Tools For PBL

This is a list of sites that have some great tools to help you with PBL and implementing it in the classroom. Enjoy looking through this site and mining all the great resources from different organizations across the country.

1. West Virginia PBL Teach 21 - What an awesome site with great resources. Check out the Idea Bank and you will see. The following is an introduction from the educators in West Virginia at Teach 21. "Many people have requested a source for the management tools that are used in the Project Based Learning plans on Teach 21. Here is the place. You will find rubrics, checklists, task management charts, learning logs and other documents that will help your PBL planning and delivery. Most of the documents were created by West Virginia teachers and used in the PBLs on Teach 21. Other documents were created and published on the Novel Approach PBL website, which is no longer on the internet. WV has been given permission by the creator of the site to continue using these PBL documents."

2. Critical Thinking Foundation - Sometimes it can be very difficult to assess critical thinking. For this reason you will find this area devoted to Critcal Thinking from the Critical Thinking Foundation.The Foundation for Critical Thinking offers assessment instruments which share in the same general goal: to enable educators to gather evidence relevant to determining the extent to which instruction is teaching students to think critically (in the process of learning content. Of special interest maybe
1. Criteria for critical thinking assignments. Can be used by faculty in designing classroom assignments or by administrators in assessing the extent to which faculty are fostering
2.Rubrics for assessing student reasoning abilities. A useful tool in assessing the extent to which students are reasoning well through course content

3. PBL Resources - A wonderful page created by Sara Hallemann who is part of the BIE National Faculty. Of special interest on this page is:
1. Wings Project Sample Contract - Quick and simple contract from Aviation High School
2. Critical Thinking Journal Prompts - Ideas to get kids thinking critically as they write.

4. Contracts - Contracts can be so important to making sure that a PBL project is successful with students. Take a moment to view some contracts that just might make the difference in your PBL classroom. It really does help student understand and commit to their portion of the work.
1. Secondary Team Contract - Awesome contract from the state of West Virginia's Teach 21 effort
2. Secondary Team Contract Template - Another product from the state of West Virginia Teach 21

5. Overview of Alternative Assessment Approaches - According to the Coalition of Essential Schools, assessments can be classified into four categories. These include tests, product/project assessments, performance assessments, and process skills assessments. This website contains a chart that presents a wide range of assessment ideas from which you can choose in devising your assessment system.

6. Edutopia 10 Tips For Project Based learning - This is an wonderful PDF file filled with lots of links and information that will provide valuable reading for anyone interested in Project Based Learning. Get ready to read, learn, and reflect as you go through this guide.

7. Crafting The Driving Question - Driving questions can be so simple... yet so difficult to write. Try a little practice and go through this exploration of Driving Questions from PBL Online.

8 The Futures Channel - Awesome collection of videos that will stretch your students mind. While these videos are not a project, they just might inspire some ideas, serve as an entry event, or even provide for a learning experience with in a project.

9. Global School House Network - Excited about getting your students involved in a project that involves collaboration outside of your classroom wall, or even your state, or country? This site could be used to build a PBL unit that just might work for you!