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:
- What do we know?
- What do you need to know?
- 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?
Jared Pyles 