A Plan for Better Research
​                       By:  Justine Keuning - LaFrence  ​

Project at a Glance :

Students will be exploring the different ways people access information and then applying that knowledge to their own research projects after the PBL. (Middle School Language Arts, 2-3 week project)       
 
Driving Question:

​How can we create multimedia presentations of our research that our peers will actually want to learn from?             

Standards:

• ELA Stds:   R.I. 8.7, W. 8.6, W.8.7, & W.8.8
• Skills4Success

Team / Culture Building:

• Team creation using Creative DNA Sequence activity
• Followed by Hopes, Fears, & Norms protocol​​

Entry Event:

• Students will visit a stations exploring different types of nonfiction media including:  picture books, videos, online exhibits, podcasts, TEDtalks, etc. (Content will be focused on the Halifax explosion during WWI).

Stakeholders:

• Peers
• Teachers

Empathy Building:

• Create Empathy Maps for their peers
• Explore picture books the following picture books as a way to learn - Rosie Revere, Engineer, Iggy Peck, Architect, Ada Twist, Scientist, The Girl Who Thought In Pictures

Inquiry / Need to Knows:

• Article study - each member of the group will look at a different article about student learning, responsible for taking learning back to their group
• Conduct Interviews and surveys exploring how students learn.​

Incubation:

• Start with brainstorming a  non related  topic to get them thinking and being ok with silly, crazy ideas (ex: Give me 100 ways to use this stool)
• 100 ideas - Idea Quota protocol
• Chalk Talk around topics related to the DQ​

• Introduce the Mind-Mapping activity
• Followed by Yes, and can it…?  ​protocol

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Solution Building:

• Saturate and Group - Take all learning about learning and get everything out on the wall to look at how things might relate 
• Affinity Mapping with groups from previous activity
• $100 test -Students will use Monopoly $ to spend on each solution, defending their solution ideas.
• NUF Test - Used to make the final decisions on what to focus their energy on.  

Critique and Revision: 

• ​Brainfiring - group check-in
• Talking Chip Check - group check-in
• Fireside Chat - Check-ins between groups (chat groups will be made up of members of different groups)
• Google Forms - individual check-ins​ 
• NUF test, adding an extra F for FUN!
• Use the Austin’s Butterfly video to talk about critique and revision first
• Critical Friends to clarify the ideas that will be presented during the gallery walk
• Gallery Walk to see the other groups ideas - because their peers are their target audience, this is a way to get their plans in front of their authentic audience for the final project, include feedback in the form of I likes/I wonder.​

Authentic Audience:​

• Peers
• Other ELA classes/grade levels

Final Presentation:

• All students must contribute to final presentation with their choices, based on the NUF tests from earlier​.  

Click here for teacher's full plan.

​Reflection and Feedback:​ 

• Rubric for the stages of the project
• Rubric  for final presentation​

Click here for the  teacher's Journey through PBL on Padlet.

Meet the Educator:
Justine Keuning-LaFrence teaches 6 - 8th grade at Hudsonville Middle School.  

     "PBL and Design Thinking help me push my gifted and high achieving students to become better critical thinkers and problem solvers. It gives them a chance to shine! "