Project Based Learning in the Classroom: Setup, Integration and Reflection in Florence, Italy

Getting ready for the new curriculum, Erasmus+ project

Pattanen school, Raahe

I attended a course of project based learning with my colleague during the last schoolweek in May. Course was organized by Europass Teacher Academy and our teacher was Sheila Corwin. Our trip to the Italy was from 27th May untill 3rd of June 2018 and during that period we got introduced to the prosess of project based learning and into the Italian culture, nature and surroundings of Florence and the Toscana area.

Arno river and the Florence

During this week of getting introduced to the process of a project based learning we planned our own problem based project to use in our own classrooms at next semester. We used following steps for implementing our problem based project:

Start with the essential question that rises from real world and engages the students to the project. Good essential question is non googleable and the question has not one answer or solution.

Design a plan for the project keeping in mind which content standards will be addressed, what parts of the curriculum are included into the project. Students are involved in planning and decision-making and as many subjects as possible are integrated into the project.

Create a schedule for the project. Set benchmarks, give students direction for managing their time, remind them of the timeline and help them set and keep the deadlines.

Monitor the students and the progress of the project by helping them to take responsibility for their work. Teach the students how to work collaboratively and have students choose their primary roles and assess the prosess as well as the endproduct.

Assess the outcome. Assessment provides diagnostic feedback, help educators set standards.

Evaluate the experience. Reflection is a key componet of learning. To enable effective self-evaluation take time to reflect, share feelings and experiences, discuss what worked well and what needs change.

Our own Project Overview

We planned our own problem based project to teach the energyresources for the 9th graders. The project integrates physics, finnish language and geography. Our projects name is What feeds you mobile phone? and the driving question Which energyresources you would choose as decisionmakers for your area? We designed the project and set some supporting questions for the students. We also made following detailed plans for the project but those are not shown for the studens at first because the project includes room for the students voice and choice. We listed the background information students need to know when they are planning their part of the project. We listed the techology (hardware and software) they use, where they possibly find the information they need (internet, publications, visitors or visits), how much and what lessons are used to the project, how students can present the project and what they can choose to produce as a end product and what are the assessments of the process and the product.

All the participants of the course and the teacher

The course of project (problem and task) based learning was very useful even though I noticed that I already use this at my teaching. Still I got lots of support useful tools for assessments and creating rubrics into my own work. The ideas of the other course participants were also in important role making our own project better and getting new tools into our own classroom.

Countryside of the Toscana area.

Otherwise our stay in Italy introduced us into the Italian cultural and natural geography. It was inspiring to discuss with the locals about the Toscana areas specialities, Italian habits, lifestyle and cultural differences between Finland and Italy and gain lots of interesting details to use in own classroom and teaching.

Pizza baker

Introduction to the winetasting