PHILIP ESTRADA
  • Projects
    • Shift
    • Ritual
    • Colors and Shapes
    • Tensegrity
    • Lakeview Cut
    • Second Nature
    • It Gets Funkier
    • Making Space
    • Rotational Volumes
    • Changed By Chairs
    • Gearboxes
    • Pendulums
    • Microscopic Images
    • Inspraytion
    • 60 Word Short Stories
    • PBL Illustrations
    • Foundations Podcast
    • Inclusive Strategies Podcast
  • Helpful Links
    • Critique Questions
    • Lasercutting
    • Drawing Models
    • Honors
  • Blog
  • About

OBSERVATION

Notes and reflections from teaching through projects

First Friday Deliverable

2/26/2019

0 Comments

 

How to make sure your project gets moving quickly! or How to check that your project will work.

Sometimes when planning projects, it is easy to lose focus of what the class will be doing the whole time that you've set aside for this work. What will the day to day tasks be? For a project to be successful, it is necessary that students start with experience before moving on. Good projects also involve multiple drafts and revisions. The best projects will turn your classroom into a kind of cycling museum, with new stuff going up and being replaced and showing what the class is working on. All projects should end in a final deliverable or final product that the students are proud of. How can you be sure that you are doing all this and that your project is aiming for greatness? Make sure you have a First Friday Deliverable.

​

Read More
0 Comments

Design Process as Scaffolding

2/25/2019

0 Comments

 

How do I scaffold complex tasks in an authentic and engaging way? or What is the day to day of PBL?

​Earlier in my teaching I used to think that in PBL we were intentionally withholding information. It felt like we were asking students to discover concepts and skills that were well established in academics and I didn't like the dynamic that it created. My perspective has changed since then and thought I'd share.

So you are trying PBL, and you need your class to learn how to do something that is complex, like writing a comic book or building a glider. How do you scaffold all the skills that go into that task? How can you individualize the learning for each of your students? In short, you need to let them try it first, then fill in the holes over time. Here are my suggested steps for doing that. I'll give examples for a few different types of projects.

Read More
0 Comments

    Author

    Philip Estrada is a teacher at High Tech High Media Arts in San Diego California. He teaches Physics by having kids build things in a woodshop.

    Archives

    May 2022
    November 2020
    August 2020
    December 2019
    September 2019
    June 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017

    Categories

    All
    Assessment
    Doing PBL
    Perspectives
    Planning PBL
    Things To Try

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Projects
    • Shift
    • Ritual
    • Colors and Shapes
    • Tensegrity
    • Lakeview Cut
    • Second Nature
    • It Gets Funkier
    • Making Space
    • Rotational Volumes
    • Changed By Chairs
    • Gearboxes
    • Pendulums
    • Microscopic Images
    • Inspraytion
    • 60 Word Short Stories
    • PBL Illustrations
    • Foundations Podcast
    • Inclusive Strategies Podcast
  • Helpful Links
    • Critique Questions
    • Lasercutting
    • Drawing Models
    • Honors
  • Blog
  • About