Category: 21st Century Skills


Using Student Work to Backward Design PBL

I love the concept of backward design. Think of the desired learning outcome first, determine how to measure if learning occurred, and then form the learning activity. How can you lose? I’ve been thinking about how such an approach could be linked to project-based learning. Yes, we could establish the learning goal and how to […]

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How Schools Can Help Students Solve Real-Life Problems

Often we talk about PBL in terms of how it helps students with their own learning.  But there’s another area where PBL can allow students to shine – serving others to address real-life problems. We see a great example of this from Glendale High School (Springfield, MO)​. As part of their PBL-based curriculum called “Quest,” […]

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The Mock Turtle's Story

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Salvadore Dalí

In 1969 something magical happened in the world. Random House published a new edition of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” written by Lewis Carroll and illustrated by Salvatore Dalí. Yes, the Dalí you know. 12 unique illustrations, one for each chapter. Insanely intense, in bright colors, the illustrations were, well,  surreal. I loved them at first sight, even […]

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Kids Can Design Video Games to Power-Up PBL

I remember booting up Super Mario Bros. for the first time. The bright colors.  The iconic theme music.  Jumping on my first goomba. Good times. What I didn’t think about back then was how many people actually worked on the game.  Someone designed the level.  Someone else composed the music.  Someone else did the artwork and […]

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Should School Districts Open Incubators for Project Based Learning?

Often times educators are faced with the challenge of integrating project-based learning into an already established classroom, within an already established school.  Integrating such change can run into all types of obstacles, with one reason being that the infrastructure of the school (physically and intellectually) was not originally intended for such an immersive and potentially […]

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Where in the world are you?

Let me find out. Are you east of the Mississippi? Are you in one of the 13 original colonies? These are the type of questions 4th graders in Wisconsin’s Vesper Community Academy asked to find out the location of another “mystery” school during a video chat in March. Through the power of enabling technologies – […]

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