project-based learning

Integrating Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) and the Lifelong Learning Education (LLE) Framework

Categories: PLC, PLC at Work, Student Engagement

Elliott Seif is the author of Teaching for Lifelong Learning: How to Prepare Students for a Changing World.

 

What are the essential features of professional learning communities (PLCs)?

In many schools today, teachers shut their doors and essentially work alone, providing what they consider to be the best learning possible for their students. While this often gives them the opportunity to provide their students with decent education, it also often gets in the way of creating a collaborative culture in which all teachers work together and each contributes to the larger goal of improving learning for all students. Learning becomes fragmented and segmented when teachers work on their own.

Professional learning communities (PLCs) are designed to counter the separateness of school teaching and learning by creating collaborative teams of teachers who work together to improve learning. The formation of a PLC creates an ongoing process in which educators work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve. Professional learning communities operate under the assumption that the key to improved learning for students is continuous job-embedded learning for educators” (DuFour et al., 2016, p. 10). Read more

Resistance Undone

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Resistance Undone: Driving PBL Implementation

Categories: Instruction, School Improvement

A PBL Story

At an urban school with above-average STEM scores, faculty fought against the principal’s effort to raise expectations and do “even more.” When she had first urged her deeper learning vision with a call for project-based learning, many teachers balked. “Last year we worked hard to get our scores up. Don’t ask us to change what works. You can say that PBL will help even more, but who knows?” Read more

To Increase Student Motivation, Focus on Real-World, Project-Based Learning

Categories: 21st Century Skills, Instruction, Technology

Based on Implementing Project-Based Learning

When Hurricane Harvey flooded neighborhoods and destroyed property in Houston, Texas, teachers didn’t take long to turn the natural disaster into meaningful learning. In schools across the Humble Independent School District, students engaged in a wide range of projects that focused on protecting and restoring the Lake Houston Watershed—using drones to survey riverbanks, inventing devices to filter drinking water, and participating in hands-on conservation efforts.

These students have no reason to ask the tired question, “When will we ever need to know this?” Read more