Challenge Week
Before beginning an independent project, the students need to know what they’re made of. This whole idea of Personal PBL is totally new to them. So for week one, we did different quick challenges inspired by Destination Imagination. I found most ideas here. The goal was to put the class in new, unexpected situations where they had to tap into specific skills. Each challenge had a different focus skill: teamwork, generating ideas, and problem-solving.
The challenges took the form of building, presenting, and a lot of creativity. The time was broken into 4 parts: initial instructions, planning, action, and reflection. To me, planning and reflection were the most essential as well as unfamiliar components. It was easy to see natural leaders form and unique talents rise to the occasion. Kids seriously always blow me away!
We ended each time reflecting with this Haiku Deck using the questions seen below. Reflection brought clarity to the goal of each challenge as well as awareness to what each student brought to the table. I hope this week lays a strong foundation for helping students understand what they are capable of.
