012 - ?
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Any increase in provided PBL
outside of the Social Studies Department will be considered a success
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Provide an alternative
campus for students to be totally immersed in the PBL experience
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- Collect data from the success/failures of
other PBL classrooms within the district as well as outside the district.
- Procure the funds and space for such an
alternative campus.
- Establish the support of the district
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- Building or space within one of the
existing buildings.
- Appropriate, supporting
administrator to head up such a project.
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Jason R. Pratt
School Board
Eddie Coulson
Central Office
Admin team
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Fall 2012 - ?
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Any alternative campus of
any type will be considered a success.
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