Project based learning is an experiential approach to education. A good PBL program is student-centric and allows learners the freedom to explore their interests and learning styles alongside core curriculum.
The fundamental objective of project based learning is to get students more engaged. They should regularly be practicing 21st-century skills such as teamwork, communication, and self-directed research.
This approach is growing in popularity, and innovative programs around the world are now utilizing this approach. Despite producing good results, executing a PBL curriculum is no easy task. This series of posts by educator Philip Cummings lays out his personal experience with PBL curriculum.
It’s no surprise that instructors are still looking for more ideas to figure out their own PBL curriculum.
Perhaps the most important, yet easily overlooked, section of a PBL program is reflection. John Dewey’s well-known adage goes, “We do not learn from our experience, but from reflection on our experience.”
BIE writer and national faculty member Charity Parsons lists some convincing reasons why every PBL lesson plan should include reflection. Students exposed to reflection during the project will have deepened learning, sharpened analytical skills, and better integration of new and previous knowledge.
You’ve spent the extra time designing a PBL curriculum for your students. Do you want them to get the maximum value out of the experience, or miss the important development that reflection inspires?
“Reflection” should not be confused with simply “analysis.” Analysis can be directed outwardly at a film or article, whereas reflection is directed inwardly and at one’s own experience.
It’s the difference between answering “How did this story portray racism?” and “How did I feel my own opinions changing as I read the story on racism?” The latter question directs the student towards their own experience. This is why reflection creates powerful connections between new information and how it interacts with daily life.
BIE Editor in Chief John Larmer further explains the difference between “reflection” and what he calls “critique” in his post on reflection within a PBL context.
There are different types of reflection, and they fall into a hierarchy of critical thinking. From most basic to most advanced, they go:
- Recalling – what did I do?
- Evaluating – How well did I do it?
- Analyzing – What patterns were present? What did I learn from this?
- Doing – What will I do next, and how will I apply what I learned?
A good reflective exercise will walk a learner through these different stages of reflective thinking.
Now, what happens when we talk about reflection in the context of project based learning?
This is where the magic happens, and the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
By its nature, project based learning incorporates teamwork, interactive experiences, leadership, and self-directed action. These are all useful 21st-century skills, and reflection is critical in improving them.
It is up to the learner to ask, “what happened when I put my idea forward to the team? How can I get a better outcome?” Even the most vigilant instructor cannot guide every social nuance within a PBL environment.
Furthermore, a traditional classroom often provokes reflection at the end of a unit. The beauty of PBL is that curriculum can be designed to be a cyclical process of reflection and improvement as the project unfolds.
So what are some simple ideas to introduce reflection in your classroom?
Veteran educator Katy Farber lists several ideas. Interviews, journals, whole-class discussions, and sketches are all methods that students can exercise reflective thinking.
Additionally, there is another simple tool that can bring instant and surprising results to your classroom. You may have even used it before.
Exit Tickets!
Although you may have heard of Exit Tickets, or even used them before, their real usefulness shines within a PBL environment.
An Exit Ticket is an assessment tool that allows teachers to understand how a lesson was received and processed by students. Often these exercises yield information that is meant solely for the instructor to apply to future lesson planning.
That one-dimensional flow of information changes in a PBL context.
Within a PBL environment, Exit Tickets are tools for the learners as well as instructors. Their scope suddenly goes beyond the main lesson content.
What did the students learn about their unique communication methods? Leadership skills? Teamwork dynamics? Personal strengths and preferred learning styles?
Finding the answers to these questions unlock those sought-after 21st-century skills and self-directed learning habits.
By making reflection a regular part of the PBL experience, the student and teacher can make constant improvements to a wider context of learning.
So what makes a good exit ticket?
Exit Tickets will only yield results as good as their design. A vague and superficial question begets a similar answer.
Remember, these exercises are ungraded. Until you have ingrained reflection into the class culture, students may only put in the effort required to answer the basic question.
Here are some good ideas to optimize your Exit Tickets:
Exit Tickets should be short. Choose one or two inquiries and allow several minutes for the students to reflect. Use specific questions. Think of the different answers these questions illicit:
“What did you learn?”
“What did you learn the easiest? What does that say about you as a learner?”
The first question is vague, and a bad motivator for rigorous thinking.
There are particular types of questions that inspire reflective thinking. They are:
- Backward-looking – what happened?
- Forward-looking – what will I do in the future?
- Inward-looking – how did I feel about this?
- Outward-looking – how did the material, people, and I interact?
Choose action-oriented and positive wording. See these examples:
From “what can I do to improve” to “what will I do to improve.”
The word “will” creates a mental commitment rather than a passive thought.
From “what don’t I understand” to “what must I work harder on to understand.” This wording reinforces an optimistic and solution-oriented mindset and challenges a student to learn more about themselves.
Structured questions can help. This is especially true in the beginning before students are accustomed to forming their own inquiries.
Before/after questions make students aware of their progress.
Examples: “What mistakes did I make while communicating before that I now make less of?”
“What concept did I not understand before that I understand now? How did I clear it up?”
Similarly, now/later questions let students commit to action and improvement.
Examples: “What did I learn today as a leader that I will apply during the next class?”
“What concept will I focus on mastering so I can help my teammates during the next assignment?”
How to avoid bad Exit Tickets.
Simply put, bad practice is:
- Using vague and superficial wording will elicit vague and superficial reflection.
- Avoid passive and negative wording will enforce “I can’t” attitudes with no actionable way forward.
- Simple factual recall questions are typically bad.
- Don’t be repetitive when designing Exit Tickets. The project is evolving. The students are developing. Why shouldn’t the assessment as well? A routine reflection exercise will make the process robotic. Routine will mute the very analytical skills you want to develop.
- Avoid unstructured questions such as “what did you learn” and “how can you improve.” At least until the standards are set.
A fundamental idea of designing your exit ticket is this: You get what you put in. Keeping this in mind makes it easy to identify good and bad Exit Tickets. Remember:
- Integrate exit tickets and other reflective exercises throughout a project, not just at the end!
- Fewer questions with more time to look deep into each question is the way to go. Try and limit between 1-2 essential questions.
- Use forward, backward, inward, and outward-looking questions that utilize action-oriented and positive wording.
- If you are just starting to build a reflective culture in the classroom, use more structured questions such as before/after and then/now to help students understand how the process works.
- Avoid becoming repetitive with your questions, and evolve them along with the class.