Chapter 1

Chapter one talks about students learning through real world projects.  During PBL the students switch roles with the teacher.  The teacher ends up sitting back when the students decide what they want to do.  They create questions to investigate so that the students can find their own meanings.  I haven’t had much experience in PBL, but I do know it is supposed to increase student motivation because they are creating the projects.  Although, the traditional PBL has been effective they still want to try and make some adjustments with it to make it even better.  With the revamped PBL they want “projects to form the centerpiece of the curriculum, engage in real-world activities and practice strategies of authentic disciplines, work collaboratively to solve problems that matter to them,”  (Boss and Krauss 2007) and a few other things. 

            From what I know about PBL I think it is a great idea because it gets the students away from the everyday boring routine of using a textbook.  PBL allows the students to be creative  and chose what they want to learn about for a certain topic.  When I did an internship in a 3^rd grade classroom my mentor teacher hardly used the textbook.  Instead I remember her have her students pick a certain thing from the lesson they were on a use the computer to research things they wanted to know. 

Yes, PBL is almost 100% for the students, but it is also for the teachers.  On page 14 the texts talks about how PBL is still new to several teachers and they too have to learn about it and from it.  When I first learned about PBL I thought it was a great idea and was totally on board to try and incorporate it in my future classroom.  However, at the same time it scared me because I had no idea how to try and teach this way.  Like this chapter talks about though, it takes time.    In conclusion, I learned a lot about PBL and how it has been revamped as time goes on.  PBL teaches the students as well as the teachers themselves.  As teachers we have to be patient and know that as time goes on the more comfort we will gain in teaching PBL.  I look forward to reading the next chapter.