Project 13, Group 6: Project Based Learning Plan

Exploring the Civil War

      The first thing my group did was decide which subject we were going to make a lesson plan for. Since we're all planning on teaching different subjects in high school, we had to pick between them. Our options were Math, Health, PE, and History. We decided on History because we thought it would be the most fun! Of course, then we had to decide which event in history we were going use for the lesson plan. We chose the Civil War.
      After we had decided the event in history, we needed to make sure we were doing everything we needed to do in order to make sure we were utilizing every aspect of Project-Based Learning. We started throwing ideas around, learning what we needed to develop, and figuring out how to incorporate more uses of technology. Our group did a pretty awesome job at making sure we covered everything on the PBL Essential Elements Checklist.
      After we figured out how everything we had planned fit into the checklist, we started making our Project Overview, Rubric, and Calendar. Overall, I believe our group did an amazing job! The Project Overview has almost all of the details for our project lesson plan. The little details that it is missing is in the rubric and calendar. The rubric is nicely detailed and well thought out, and the calendar will help the students stay on track.
      There are a couple things about the lesson plan that I am super excited about! As far as the media project goes, we wanted to make sure that they could have fun with it! They can choose to do a reenactment, music video, movie, poem, or pretty much anything else they could think of. Another part I think they'd be interested in is the fact that they get to TEACH the class what they learned. I think this could be developed a little farther than what we did in the lesson plan. Maybe they could develop a short questionnaire for each student to fill out while they're going through their presentation.
      Now it's time for a few side notes! First, the picture was found by Sammi, and the group decided it would be a great picture to start the discussion with our students. We found it fitting to share it all with you! Second, I tried to find a game to assign groups for the project, but I couldn't really find anything that I thought high school students would enjoy. I plan on finding a few before I begin teaching because I think a fun game is a nice icebreaker for group projects! Last, this was super fun, and I can't wait until I can use Project-Based Learning with my students!

Thanks for reading my blog, and I hope you enjoyed it!
Jennifer L. Cole