Kanoelani Elementary
PBL Passports, Playgrounds and Pathways
SUMMARY
Kanoelani has worked to transform the experience for its 775 students in our preschool through grade 6 elementary school through bringing real life problems and solutions into the classroom. Kanoelani has trained and created two project based learning units for every classroom, to enable students to tackle real world situations through teamwork, critical thinking, and the creation of public products and presentations to sharpen their academic and 21st century skills. Another component of our project has been supporting and creating a career articulation class. Students are exposed to different career paths and opportunities to learn or experience the skills and attributes that will help them make future decisions about career options. Both of these strategies are supported by the creation of websites that memorialize and share information about projects, resources, interviews.
PROJECT LEAD : Neil Blomberg
CONTACT :
Neil.Blomberg@k12.hi.us
(808) 241-2006
OUTCOME :
Our project impacted approximately 775 students in grades preschool through grade 6. This past year, students experienced two PBL projects in addition to receiving career guidance exposing them to various career paths. With our continued efforts, the future potential of this project has the capability to benefit all 13 elementary schools, 2 intermediate schools and 2 high schools within the Pearl City and Waipahu complexes through our PBL and Career Connections website initiative.
The impact of the grant helped to revive and expand our pre-pandemic Project Based Learning efforts. All teachers in our school were provided the time and coaching that brought cohesiveness and pedagogical effectiveness to the projects for students.
The PBL Playground website’s goal is to have a greater impact beyond our school walls. Kanoelani is leading the website initiative by showcasing 7 PBL project plans and videos (one from each grade level) that will expand in the years ahead. The goal is to have other schools within our neighboring areas to also contribute projects and resources to create a bank for others to implement.
The Career Connections website’s impact will have a broader audience as it will be a resource for anyone to view. Website content will showcase specialized careers that are relevant to today’s evolving job market that also connect to Pearl City and Waipahu High School’s career pathways.
The following are direct quotes from teachers reflecting on the impact the GEER grant impacted themselves as teachers, their students and our school in general:
“The PBL grant took our project farther than we could have on our own and closer to the real world, providing our students with first hand experiences on field trips and investigations with real materials.”
“The PBL grant made a positive impact on the school as a whole. We were able to move forward in understanding and implementing gold standard projects, provide students with necessary resources to demonstrate their learning, and support the different needs of each grade level in developing top notch PBL’s. To culminate, teachers and students were able to celebrate their accomplishments through the creation of the PBL website.”
LESSONS LEARNED :
This grant has shown us that innovation requires a multifaceted team of dreamers. There have been different levels of lessons learned to all stakeholders. In implementing PBL, teachers have become more comfortable in releasing control to their students to provide more student led projects. The grant helped fund our 32 training days and a coaching position to support the teachers transition into doing PBL units relatively smoothly.
Students reflected on how they practiced real-world skills like problem solving, work with others, and asking questions to further their learning.
The grant funds allowed us to forge meaningful partnerships with our website and video support. Having a shared common vision was a challenge to coordinate and communicate but we are pleased with our results.
The greatest challenge was being able to successfully share and publicize our student and teacher work outside of our school buildings. Pandemic protocols and the challenge of creating the website content for Career and PBL areas has made this a slower shift than we thought. We look forward to pushing this during the next phase of our project implementation going forward.
