Kristin has a very important question about Project Based Learning that may affect her job. We need to make sure she knows exactly what to do in the situation she presents below:
Hi Ben,
I wonder if you could answer this question for me or post it on the blog. The head of my language department stopped to talk to me today, and while he is/has been very supportive of TPRS, and even had me demo it to the rest of the department, he has yet to try CI methods or embrace the ideas behind it. He stopped by my room today after school and suggested that I think of a project or two for the students to do. Our school and district is all about this kind of learning now and has really jumped on the bandwagon. I don’t think this is coming from him exactly, but rather that he is trying to help me out by telling me what I need to do to try to get myself a job next year. As a teacher covering a maternity leave for another teacher that may or may not come back, I think he is just looking out for me. He figures I need a “portfolio” of projects to show the administration to convince them to hire me – or at least to get myself a job elsewhere in the district (specifically in a brand new project-based learning school opening in September 2014). So the pressure is not coming from him exactly – I think he could care less what I do in my classroom, to be honest, and he finds the idea of TPRS interesting so he is kind of on my side in that regard.
My question is, is there any way to make TPRS look something like project-based learning? Or to come up with a “project” of some type that would still provide students with CI? I am so strongly opposed to projects that it physically hurts me to think about making my students do them. While I’m sure they would enjoy it, I’m not convinced to would acquire anything from it. It feels wrong to teach in one way even though I KNOW it doesn’t work!
On the bright side, my principal has observed me once and he did love the class and the method. But he is also very strongly FOR project-based learning, so it’s hard to say if he will be happy with my method in the end or will want me to do more projects like teachers in other subjects are expected to.
Any ideas for how to make TPRS work in this kind of a situation?
Kristin
