Reflections

Reflections:

This CBL is impossible to compare to my previous efforts because the delivery was so different from what I had planned and so different from my skill set. However, I can still see that I have learned a lot from this experience, and while I hope that there is not a lot of remote instruction or learning in my future, I know that if there is, I can improve on what I have done here and integrate a similar lesson in the future.


So lessons learned:

Group work is difficult, though not impossible using only virtual contact. I was really torn about even continuing with this project because what I enjoyed most about my previous efforts was seeing the groups take on unexpected membership and watching and guiding students as they work together and hold one another accountable. I was able to see some of this, but without group contracts and oversight, I know that some of the work was not evenly distributed. Also, so many of my students worked independently, which was contrary to the nature of the work. So my questions are as follows: Can CBL be completed independently?  What kind of accountability can I integrate to help students hold one another to fidelity in their group work when working virtually?


Some students will do quality work in the worst of circumstances, but I need better insight into how to motivate students in a virtual setting like this. I think next time, a main goal of mine would be to put greater emphasis on the students having a real audience for their final projects. If we had a more formal and celebratory final presentation or a real world application or publication of the final project, this would motivate students to do higher quality work. This is true in both the traditional classroom setting and this new world of virtual learning, and I plan to work on this element in my future CBL projects. 


I dropped a main component of my CBL plan in this iteration, and it was a pretty profound oversight. My original plan was to ask students to consider how their stories have been impacted or have impacted their community. I told myself that I did this because I had a hard time communicating how this might look and I did not want to overwhelm my students, but I think partly I decided this because I did not know how this might look in a final product. This has been the hardest part of integrating CBL into my curriculum: my difficulty in asking students to engage in a process in which I cannot articulate in detail what their end result will be. When I was able to do this to a certain degree in my first semester, my students had great success, so I know this is something that I need to work on moving forward.


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