When planning for the upcoming academic year, creating an authentic PBL unit during the summer can be a challenge. Without our students, it can feel like our planning lacks student input or voice. However, because every project will have two major driving forces, planning a Project Based Learning unit during the summer is not only possible it can be an authentic and relevant way to implement PBL in your classroom. So, what are those two driving forces?
- Your standards/district requirements.
- Your students’ passions, interests, knowledge, and enthusiasm for the project.
In true PBL facilitator fashion, I’m going to start this entry with my driving question.
“How can we, as authentic PBL teachers, plan during the summer with next year’s kiddos in mind if we don’t yet know their passions?” Especially when, summer planning is crucial to a successful year.
My first year at a PBL school, I was hired 2 weeks before school started and was terrified to start my first project with my students. Not only did I not know what my students were interested in, but I only knew a little about what Project Based Learning actually was. When I sat down to list out things that I wanted to share about PBL planning and nuggets of knowledge I had to pass on, this topic was literally the 1st thing that I listed because it is such a challenge.
Maybe you are just starting with PBL. Maybe you’re a PBL guru and you just want a fresh take. Either way, here are a couple of tips, tricks, and nuggets I have picked up throughout my PBL journey on how to plan a PBL over the summer.
1. Survey Says!
Surveys are a teacher’s best friend, but they are a PBL teacher’s lifeboat. Using some thought-provoking questions, you can get a lot of knowledge from your incoming kiddos to delve into over the summer. You have a few options here for how to go about administering the survey.
- Ask the teacher who currently has your kiddos to administer the survey. In this case, make sure it is super short and that you give it to them in plenty of time. I try to live by the motto, “A last minute decision on my part, does not make an emergency on your part.”
- Post the link on your class website, Dojo Class Story, Facebook, Remind, etc. Then ask the previous teacher to include a link on his/her tech. I really like this option, because you can access the survey digitally and compile your results in many different ways. As well, it helps with students who are new to your school for the year. Send the link out as soon as you get your class list. You can also use a QR code and send it out with a postcard to your new students. Here are some surveys I have already created, that you might find helpful.
- Old school it and send paper copies. You can either give these to the current teacher to give out before school ends OR in the report cards with your students with a self-addressed envelope to be mailed to you over the summer.
2. Move-up Day
I have been very blessed to teach in a wall-to-wall PBL school (every grade level teaches using PBL). So, at the end of every school year, we meet with the grade coming up. We ask them questions to try and predict where the following year will go. Some of the questions we ask to build PBL Brainstorming are...
- “What are you interested in?”
- “Who would you like to help in our community?”
- “What is a need you see?”
Typically through, multiple questions we are able to derive a central idea or topic that most of the students show interest in. When I taught 5th grade, we would narrow it down to 3 options and students would vote for their first project that day. As a primary teacher, I wait until the students have left and try to figure out how I can combine ninjas, friendship, firefighters, helping people without food, and gardening into our first project. Here is a slideshow for brainstorming PBL unit ideas with your class. This is the actual slideshow I used with my first-grade students during Move-up Day.
3. A Strong Entry Event: Plant the Seed and Watch it Grow!
There are just some things that will almost always strike a chord with kiddos. You can brainstorm issues in your school, community, or the world that you think the kiddos will be interested in and begin planting seeds before you even broach the subject of a project with your students. Brace yourself for a course correction, but most of the time they will bite if you prep your entry event to be very high interest. Bring in a special guest to act as your community partner, play a powerful clip, or read an article that you just happened upon over the summer. 
Sometimes a good quality entry event, can build upon an already developed interest and help plant the seeds for a pre-planned project. For example, a video from a bus in your district that shows a student being bullied. Discuss the nutritional value of a particularly heinous lunch one day. Have the principal come in and request your class’s help with a primary group that has had lower test scores.
4. A Last Resort
Ask your student’s previous teacher what the group’s interests are. This is the last resort, as you might not get as accurate information, and could potentially lead to a project flop from lack of interest. But, in a pinch or bind this is an option.
Project Based Learning unit planning is both an art and a science. As you delve deeper into your PBL journey, you will find that planning PBL units during the summer will come more and more naturally to you. But keeping them authentic will always be something to keep in mind. Using the tips above, I hope that your PBL unit planning during the summer will be better able to authentically incorporate your students' passions, interests, and creativity. If you need help planning an authentic PBL unit, check out my FREE PBL unit planning professional development here.