5 Tips for Better Culminating Events in Your PBL Classroom
1. Begin With the End in Mind
As you are planning your PBL unit, consider the possible outcomes students might arrive at. The culminating event should answer the driving question and be student-directed. But, you as the facilitator can plant seeds to guide students towards the event you hope they will choose to answer the driving question. Plan your culminating event soon after you establish a driving question with your class.
2. Presentations
Somewhere along the line, PBL units and 21st Century skills became synonymous with slideshow presentations. More often than not, when coaching facilitators in PBL, I hear about their culminating event being a slideshow presentation day. While slideshow skills are an important and marketable skill. Try encouraging your students to think outside the “slideshow”. Check out this infographic or helpful alternatives.
3. An Audience Can Be Anyone
When planning your PBL unit, think about who will benefit the most from your student presentations. Often, the answer is the larger community. However, depending on the driving question, the audience can be as small as the students within the classroom. The city is not relevant if our driving question is “How can we, as fifth grade students in Mrs. Lane’s class, make our classroom feel more like home?”. Teaching about audience relevance is as important as teaching presentation skills like voice volume and eye contact.
4. The End Isn’t Always Final
“But Mrs. Lane, what about the sea turtles? We didn’t help the turtles.” A small girl stood in front of me, holding back her tears, as we sat on the carpet talking about the success of our circus elephant fundraiser. We had begun our PBL unit studying endangered animals and through a series of events, ended up helping a circus elephant sanctuary in Tennessee. But this little girl was broken-hearted, because she still saw injustice in the world that she wanted to remedy. “Let’s bring it to the class and see what they think.” I encouraged her.
As she stood in front of the class, she prompted them to continue. “We still have animals that haven’t been helped, like the sea turtles.” I watched in awe as she, not myself, called for a vote. “Raise your hand if you still want to help other endangered animals like the sea turtle.” Little hands shot into the air like popcorn. From there, we began the second part of a PBL unit, that I had believed to be completed.
5. “Reflect Before You Snack..Act!” - Mulan
Reflection is important throughout a PBL unit. However, it is especially important after a culminating event. Often, these reflections lend themselves to discussions that provide new PBL unit opportunities, make connections between adulthood and the skills from the unit, and allow students who were in the minority for voting to feel they were “heard”.