Interview with Mr. Cantrell

 This week I have had my first interview for my big end of the year project. For my first interview, I had chosen Mr. Cantrell, who I believe is a great source to get my information from because he incorporates Project Based Learning in every unit he teaches. Below I will list my questions (S:) and Mr. Cantrell's reply (MC:).

S: How do you incorporate PBL in your classroom?
MC: I used to do it a lot more than I do now. What I try to do, is scale down from the PBL schools (see below) and since we have had such a 21st century learning type of goal at Davis, I try to have all of my projects with digital possibility, where they can take something and make it into a video or a student can take it and make it into a digital presentation, or something like that. I have had a student make a presentation of the colony of Savannah [GA] out of a Minecraft, where they can go on and physically build it by coding. That's what I try to drive that out of.

S: How can PBL vary from school to school?
MC: The big thing with education now, is differentiation. You have students that learn better by hearing it, students learning things better by writing things down, and you have some students that learn things better if they can [physically touch/manipulate things] (kinesthetic) and that's the whole basis of PBL. I have been exposed to the traditional PBL theories... but that can be really expensive for schools, you almost have to have a charter school scenario in order to afford to be able to do that. Those schools have all kinds of incredible projects.

S:How do you think PBL has helped your students?
MC: It's a different approach. For example, I can explain what a North Star Quilt (a quilt used for the Underground Railroad to signify a safe house) is and how it was used, but if you spend time to actually construct one for a project, it's going to give you a better appreciation for it. To be able to say "Here, I made this, I did this" is something that is really unique. The students become more interested and they tend to understand the material better.

S:What kind of projects have you found to work well/not well with students?
MC: One of the projects that I do every year with the Civil War is the Mammoth Project. I give the kids all kinds of options. I've had students make quilts, flags, dioramas, cakes, and hardtack (a extremely hard cracker that many soldiers to eat, trust me... it's like a rock). It fires up the kids who don't really want to read or watch a video or something like that. I have learned that kids making videos does not work really well. It tends to be kind of the worst case scenario, because the students get giggly and silly, and it ends up being 1/3 the project and 2/3 [bloopers]. Video projects tend to be better if only one person does it. What really works well, is the type of project that is open ended. The kids can do whatever they are good at; even coming up to me and asking me to do something that they feel would be better.

S: What kind of students do you believe work well with PBL?
MC: It's funny how the students who would knock a project out of the park are usually the ones in the class, who sit by themselves, kind of the square peg that does not necessarily fit in (I love this comparison!),  and sometimes even ostracized by the rest of the students come in and do unbelievable things. That's the one that really gets fired up about these kinds of open-ended projects. It's that one wallflower (also love this comparison!) that comes up with stuff that you weren't really expecting. That's where it really hits home.

S: What would you suggest for kids who do not work well with PBL?
MC: The best thing to do is to try to make the project where the students can do whatever they may be good at. For example, if they are not good at public speaking, then they can create a project where they could just show it on the projector and have it present itself (like the Mindcraft project mentioned earlier). If that person does not really work well, then try to give them an alternate assignment.

S: Have you noticed any drawbacks of PBL?
MC: It's very tough for me (teachers) to grade properly. I try to set my rubrics up to reward the people that put the most effort into it, but if you can tell someone put a lot of effort into their project, but is still not very polished because maybe it just wasn't part of their skill set, I try to take that into account. It's still hard for me to grade. I have to be really careful to be fair to those who put a lot of work into their projects and make sure the grades reflect the actual project itself.

S: What other teaching strategies do you prefer to use in your classroom, besides PBL?
MC:I try to do a balanced approach. I do some lecturing, even though I'm not a huge fan of lecturing notes, but I also know that realistically, when my 8th graders get to high school, that is going to be a lot of that going on.

S:How do you think technology has impacted PBL and other strategies?
MC: New technology has made it to where [teachers] can incorporate PBL more in their classrooms. It can make schools into an almost 100% PBL environment very possible. The students are able to do so much more. I have shown students websites where they can make their own music by layering different instruments. They can use these kinds of sites to make their own background music. They can post their videos. It just really opens up a lot of possibilities. You can go anywhere with technology and make almost anything.

S: What kind of advise would you give to new teachers about PBL or other strategies?
MC: Especially when you are doing student teaching, rely a little on your mentor to give you ideas of things you can do. It's always good to use resources such as the internet, YouTubing, educational organization websites, teacher blogs, and things like that to get ideas. You really need to do things that work well with you. If you don't believe it, you are not going to be able to convince a group of students to believe that. What I would recommend for your first few years of teaching, is to do what the other teachers are doing in your subject area in order to get a feel of what you like, dislike, or how you would change something to fit what you like better.


 Mr. Cantrell made some really good points in his interview. It's very important to incorporate different ways of teaching for those kids who learn differently. It's always good to mix things up with the lecturing and note-taking to the projects. I like Mr. Cantrell's idea of keeping projects a little open-ended. That way, kids can shine with whatever they may be good at. I do remember being in his class some odd three years and really enjoying that I could do something different, since I am not incredibly tech-savvy, I was able to create something with what I was good at. I do believe that technology has a big impact on PBL, and it can be hard to incorporate PBL if there is not readily available technology. You really need technology to implement PBL in your classroom. To add to the drawbacks of PBL, I have read that PBL can be very time consuming along with what Mr. Cantrell had mentioned.
 I have defiantly learned many things from Mr. Cantrell's interview, as I hope that my readers had also and can use this information for my project.


~Sarah

Project Based Learning

As mentioned in my previous post, I have chosen Project-Based Learning (or PBL) as my topic for my Honors Mentorship final project/presentation. There were many topics I could have chosen for teaching, but I believe that the PBL research I must do will benefit me the most for my future classroom because history can be a difficult subject to teach, and you have to be able to engage students or they will not remember or understand the material. PBL is a wonderful way to engage the students! Through this project, I want to know if PBL helps students understand the material better. I want to learn about the projects I could assign that would be helpful to students. I need to know what will engage students the most! That's why my project would be about distinguishing and evaluating the pros and cons of PBL and comparing and contrasting PBL techniques with other teaching strategies- What is PBL? One of my ideas for this project, is to use real-life examples. I could use some of the wonderful projects that I have seen in Mr. Cantrell's class to demonstrate the effectiveness of PBL. I plan to interview teachers, conduct student surveys and interviews, as well as research to help answer my essential question/statement. I am doing this in order gain a perspective of how teachers feel about PBL and their experiences of using projects in their classrooms. I think that the students surveys would also provide an unbiased (I would be considered biased) student view of projects and their effectiveness (or ineffectiveness). These can lead me into finding out what I can do to engage my students in history.

~Sarah