In a classroom based around Project Based Learning, new teachers are thrown into a situation that they have likely never observed. Classroom management is quite different, and the areas they must master can appear unfamiliar. The teacher’s school may have adopted PBL as its sole system, or is partially based around PBL such as in some I.B. schools, or is traditionally-oriented in its accreditation and history but with room for teacher’s to deviate into other educational styles. “The IB program places structured inquiry at the heart of the learning process” (Project Based Learning, n.d.) and the change is quite radical relative to more traditional public school classes.
In the U.S. most public schools have teachers who spent their entire K-12 career observing the teaching style that they would one day enact. Indeed, in most of humanity’s history, children have been raised observing elders who were proficient at an activity that the children would later take up as adults. It is only in recent history, less than centuries and in many situations a matter of decades, that children have not been able to observe experts do jobs and then grow up to do those same jobs using the same techniques. Raising crops, slaughtering animals, making durable goods, and construction have had stable technology used across most of the world. In the modern-day U.S. household, children engage in activities that their parents have never seen. Adults are exposed to rapidly changing activities and cultures in their own activities as well. The progress of change is rapid, nearly everywhere, and each industry needs special consideration to best take advantage of the affair.
New teachers in a PBL classroom would be well served to crucially focus on classroom discipline. Discipline is not a first and singular area of responsibility that should be focused on, but rather a consideration to keep at a high rank when designing a plan, and in the midst of managing a classroom. Motivation and purpose are radically altered in an I.B. school, focusing more on self-mastery, knowledge creation, and social service (International Baccalaureate, 2010). “Project Based Learning is finding a natural home within the framework of International Baccalaureate programs” (Project Based Learning, n.d.), and we can find that classroom management across the two has similar focuses. In a traditional classroom content knowledge, endurance, and focus are the targets to motivate students towards, and success in hitting these targets is seen as an excellent and challenging purpose that will propel a student into successful adulthood. Discipline in a such a classroom must direct students towards independence, which can feel like an opposing idea. Students need to be asked to look inward for reasons, rather than respecting the words of the teacher at face value.
To help organize the concept of discipline in a PBL classroom, reviewing the methods of communication with students and between students can be very helpful. Communication is nearly a non-skill in a traditional classroom, relegated below a subset of communication: presentation. A PBL classroom can often appear out of control to a casual observer, as communication is being practiced along numerous non-traditional vectors. Student-to-student, student-to-class, and teacher-to-dynamic groups stand out brightly in a classroom. When teachers communicate to dynamic groups, it often involves students self-nominating themselves into such a group. For example, students deciding that they need more information on the topic at hand and listening, while students who already understand move ahead. In a traditional classroom this group of students would likely have no students nominate themselves, if the subject matter was not immediately pressuring or enjoyable. A teacher new to a PBL classroom should ask themselves how to gradually improve communication in their classroom, and how that will tie into discipline. A common and useful guiding path is making sure students are “on task”, and focused on their work, even if they are talking to each other.
Organization can be unsupported by a teacher’s school, yet massively helpful in starting a new class, and doubly so when starting a new class as a new teacher. Many students in a PBL classroom are often not familiar with PBL processes and require training and experience to be effective members of their classroom community. Visual displays and physical arrangements of materials and furniture can often provide faster and more direct instruction than a teacher’s explanation. For example, public task lists and task-oriented physical spaces can lead a student to independently follow a work plan, rather than having that student rely upon instructions from the teacher. If the teacher can successfully motivate the student into wanting to achieve the goals set forth in the class, plus organize the classroom in such a fashion as to give the student independence of action, then the teacher will find that they have added one capable ally who will work towards the goal and help recruit others to work towards the goal. The feedback cycle is virtuous and can grow class efficiency with multiplier effects achieved by the students.
Of the seven areas of classroom management defined by Cini (2017), Discipline, Communication, and Organization are essential for new teachers in a PBL classroom to focus on. Classroom Design, Rules, Scheduling, and Instructional Technique will evolve from these, and be much easier to handle with the students supporting the teacher.
Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University, wrote, “Despite the commonplace rhetoric of interdisciplinarity, academics seem all too content creating languages and cultures that are insular. We have gotten really good at education as a form of narrowing, while what we really need is to provide students with intellectual cross-training, and for that we need faculty who can communicate across a variety of fields.” (Strauss, 2017)
The conflict that he refers to is at a university level and speaks to the inability of teachers to collaborate with other teachers to effect change. It is important to note here because it is symptomatic of knowledge being generated at centralized locations and spread out through established channels. Teachers are often being managed at their workplaces through traditional means and rarely experience the type of innovative management that they provide to students. However, as the population of PBL and I.B. educators gain experience and age, there is opportunity to adjust systems and implement change at organizational levels above the classroom. District supervisors and politicians who have benefitted from improved styles of classroom management will one day exist in greater numbers, and will be more capable than ever in implanting their preferences across society.
References
“International Baccalaureate”. (2010). The IB Learner Profile: A singular capacity for invigorating campus life. Retrieved June 22, 2020, https://www.ibo.org/globalassets/publications/recognition/learnerprofile-en.pdf
“Project Based Learning” (n.d.). “PBL Brings Authenticity to International Baccalaureate: MyPBLWorks.” PBL Works, Buck Institute. Retrieved June 22, 2020, my.pblworks.org/resource/blog/pbl_brings_authenticity_to_international_baccalaureate.
Strauss, Valerie. (2017, January). “Why Pragmatic Liberal Education Matters Now More than Ever.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 13 Jan. 2017, www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/01/13/why-pragmatic-liberal-education-matters-now-more-than-ever/
Cini, S. (2017). Seven Key Elements for Effective Classroom Management. Retrieved June 22, 2020, https://classroom.synonym.com/seven-elements-effective-classroom-management-6562940.html