The 6 STEP PROCESS OF PBL is a Problem Solving Process that allows you to break down and organize the structure of a PBL Unit into six different stages: 1. Define the Problem, 2. Solution Criteria, 3. Solution Research, 4. Pick a Solution, 5. Create, Run, and Inspect Solution, and 6. Reflect on Solution.

This terrific resource has a FREE PDF file of this process and how to run each step. The site also includes many resources, blog articles, examples of the process in elementary, middle and high schools, rubrics, videos and more at each step of the process. A great one-stop shop!

This lesson helps define imagination and creativity and explain how it helps us learn and about ourselves and the world. Caine created a massive cardboard arcade and is the inspiration behind this lesson.

Directions for this age old strategy game that gets your students thinking creatively and critically:

With your friend(s) take turns making line segments to connect the dots. When you can complete a square, put your initial inside it. The winner is the person with the most initialed squares.

Students will choose a Canadian historical event, research it thoroughly, and then write a story based on the event placing themselves or a fictitious character(s) within the historical event. Their story will include the historical event setting and characteristics that describe the specific time period and event in history. By reading and analyzing texts and photos of the event they chose, students will gather the background information needed to create their own story. Learning will be enhanced by technology infusion and the incorporation of 21 Century learning competencies. Students will make a “Historical Moment” advertisement for TV using green screen technology as a method of promoting their historical story.

In our unit on forces and simple machines we incorporated
many different uses of technology. During our unit the students were
given an opportunity to work collaboratively and think critically. After
learning all about simple machine and forces, my class had to
collaboratively design a fair test that would explore one of type of force.
Each group created a fair a test and designed and collected materials to
carry out this experiment. They also had to create a tool to record their
results. During their experiment we had 3 adults with iPads who walked
around the room videoing as the students explained their findings. This
allowed us to check their understanding at this point.
Some ways we used technology throughout this unit
- Used as an instructional tool
- Students used to share their results
- Shared results through pictures and videos
- Present Data
- Generate class discussions
- Final Assessment (students created a PowerPoint)

Explicitly teach connotative and denotative language. (See notes & scanned advertisements, which are completed as a class – teacher directed - and handout, which is done in a small group and then corrected as a class). Students will then partner up, select an innocent everyday item, get it approved, and design a “safe” or “family friendly” advertisement for placement in an innocuous magazine such as Family Circle, Canadian Home Workshop, or Knitting World. Students then start thinking outside the box for what loaded language they can incorporate into their advertisement to appeal to readers’ humour and sell to a very different audience. These advertisements will be somewhat racier and more riské as they are designed to be placed in magazines such as Men’s Health, Cosmopolitan, and the like. I then encourage students to complete the ads using an appropriate computer program, but this isn’t a set requirement. Some students are very artistic and prefer to free hand their work.

Students will work in small groups to cooperatively to complete a Fermi math problem. Fermi math challenges students to solve seemingly complicated questions using estimation, rounding, approximations, analytical thinking, creative thinking, communication, and technology skills. The students will investigate the driving question: If you wanted to send a valentine card to each person in the world next year:
• how many boxes of packaged valentines will you need to purchase?
• how much will it cost for you to purchase and mail all of the cards?
• if everyone in the world sent a valentine to everyone else in the world, how many valentines in total would be sent?

Students will explore the transmission of folktales over time and continent to evaluate their validity of a literary genre. By reading and analyzing a variety of folktales, students will realize the cultural implications of the genre. Students will create and perform their own original folktale in the form of a script that combines and modernizes the tales that they read. Learning will enhanced by technology infusion and the incorporation of 21 Century learning competencies.

What is My Questions Round Robin?
This strategy helps students develop their thinking processes while providing students with a sense of control and a higher sense of their academic ability. This is a small group activity.

Why use it?
To provide students with the opportunity to ask personally meaningful questions of content.
To provide students with the opportunity to develop skills related to asking divergent or open-ended questions.
To provide students with the opportunity to hear the perspectives of others on a common topic.
To provide students with the opportunity to practice the skills of communication, collaboration, and critical thinking.
To activate students’ prior knowledge on a topic to be discussed in class.

What is a Question Creation Chart (QC2)?
The Question Creation Chart (also known as a Q-Chart or Q-Matrix) provides students with a framework for developing a range of personally meaningful questions, encompassing both close-ended factual questions and open-ended, divergent questions. (Adapted from Weiderhold, 1997).

Why use it?
To provide students with a framework for creating their own divergent and convergent questions on a specific topic.
To encourage students to think deeply about a topic.
To help students strengthen their understanding and comprehension of a topic.
To stimulate students’ prior knowledge about a topic.
To collect information about students’ knowledge and understanding of a topic.

Strategies for Academic Success accompanies the online first-year University of Saskatchewan Arts and Science course by the same name. The textbook has a reader-friendly format arranged to help you develop the essential skills and provide the information you need to succeed in university.

Role and Situation
Students are a team of television producers. They have been asked to create a reality show that has the participants engage in challenges, tasks, choices and survival type situations. The reality show will consist of 3 - 5 episodes. The team will end the project with a brief presentation to a room of entertainment executives to "pitch" their show and a 20 –60 second commercial or promotional video of their show.
This PBL was created to extend student learning from the unit “Finding the Courage”. Specifically, my students studied the novel Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, and I wanted to create a meaningful connection for them that attaches to real-world situations. Students are competing against their other classmates to create the best possible Reality TV show, as well as they are utilizing critical thinking, creativity, communication, collaboration, and computer and digital technologies.

A collection of tech tools, several links to various helpful websites,  and strategies from our 21st Century Competencies workshops from 2014-2015. 

Students in Mathematics 6/7/8 work in mixed-grade groups to determine a “Top 5” list of concepts from the course based on provided criteria developed over the course of the year. Students choose a format in which to share their “Top 5” including rationale for why each concept connects to mathematics outside of the classroom. Ultimately, students present their conclusions in an attempt to convince the panel that their “Top 5” is the most deserving of entering the Mathematics Hall of Fame. I decided to use mixed-grade groups for this project in an attempt to encourage more rich conversation as students need to explain concepts in order to convince their peers of their importance. The timing of this project at the end of the year also allows the work to serve as review for final written evaluations.

Summary: Infographics have become a very popular method of sharing information. Students learned how to read infographics by looking at various examples of basic graphics and then expanded to a wide variety of methods used to show information on different topics.
The theme that was being focused on was An Eye on the Natural and Technological Environment. Because of rotation of themes, I ended up with three grades doing the same theme, however they covered their own outcomes for their grade as can be seen above.