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Day 15 //My burning question has always been how to mesh what I believe about inquiry with PBL?// I think I'm in a good place with this now. I still believe there is a difference between inquiry and PBL, but they don't need to be mutually exclusive. I think that's what I was having a hard time with before. I felt like it was one or the other, but I don't think so any more. It just depends on the unit and the circumstance. There are just some units, maybe at the beginning of the year that just don't lend themselves to a project. If I was to try to turn it into one, it wouldn't be authentic or meaningful. Depending on what we're trying to accomplish, maybe approaching a unit as strictly inquiry makes more sense. I feel good about that.

Day 14 I had a great idea today during Jane's tuning protocol. Raleigh asked if we thought that we could use tuning protocols with our kids. I think I can! It really isn't any different than thinking routines. We actually did a similar protocol this past year when students designed their own water experiment. After they presented their proposal their classmates could only ask questions. It actually worked very well, but I think that would be a perfect opportunity for a tuning protocol as they were dying to discuss each proposal. I also think that I can use a shorter variation of this tuning protocol when my students create their hypotheses about how our island was created.

Day 13 What a lovely day. I just sat in my classroom and wrote about my project. That wasn't sarcasm. It was a luxury to be able to sit in my space for hours and just think and write.

Day 12 My rubric pendulum has swung a lot. Currently it is on a positive swing. I have had times where I got frustrated by the crafting of rubrics. It takes so much class time! For my kids and my patience level I think the most valuable part is figuring out the criteria or what the ideal looks like. This is very valuable for students, but I don't think having them come up with the other levels of what that looks like is worth the class time. I have also gotten frustrated by the seemingly arbitrary differences between what's a 3 and what's a 4. I admit to having stuck quite a few "consistently" or "independently" onto descriptors just to make them worthy of being one box ahead. I was thrilled to look at the rubrics today that said, "In addition to meeting the proficient standards, the learner..." Brilliant! I get stuck because I am trying to figure out the different degrees of the same behavior. That doesn't always neatly split up into four degrees. Sometimes doing better means that yes, you are doing the behaviors in the "proficient" box as good as you can do them, but what makes this work better is that you've done more than what's in that "proficient box" and I don't have to make up some crazy new way of saying the same thing as I said in the "proficient box" just to make it sound a little better.

Day 11 Looking at the library project was really helpful. As much as I think I understand that those benchmark activities should build up to the final deliverable, it is hard to do when you are so involved in your own project. There are just so many things you want to do. Looking at someone else's final product and figuring out what needed to come before it was really helpful. It has never been so clear to me. I'm not sure if it was finally figuring out what I wanted my kids to come away with or this activity, but figuring out benchmarks got a lot easier.

Day 10 I used to think... that PBL and inquiry were fundamentally different. I used to think that PBL started with every piece totally planned out without much room for student choice. I used to think that I wouldn't not be able to do a "project" and reconcile that with what I like about inquiry. I used to think that every student was like my students. I used to think that I had to hit every one of the 6 A's of designing a project. I used to think that maybe PBL was not the most developmentally appropriate model for learning for my kids.

Now I think... that PBL and inquiry are different, but fundamentally the same. I do still think that inquiry places more emphasis on student questioning. Now I think that we all do the best that we can in hitting the 6 A's of designing a project. Depending on the time of year, our school, resources, and any of the other million variables it may not be possible to hit all of those A's and that's ok. Now I still wonder about what is the best model, but I can't really tell unless I try it. Now I think that I need to keep in mind that there are other populations and other kinds of learners.

I still need... to do a project so that I can answer some of my lingering questions. I still need to solidify a project for my geology unit. I still need to balance process and product. I still need to make connections with the community so I can open my class up to one of those magical projects.

Day 9 Elizabeth Garrison It was nice to hear Elizabeth talk about her school's projects. I think it was reassuring, though we've been talking about this, that these really cool projects weren't perfectly PBL. I do find it interesting that the projects that did hit all the criteria were either run outside of the regular classroom (garden club) or initiated by an outside source (Kawainui Marsh).

Day 7 Tuning Protocol (Post-Run) First I was thinking about why I had such a hard time answering questions about what I wanted the kids to get out of this and what was important about learning about the Geology of our island. I think for a lot of years we have been so focused on the process of how we do inquiry and more recently on how we document children's thinking that I didn't really think about the topic as much. The topic and the concepts that go with them took a back seat to the process. So I guess I meant it when I said that the process was what was important to me, but I recognize that it shouldn't be the only thing. So then I thought about why we're studying this topic, because we don't have to. A few years ago when we decided not to go to the Big Island anymore, I was a little sad, but totally on board. As cool as it was to visit an active volcano the students didn't have any real connection to it, and I was ready to make a change. I felt very strongly that our students should be studying their island and their place. They should know how the island that they live on was formed. They should know that they go to school every day in a valley etched into the Koolau volcano by streams. They should know that when they look at Diamond Head every day that it looks the way that it does because strong winds were blowing the ash in that direction. They should know that if they live on the Windward side that that side of the island literally fell off and that is why the mountains drop off on that side. It is important for them to know and appreciate the place that they live. If they can have a sense of wonder about the amazing process of this island's formation then they will appreciate it and want to take care of it. I realize that's very simplistic, but I can work from here.

Day 7 Tuning Protocol That sucked. I really thought that I was clear going into that protocol. I had everything except the product, except it turns out I was missing the most important thing of all, a clear idea of why it is important. I can't really go anywhere without that. I guess that's why we do protocols. I could, very easily, have happily gone through that unit without ever having established why it is important and missing a whole other layer of meaning. The main questions that we focused on last year were: What was the early Hawaiians' relationship with the land? How has that changed/What is our relationship with the land today? and What do we think that will look like in the future? My essential questions should flow from that. Maybe that same idea of past, present, and future, but through a geology lens. I'm going to go for a run and think about it.

Day 5 Deliverable I am having sort of an epiphany around this idea of deliverables. My big problem with project based learning has always been with the concept of student choice. I have had enough experiences with inquiry to know that student choice is really important. Just this year I shared an article with the kids about a topic that I thought they would be really interested in and would lead to action on their part. I was really excited. They were not. I have also had experiences where I structured the output from the beginning and the product was not as rich as times when I left it open (with parameters, of course). Maybe that is not quite true. Their products probably looked better, but the thinking that led up to them was not as rich. I think there is something really vital and important in that choice of what to do with your new thinking. What is the best way to present that? What is the best way that I can use this new knowledge to impact my community? This is what my struggle is and that might be why I'm having such a hard time picking a deliverable. It really helped me to hear Laura McBain speak today. She explained that in the past when they've had multiple mediums for deliverables it was hard to do critique. Because critique was such an important part of the process for that project, choice, in this case, took away from students' ability to meet the objectives. That made me think about Alohi's tuning protocol. We were all eager to share alternative product choices, but what if her objective was to use the writing elements that they learned to write a story and illustrate it? Or, it needed to be a book so they could visit classrooms to read it to kids. In order for the students to meet the objectives it had to be a book and giving the students choice in product would have taken away from the student's ability to meet the objectives. What I'm coming to is that I need to be clear on what my objectives are in order to determine where and when student choice is appropriate. If one of my objectives is, "students choose appropriate medium to share their information," I need to give them choice. If one of my objectives is to create a well-designed keynote presentation I need to build in choice elsewhere. Also, and I think this is big, if it takes away from my ability to scaffold and support my students in the project, maybe I need to build in choice another way. I can't sacrifice everything on the altar of "choice." I suppose it is just a cop out for not being clear about my objectives.

Day 4 Final Word Protocol I have always liked this protocol, but today I noticed something different happening. I shared my idea about how much I loved the stage metaphor in Tomlinson’s article. Everyone jumped in during their parts, and as I was listening to everyone’s thoughts on it (they were in agreement) I realized that I actually had some issues with this metaphor. The same thing happened when Travis shared his. After everyone responded (in agreement) he turned around and questioned the original idea. It was fascinating to watch how having to articulate our thoughts and listening to other people’s thoughts caused us to think so much deeper about the topic. It was especially interesting because it wasn't like my idea changed because people were challenging what I said, just having to articulate it myself and have people expand on it and go deeper helped me to think differently. To me, it was probably the most obvious progression of thinking that I've seen in doing one of these thinking routines. I felt like we could have been a case-study in __Making Thinking Visible__.

Day 3 Tuning Protocol I thought the tuning protocol was valuable for me today because it made me look at the kinds of contributions I make towards conversations like that. I like to think that I don't just like to hear myself talk and I am genuinely trying to help, but today's conversation made me question that a little. When Jane asked Raleigh the question, "At the end of this project, what will make you say to yourself, 'Wow, this went really well?" I was so impressed. That's the kind of help people really need, helping them clarify their thinking. It was helpful to have a model of what that looks like. I am looking forward to doing the rest of these with this group. I think it will be helpful, not just for my own project, but also to know how to be a valuable participant in these discussions in the future.

Day 2 Harpers Magazine School on a Hill I really enjoyed today's reading. I like the angry guy, Gatto.I am not fully comfortable with all his ideas, though I think if I heard more about them I could get there. Regardless, I think we need people who think like that in education to ask us to look at what we take for granted as the way. I love when he asked Kristin Kearns Jordan why her students couldn't put on a traveling theater program, "Why couldn't they be doing these things in reality rather than simulating them?" I also love his standards for seventh grade. Just think of how they could prove those things to him, like being courageous. Actually, I loved all their standards, especially the bullshit-o-meter.

Day 1 Burning Question What is my burning question? My burning question has always been how to mesh what I believe about inquiry with PBL? I think it is a question of starting points. In inquiry we start with immersing students in a topic, generating questions, then researching, then taking action. To me, the project portion would fit in in the taking action phase. The thing is, I really don't know what that looks like until I see what direction our research is taking us. Can I design a project at that point, or is that just not realistic? Would that even be PBL?