Keeping our Chemistry PBL Relevant: Week 4

I wrote three posts in January about the PBL that my PLC is trying out this year. Students are creating infographics about any topic in chemistry that interests them. Read more about the project here and here and here.

With half of our PBL-designated time behind us, we revved into high gear with Week 4. Week 4 was primarily designated as work time for groups. However, in an effort to provide a checkpoint for students, we wanted to design an opportunity for targeted feedback by the students. 

We took our project rubric which is broken into four categories and we created a feedback column. We assigned one category of the rubric to each person's role in the group and sliced the rubric into four strips. We placed the strips into baskets on each group's table.

Following a class period work session, each group displayed the rough draft of the infographic on their laptop. All the students moved around and viewed the work of their peers but only through the lens of their particular group role. In other words, the Graphic Designers critiqued only the Layout and Design, while the Researchers looked at the Chemistry Content. The students left the feedback forms at the group tables and returned to their home table receive their own feedback.

I didn't see any of the feedback that the students left for each other, but I did hear a lot of interesting comments while they completed this rotation. Some students were wow-ed by the work of their peers. Others were very underwhelmed by content or design. One student commented: "I have to be honest. I don't see anything visually interesting about this one."

I liked that we adapted the rubric for this purpose so that students had a chance to give and receive feedback with the rubric before the infographics are due in Week 5. I think it focused the process on the expectations of the task but also chunked this process so that a 10-15 minute gallery walk was doable and productive.

Coming up in Week 5: Finished infographics displayed on our website! Very excited to share the work on this project!