Tomorrow is my first PBL launch of the year and I am super excited. After weeks of routines, and getting to know my class, I am confident that they are ready to engage in the upcoming project. Reflecting on years past, I have tweaked the responses to some of the questions I anticipate during tomorrow's launch day.
So how will the day go?
First, we will start by going through a thinking routine from Harvard's Project Zero. This thinking routine is called Think, Puzzle, Explore. I will post the Kiva Website up on the board as the visual for which the students will be using for the routine. Students will be put into pairs and will use post it notes to write down their thoughts before we circle up as a group. Because the boys have had a fair bit of exposure to Kiva through previous students in years past, I wonder if these responses will have as many misconceptions as we have had in the past. I hope to push students to think deep and take chances through this routine.
Second, after the thinking routine it will be time to launch the driving question and "intro event". With the help of kiva I have a wonderful video to use to get the energy and excitement going. Thanks Kiva.org - YOU ROCK!!!
By having Kiva "ask" the boys for help, I am expanding the public audience of this PBL from the beginning and my hope is that the quality of the products increase. I know that Kiva is excited to see what we come up with and I am also sure that it will be shared with students and teachers alike that are interested and/or using Kiva.org in their classroom.
Third, after the video I will share the driving question with the boys:
"How can we make advertisements for Kiva that best represent the organization and convince new and existing customers to loan to particular geographic areas?"
Fourth, the boys will have an opportunity to ask questions before they begin guiding inquiry of pertinent Kiva vocabulary.
DAY 2
During the second day of our project, the boys will be asked to decide, given their region, countries they would like to focus on. They will be asked to fill out proposals and share the convincing statistics they plan to use. In addition, they must choose three statistical representations to include in their advertisement. This will display their knowledge and use of statistics, graphs and plots.
Before the boys decide on whether to make commercials or print ads, I will share whether them an example of each so that we can talk about what is important to include in an advertisement and what is not. While advertisements are not going to fit my exact criteria, they should get the creative juices going.
Kiva Ad/Commercial
Kiva Ad/Print
Day 3
Boys will continue working on proposals and rough drafts or story boards. At this point I will share with them that the commercials will be used by Kiva Council and OUR faculty to help with lending some of our existing funds too. We have a lot of funds to re-lend and I hope that faculty will take a minute to choose a borrower based on a region/advertisement that speaks to them.
Please feel free to join us in this campaign. We'd love to work together with classes all over the world. And stay posted for examples from beginning to end.
As with everything... I bet these 3 days turn into 5 but here we go! It's going to be a solid few weeks of fun! Let the excitement begin!!!
Resources to consider for advertisements:
imovie
tackk.com
lucidpress.com
