Celebrating our Differences to Build Classroom COMMUNITY
By:  Debbi Williams

Project at a Glance :

This project is designed for elementary students 

Driving Question:

How can we celebrate our differences to create a strong classroom community?

Team / Culture Building:

• Creative DNA protocol was used to help build our smaller teams for this project.
• Inner Heroes was also used to help us get to know one another and build our teams. ​

Entry Event:

• Hopes, Fear, and Norms was used to brainstorm for this project.

Stakeholders:

• Students and Teachers
• Administration
  
• Families 

Empathy Building:

• Stakeholders Map
• Empathy Map ​

• We thought about everyone who had a stake in our project and then broke into teams to build empathy for each one. 

Inquiry / Need to Knows:

• We brainstormed questions for our interview panel to ask how we could build community and get to know one another on a deeper level.
• We then interviewed our principal, some 5th grade students, and also some of our our own classmates who were brand new.

Gaining Insights:

• We ended this stage by completing a Bug List related to our driving question. 

Incubation:

• Idea Quota​​

• Rule of Thirds​

 Checking in:

• Saturate and Group was used to PUSH our ideas a little further. Which led to our Top Ten List.

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Solution Building:

• Dot Voting was used to pick our final solution​​

Authentic Audience:

• Students

Solution Examples:

• Student of the Day was the clear winner!​

• Games to Learn about each other​

• Show and Tell​

Reflection and Feedback:

• Once a solution was determined, the students came up with a schedule for each one to BE the Student of the Day.
• They were able to share customs, traditions, or just something special about themselves during circle time.
• Student of the Day also got to chose a special seat, be line leader for the day, and more!

Student of the Day enjoying his chosen seat for the day!

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

Meet the Educator:

​Debbi Williams teaches 4th grade at Sheldon Woods Elementary, West Ottawa Public Schools.

     "I chose to become involved in PBL when the opportunity was presented to me because I am always looking for ways to engage reluctant learners and overall make learning FUN for my students.  PBL makes the learning experience relevant and engaging for my students and I love to watch their excitement as they explore problems and develop solutions.  It gives them a sense of ownership over their learning, while teaching them real world skills of collaboration and process/revision skills."