Grant Wiggins (of UbD fame) recently blogged about how good teachers decenter themselves: the process of the teacher taking him/herself out of the center of the learning process. The article itself is a worthy read as he talks through the why and the how, but the list below reminded me of what we will see as we continue our shift to inquiry driven instruction (PBL).

7 Characteristics Of Group-Worthy Tasks

I should note that some of my thinking about this issue was prompted by reading an article by Rachel Lotan in Educational Leadership on “group worthy” learning tasks from 2003, via a fine book on group work in mathematics written by Ilana Horn. Here is my slightly-edited version of the Lotan-Horn criteria for group worthy work:

1. Focus on central concepts or big ideas that require active meaning-making
2. The challenge itself has ambiguity or limited scaffold and prompting so that student meaning-making and different inferences about the task and how to address it will emerge.
3. Are best accomplished by ensuring that multiple perspectives are found tried out in addressing the task. This not only rewards creative and non-formulaic thought but undercuts the likelihood that one strong student can do all the key work.
4. Provide multiple ways of being competent in the task work and the task process
5. Can only be done well by a group, but are designed to foster both individual and group autonomy. (The teacher’s role as teacher and direction-giver should be minimized to near zero).
6. Demand both individual and group accountability
7. Have clear evaluation criteria

This is a very interesting talk about how game-based instruction does an excellent job of inspiring kids to excel because they are out to achieve levels and not an arbitrary grade.

This is a common pushback from teachers who are hesitant to make the change to an inquiry driven instructional practice. Considering test prep may be all they have ever known in their educational careers, it would seem like an odd shift to make. It might also come across as scary to many. Andrew Miller, Buck Institute for Education national faculty member, shares this great bit of advice in a recent Edutopia blog post:

Power Standards/Learning Targets

Whether individually or through facilitated professional development, teachers spend a lot of time unpacking the standardized tests and the targeted standards and learning on which they’re based. When you design a PBL project, make sure it hits those frequently targeted standards or learnings. If you know a specific book or genre is a frequent testing target in the AP English Literature exam, use the PBL project to go in-depth on that content. If you know Linear Equations are tested the most often or weighted more in the state test, then use PBL to ensure that students walk away not only knowing their linear equations inside out, but also being able to think critically and make relevant connections.

Be sure to check out the rest of his great post here. There is also another great article he wrote called “Dispelling some misunderstandings about PBL.”

So, maybe you’re one of those people who prefers to know the facts firsthand instead of just taking someone’s word for it. We’ve long said that PBL would improve our students’ outcomes, but you’re just not ready to go there yet. Well, maybe this bit of research will give you the push you need to make the shift. Read the post in its entirety. There’s a lot of good data there to make you wish you had been doing PBL all along. The slides below are just a teaser for what it shared at the linked blog post.

As we move more and more into inquiry driven classrooms, here are some thoughts on rethinking your learning spaces.