Wall-to-wall project-based learning: A conversation with biology teacher Kelley

Yonce
This article explains the process of project-based learning (PBL) as it is practiced
by Kelley Yonce, a high-school biology teacher who uses PBL throughout the
school year. Concrete guidelines for a DNA project are included, as well as
rubrics, assessment criteria, and other relevant documents.
BY DAN LEWANDOWSKI

Kelley Yonce in her classroom at East Wake School of Integrated Technology.

(Photograph by the author. More about the photograph)
Learn more
"Designer Babies" rubrics and charts A selection of five documents designed by
biology teacher Kelley Yonce for use with her "Designer Babies" PBL project. The
documents include rubrics for assessment and a project pacing chart.
Project-based learning Project-based learning is a teaching approach that
engages students in sustained, collaborative real-world investigations. Projects
are organized around a driving question, and students participate in...
PBL resources from LEARN NC LEARN NC's PBL resources include lesson plans,
articles, and links to useful websites.
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At the mid-point of the 2008-09 academic year, according to the North Carolina
Standard Course of Study, East Wake School of Integrated Technology biology
teacher Kathleen (Kelley) Yonce needed to introduce her class of 20 sophomores
to deoxyribonucleic acid, a.k.a. DNA.
An avowed project-based learning (PBL) teacher who creates 7-8 learning
projects, one after another, each lasting between 1 and 3 weeks, throughout
the school year, she consulted her usual sources of inspiration Edutopia, the
New Schools Project but nothing struck her fancy. She considered modifying a
project about genetically modified food shed attempted the previous year but
rejected the idea. The kids didnt care, she says. For PBL to work, students
must be engaged. This doesnt mean you must stick to subjects the kids already
know. New stuff is perfectly okay as long as it grabs their attention.
At home on a snow day watching television, Ms. Yonce saw a news item titled
Designer Babies and knew she had her answer.
The key to successful project-based teaching, Ms. Yonce insists, is to create reallife experiences for the students, during which they exercise choice, voice
opinions, and make decisions and critically their own mistakes. Her favorite
technique is to give them jobs, make them employees. By acting out roles of
people with careers, students realize somebody, somewhere actually uses the
knowledge theyre expected to acquire. I dont get the question, Why do we
need to know this? very much any more.

For the DNA project, she cast her students in the roles of genetic counselors. In
the real world, genetic counselors identify families at risk, investigate genetic
problems present in families, interpret information about disorders or potential
disorders, analyze inheritance patterns and risks of recurrence, and review
available options with the families. For the DNA project, Ms. Yonce created
fictional families and invented their genetic histories. The students, after gaining
basic information about pedigrees, etc., were required to investigate the families
problems, interpret their findings, perform risk analyses, and, finally, conduct
genetic counseling interviews face-to-face with adult couples.
Although the academic emphasis placed on the particular elements of a project
may change, each project follows the same general outline.
The entry document
This item introduces the project and provides the time-line. It might be a
PowerPoint presentation, a speech by an expert, a video, etc. In the case of the
DNA project, it was the Designer Babies news segment Ms. Yonce saw on
television.
Ms. Yonce often creates an activity associated with the entry document. For this
project, she showed her students the Center for Genetics and Society website
and told them the organization sought input from students. She found free
software and asked her students to blog about the ethical implications of
genetically made-to-order babies.
The teams
Teams of 3-4 students are best, Ms. Yonce continues. Too much work is required
of members in teams of two, and teams of more than four tend to become
unruly.
Although some PBL teachers appoint team members, Ms. Yonce allows the
students to choose their own teammates for the first project of the year. They
always pick their friends, she admits, but I like the lesson they inevitably learn:
that their friends often are not the best work partners. Ms. Yonce then mandates
a change of one team member for each subsequent project throughout the year.
Some PBL teachers choose projects that feature defined roles like artist or
accountant then either assign students to the roles or allow the students to
choose the roles they prefer. Ms. Yonce, though, encourages all members of each
team to learn all aspects of the project. Otherwise you need to be extremely
clever to ensure that all the kids learn all the material.
Team leaders
Here, too, Ms. Yonce allows the students to decide who will lead each group, but
cautions that the leadership component of PBL can be vexing.
Generally, kids who want to lead assume that the leaders job is to do the most
work. A leaders true role, though, is to plan, organize, and supervise team
activities; impose discipline; offer encouragement; delegate authority; and
ensure workload equity, quality of work, and communication among team
members.

For most kids, says Ms. Yonce, this is brand new information.
To help her fledgling bosses, she has developed a leader sheet a log that
lists various leadership responsibilities and requires the kids to fill in the blanks
with specific information about how they address each issue. Part of the leaders
grade, Ms. Yonce explains, depends on how well he or she keeps the log.
The rubric
This is the blueprint for the project the detailed list of things to be done,
knowledge to be acquired, etc.
Ms. Yonce strongly recommends waiting to give students the rubric until the
second or third day of a project. If you hand it out before you gain their interest,
they obsess.
This moment when the students first confront the full scope of the project is
also, for Ms. Yonce, the most distressing of any project because, I desperately
want to pre-teach. By far the most difficult thing for me is not to jump in and
help. Students should struggle, she explains, because out of their struggle
comes their need to know.
Ms. Yonce emphasizes one other point about the rubric: Im continually
surprised at how short the kids attention spans are. When I first started projectbased teaching, I assumed once the kids were introduced to a project, they
would retain its basic outlines. I was wrong. You must re-read the rubric often,
constantly remind them of the big picture.
The project
During this phase, says Ms. Yonce, the students build the product. By following
the rubric they learn sneakily, obliquely, as members of teams, under the
guise of playing parts the lessons listed in the Standard Course of Study.
This is when Ms Yonce employs the full range of traditional teaching methods:
labs, lectures, workshops, etc., delivering them as if they were employee training
sessions. The kids understand that to do a job any job workers must
receive some kind of training. Explanatory sessions are always more effective
when delivered on an as-needed basis.
For the DNA project, the students researched Gregor Mendel, learned the
difference between mitosis and meiosis, participated in a laboratory session
about hemophilia, practiced drawing pedigrees, etc.
One chronically tricky aspect of PBL, Ms. Yonce explains, is timing. Because
teams set their own pace, some invariably finish before others. In anticipation,
Ms. Yonce pre-loads extra credit into the rubric. Before teams even begin,
members understand what constitutes unsatisfactory, satisfactory, or
advanced completion of the unit.
The product
The culminating event for a project may be an oral presentation, a video, a
demonstration, a physical model, etc. For the DNA project, the students came to
school dressed professionally and each team conducted genetic counseling
interviews with a number of adult couples.

Before the interviews, Ms. Yonce gave each adult a checklist containing questions
about how the students conducted the interview, e.g.: Did the students introduce
themselves? Did they review the family pedigrees? Did they explain
heterozygous? Ms Yonce explains that one of her underlying goals is to help
kids learn how to act authoritatively toward adults.
Testing
In a perfect world, Ms. Yonce would not test students who completed learning
projects. My kids, though, take standardized, end-of-course tests and I believe
they need practice. She remains unsure, however, whether the students benefit
more from being tested before or after the culminating event. Testing beforehand
prepares them for the event by reminding them of the important aspects of the
interview. Testing afterward, though, takes advantage of the excitement of the
face-to-face encounters. They learn a lot from the interviews and so they bring
more enthusiasm to the test.
Grading
Ms. Yonce uses four grading criteria:
Oral presentation. This standard might better be styled communication. How
well does the student explain and discuss what he/she has learned?
Content of the rubric. This most heavily weighted standard measures
understanding of the Standard Course of Study material.
Professional skills. Based primarily on the team leaders assessment, this
standard reveals how well the student performed tasks, met deadlines,
completed assignments, etc.
Collaboration. Based primarily on each students assessment of the other
members of his/her group, this standard measures collegiality and cooperation.
Outcomes
The DNA project was a great success, Ms. Yonce reports. The kids took an
immediate interest, which surprised me a little, because you never know how
theyre going to react.
This uncertainty is why she cautions teachers who are considering PBL that, You
absolutely must be okay with messing up royally. You have much less control
over what happens day-to-day than in a traditional classroom.
Ms Yonce taught traditionally for five years before attempting PBL. Now, three
years later, Im wall-to-wall, she says. Im convinced PBL kids retain more
information for a longer period of time than kids who are taught in traditional
classrooms because they learn concepts instead of isolated facts and learn them
in context instead of at random. PBL is less about memorizing and more about
understanding.
She concludes, Its important to remember that todays kids need to learn lots
of basic skills to succeed in life. The first time I told a class to dress
professionally, for example, a number of kids didnt understand what I was
talking about. Eventually I learned to say, dress for church. The PBL method
teaches not only book lessons but life lessons. I probably shouldnt say this but I

believe the most important thing I teach my students is how to communicate

with other people.