Jared Pyles

Author: Jared

  • The PBL Adventure: Part 1

    I set out on a trek on a whim. On a feeling. On a self-dare.

    I researched problem-based learning over the summer, intending to try something new in my first-year composition course. This was my fifth year, and I figured: why not? Let’s roll the dice. Throw them into the pool in the deep end. Make them squirm with the messiness of putting the ball in their court. Force them to take ownership. By the end, I’ll have a classroom FULL of motivated, self-directed, critical thinkers. It will be a success, I tell you! A success! However, on the advice of a colleague, I should consider my audience. Due to COVID-19, these freshmen probably have not been under direct instruction for 18 months; they may not have even seen the inside of a classroom. So I relented. I put the plan back in the digital archives for another day.

    But then, the semester started. And boy, did it start. We only meet once a week on Mondays. Using the hyflex model, students log in on Wednesday for an assignment, reading, discussion, etc. Our first week was the usual: Syllabus talk with an icebreaker and questions. So far, so good! Week 2 was Labor Day. No problem. Students have tasks to do Wednesday night.

    But then the delta variant hit, sending us virtual. Week 3 was a virtual nightmare. Students are having technical issues. They can’t join the meeting, they can’t log in to Flipgrid, they can’t submit their peer review. The list goes on. But we kept on through. And above all, week 3 concludes with me forgetting to record my lecture. 

    Week 4, I think I have COVID. No class. Just a video explaining what to do. Also, no COVID. Just really bad allergies. Yet, still more technical problems. We limp, limp to the end of the unit. They turn in their final drafts in Week 5. Done. I’m at a crucial moment in the course. Do I continue the same path? The technical issues aren’t going away; they’re deeply ingrained in the students’ accounts. A simple “log out and back in” probably won’t work. The problems may take weeks to resolve. As I sit there, pouring over my schedule, I hear a voice in the digital archives. 

    “P-B-L! P-B-L! P-B-L!”

    I went back to the archives and pulled out the plan? Why not? I could modify it and make it their next project. I pulled some resources and came up with a small, class-wide problem that would take them about a month to do. What could go wrong?

    Week 6 rolled in: I allowed my students time to reflect on the previous project and gave them a chance to discuss how they could improve. Then, I introduce the three questions that Pennell and Miles (2009) used for PBL in their business communications classroom:

    1. What do we know?
    2. What do you need to know?
    3. How will you learn it?

    I then introduced the problem. Gave them some light scaffolding. Then I walked to the back of the room to sit down. I will never forget what happened next. I turned around to sit and saw that the students were all staring at me, waiting for some direction. But that was the point! It was their turn; they needed to take the reins. So they did…slower than I would have liked…ok, much slower than I would have liked. And that has been my greatest takeaway thus far: Get out of the way. Let them wrestle with it. Don’t interject. Easier said than done for sure. 

    Tonight was Week 2 of the project. I made some observations from their previous meeting and told them to shoot for a final product so large that it seemed impossible, then scale it back a bit. Then I gave them the rest of the time to meet and work. The class split into their sub-groups, and not much consideration was given to the advice I had given. But then I started hearing it.

    “We should build an app…”

    “Yeah…or a course or a website…”

    My heart LEAPT. Finally, some progress! Big picture thinking! 

    Time will tell how the project ends up. I wanted to document and reflect on the process, so I plan to use this as a time of reflection each week. To decompress. Maybe some good will come from it?

  • The Active Classroom Initiative #7

    The project is in the books, now it’s time to reflect. What should students and instructors focus on in their reflection? What is valuable feedback that would be beneficial to the project’s implementation moving forward? How often should the reflection take place?

  • The Active Classroom Initiative #6

    Let’s discuss failure and feedback! Sorry about the audio only. I’m honestly not sure what happened to the video.

  • The Active Classroom Initiative #5

    Integrating curriculum with PBL: How can it be done in higher education?

  • The Active Classroom Initiative #4

    Effective assessment in PBL: What part can students play in creating rubrics and other assessments for the project?

  • The Active Classroom Initiative #3

    Discussing the development of the driving question

    5 Star Project mentioned: http://pblramsteines.weebly.com/
    Visual map for my PBL Project


  • The Active Classroom Initiative #2

    The project video above was a great inspiration to me when building my own project. I felt this project was a perfect example of creating authenticity in PBL. Specifically, I appreciated the emphasis on connecting to the public. This project does this by relating it to a real-world problem that they are trying to solve. The project also involves community experts not just at the end during the presentation phase, but during the revision process. I thought that was an interesting usage of outside experts. This will be something I will include, as I want to involve other schools with educational professionals who have built similar spaces to what my students will be doing. I would like to have professionals like this for students to bounce ideas off of and advice on building, developing, and revising their learning spaces.

  • The Active Classroom Initiative # 1

    After reading about what makes up PBL projects from BIE, I’ve noticed some commonalities in place that are seen in most PBL projects. Notably:

    • Real world connection
    • Communication with experts
    • Student voice and choice (or agency)
    • Presentations of final projects for the public
    • A movement from individual to group to whole class

    I also read about authenticity in PBL in an article from Edutopia. A mark of an authentic PBL project is that the work is real and authentic to the students’ lives. According to the article, the four characteristics of an authentic PBL project are:

    1. The project meets a real need beyond the classroom, or products created are used by real people.
    2. There is a focus on a relevant issue for students
    3. There is a realistic scenario or simulation
    4. It involves real world tools, tasks, standards, and processes

    These are all good to know as I begin to assemble my project.

  • Course Reflection

    What technological knowledge have you learned in this course? What pedagogical knowledge (e.g., knowledge about adult learning theories, instructional design, online learning and teaching) have you learned in this course?

    From a technological vantage point, the biggest takeaway that I can practically apply is best practices in presenting online lectures. Having instructor on screen is important to allow students to make social connection, as well as help with cognitive connection and inflection. And while theory would say that it’s best that the instructor present not in a window but in front of a green screen with the material chroma keyed in behind them. While this is not as likely or accessible for the vast majority of faculty, it is a good target to aim toward. At least having the instructor on screen is a step in the right direction for allowing students to make a better connection to the material. That’s something I can pass on to our faculty and use in any sort of rich media tutorials that I’ll be creating for faculty in the future as part of my instructional design role.

    Pedagogically, the Community of Inquiry is an invaluable theory that I can use as an instructional designer. The majority of my workload is helping develop online courses with faculty members. In the past, we have focused simply on getting content together, building it in a differentiated fashion, and publishing it. We’ve neglected the focus on community and ensuring that the students feel connected to the instructor and each other. The Community of Inquiry model is a great framework that can be applied to this progress. It’s a great way of ensuring there is a stronger student connection to the course instead of just in an academic, content absorbing fashion like what has been in the past.

    Explain how your learning in this course will make an impact on your current or future work. Will any artifacts you created be shared with your students or colleagues?

    I’ve already mentioned some ways in which this course will affect my current work, but there are so many ways of using the material presented in this course. The articles, videos, and text books in the course were the most valuable resources I hav experienced in a course. Almost everything is immediately applicable, which is a credit to the instructor and those putting the course together. I have already mentioned the Community of Inquiry, but the other philosophies surrounding pedagogy and andragogy are truly invaluable. I found myself learning something new and applying it or discussing my team each module. I will be using the attitudes and preferences of adult learners while developing graduate courses in the future.

    As far as using artifacts created in the course, I’ve already used the Rich Media tutorial as an example of a screen-captured lecture. It has been shared and viewed multiple times by faculty as they have been transitioning to remote learning and creating online lectures for their students. I also want to use the design checklist and framework when building courses. We already have one that I think is useful and adequate, but I’m considering adding some elements from the resources from that module to supplement some of the tools that we already use. I also want to use the rubrics for online courses in some capacity but again tailor it toward our own course expectations and requirements.

    Overall, this course was a great experience. I have finished this course with a vast amount of resources and best practices that I will be using to enhance online courses and encourage faculty to improve their courses.

  • Online Course Creation Reflection

    How did you use your understanding of Andragogy or adult learning theory in designing this lesson?

    Adult learners bring a wealth of experiences and knowledge with them when they enter a course. Tailoring an assignment in which they are asked to tap into that resource is valuable (Taylor & Kroth, 2009). In my created course, I asked my students to compose a brief online lecture using screen casting software that they would use in their own teaching. It gave them an easy entry point into the activity. Asking them to learn new content in addition to creating something new can be problematic and stressful.

    They already have the knowledge, which would make it easier to engage in something that could be difficult or awkward to complete. This lesson also gives them skills that they can use immediately, which is key for adult learners, as they need to see the immediacy and application of the content they are learning (Taylor & Kroth, 2009).

    What instructional strategies did you apply and how does your design address the cognitive, instructor and social presence?

    Outside of creating the lecture video, I included discussions and reflection into the lesson. These two instructional strategies are ideal for adult learners in an online environment. Discussions facilitate learner-to-learner interaction as well as increase social and cognitive presence in a course (Stavredes, 2011). Reflection allows learners to develop critical thinking, assess their own progress, and become more independent in their learning (Stavredes, 2011). Reflection also builds cognitive presence in a course as it helps learners construct meaning.

    Overall, what was the most difficult in creating this online lesson? How did you solve problems as they came up?

    By far, the hardest part of building this course was learning Blackboard. I’m an instructional designer that builds a lot of online courses in Canvas. I did experience Blackboard as a college instructor a while back, and I remember that Blackboard can be a little clunky when designing. This experience assured me that Blackboard hasn’t changed, and it’s still pretty clunky. I remedied this issue with a lot of trial and error. Using the provided Blackboard guides were also pretty handy, but they were also pretty clunky and confusing to navigate.

    What are your thoughts on online teaching now that you have created an online lesson? What was the most rewarding thing about this project?

    This project opened up my eyes to the value of peer feedback. I benefit from having two other instructional designers at my work, and we commonly put off reviewing each other’s work due to time. The peer feedback I received during this project was invaluable. They brought issues to my attention that I hadn’t even seen before. It was even more valuable during this time with the COVID-19 quarantine and shifting of daily life. I haven’t been exactly in an academic mindset, so having someone else look at my work was beneficial. Moving forward, I’ll put more value in reviewing my fellow ID’s work and ask them to do the same for mine. This project has opened my eyes to the value of that.

    References

    Stavredes, T. (2011). Effective online teaching: Foundations and strategies for student success. Jossey-Bass.

    Taylor, B. & Kroth, M. Andragogy’s transition into the future: Meta-analysis of andragogy and its search for a measurable instrument. Journal of Adult Education, (38)1, 1-11.