Two years ago, we started working with this new methodology called PBL, or Project/Problem based learning, that consists of helping the students create their own knowledge scaffolding.
In our highschool, IES Sapere Aude, teachers try to use this methodology at least in 3rd ESO and 4th ESO. There is a central project that develops two different topics: Madrid de los Austrias for 3rd ESO and Sustainability for 4th ESO.
In Social Sciences, the bilingual groups study different aspects of the city, from legends and ghost stories to the civil war and the buildings destroyed between 1936 and 1939. Students create their own digital timelines and a useful scenario in an app called Eduloc that all visitors can use to discover the city, complete with videos, pictures and a game to make your visit more interactive.
This page will be convenient as well to find information if you want to develop your own project thanks to the wikispaces, videos, timelines, interactive posters and maps that you will find in it.
2014-2015
This was the first year we worked with PBL, and the final product was less ambitious. However, the approach to History and Geography was really appropiate. Students learned how to create digital timelines with Timeline JS and how to geolocate with Google my Maps.
This was the result:
2015-2016
The last course, my students worked really hard organizing the project using Trello. Everything was programmed and we followed the schedule.
They had to investigate different buildings located in Madrid de los Austrias, as they will do this year, create their own wikispaces and create a tour to the city with Eduloc using all the information. Then, with the information gathered, they decide the issue that they want to investigate.
Finally, they created their own posters with QR codes linked to their wikispaces and some awesome videos in which they explained their projects.
PROJECT DESIGN
To motivate the students and explain the project, I created this presentation in which you will find a brief summary of the whole PBL.
You can read more about how to organize a PBL here.
Isabel García-Velasco