Project-Based Learning: Planning
Monday, December 1, 2008 at 09:28PM 
Don’t plan ahead — plan along.
Plan the environment.
Plan time to observe and document.
Plan one-on-one time.
Plan to supply resources as they are needed/requested.
Plan time to collaborate.
Plan time to reflect.
In a traditional curriculum, all the planning is done ahead of time, and determination of success is based on how closely the learning follows the plan, how well the student learns the facts pre-chosen by their teacher.
Learning through projects doesn’t require less planning, just an entirely different sort of planning. Rather than planning outcomes, which can’t possibly be predicted, the teacher plans to observe the students, document their learning, give them what they need, collaborate and reflect on the project’s progress, assess the students’ learning, and determine how best to support it.
Deciding that you won’t pre-define what your children will learn opens up the possibility that they will learn so much more than you ever imagined possible. We owe them that possibility.
In our work, we speak of teacher planning, understood in the sense of preparation and organization of space, materials, thoughts, situations, and occasions for learning. — Carla Rinaldi
It is true that we do not have planning and curricula. It is not true that we rely on improvisation, which is an enviable skill. We do not rely on chance either, because we are convinced that what we do not yet know can to some extent be anticipated. What we do know is that to be with the children is to work one third with certainty and two thirds with uncertainty and the new.
…We can be sure that the children are ready to help us. They can help by offering us ideas, suggestions, problems, questions, clues, and paths to follow; and the more they trust us and see us as a resource, the more they give us help. All these offerings, merged with what we ourselves bring to the situation, make a handsome capital of resources. — Loris Malaguzzi
Reader Comments (20)
Those are wonderful and inspirational quotes:)
allie, that sounds really familiar! :^) most of the teachers i’ve worked with are super-planners! i’ve said many a time that the teaching ability must be carried on the same gene as anal-retentiveness. ;^)
spontaneous-eruption learning is such a wild ride. it's addictive.
still working on planning environment, though. so many materials to cull to our best-quality essentials. so many *deals* (territorialism!) to banish. sigh.
i agree, it is addictive!
i need to highlight your forum post about culling. :^)
I am so going to have to write a blog post on this, too!LOL!
enjoy your month!
“creating a rich environment, observing .. for those sparks of interest, adding good fuel to the fire” .. yep, that’s it! :^)
thank you, chrissy! and i have to say i agree. ;^)
I do plan the environment, that is something that is constantly evolving as we figure out what we need and where it should go in order for those things to better serve us.
thanks for making me think...
so true -- planning the environment isn’t something you do just once, then you’re done -- you have to constantly reevaluate whether it is doing the job you want it to do, sending the message you want it to send, and make any necessary changes.
it seems perfectly reasonable me to think about what *might* happen and how we might best support that development .. but when it turns into a forced march, then something has gone awry.
but .. some people throw the baby out with the bathwater. if you don’t keep track of what is happening, then you can’t respond to it -- you can’t do your part, keep up your end of the conversation, provide resources, etc. (i’m not talking about you, brynn, of course.)
the idea is to get people who are addicted to their (don’t listen, brynn) *plans* to stop putting the cart before the horse and realize they can still play an active co-learning role even if they don’t plot it all out ahead of time.
Question -- do you think this type of learning (project based) is doable if one lives overseas? I'm just thinking no. I mean, I love the idea of exploring and giving the child ownership. But if I don't plan ahead, we'll have no resources (speaking mostly of English books or some specific hands-on learning tools that are unavailable).
Yes, we can use the Internet, but I don't want my child staring at a screen all day. And yes, there are adaptations we can make, but so many things just don't exist where I am. We are masters at "making do." But when it comes to learning, I find I want my daughter exposed to as many resources as possible. There's no library to visit, and few parks and museums with educational focus on children.
It seems to sort of lessen the joy of discovery to locate books on Amazon and wait three weeks for them to be delivered. (Not to mention the exorbitant prices for shipping.)
Any thoughts on this? Feel free to email me. Or if you create a blog entry, I'll see it because I sub to your feed.