I'm the Aug 1st kickoff speaker for the 2011 PBL Summer Institute held at the Valley New School in downtown Appleton WI.  As the opening keynote, I'll be setting the stage for what should be five days of valuable workshops, culminating in Project Foundry training - an effective PBL management system. Tweet us at #VNS11 and view our Twitter visualizer here.

To get things started I'll highlight five reasons why the traditional approach to instruction is failing our students:

1. Teaching isn't telling.
2. There's a new literacy that alters the traditional information flow beyond the classroom.
3. Life's become an open-book test that has devalued lower-order thinking skills.
4. Students need to be able to succeed in an unpredictable world.
5. Most classrooms rarely engage students in reflecting on their progress as learners.

Along the way I'll use activities and sample projects to illustrate five reasons to "like" PBL. Click here for a link to my presentation website with a variety of PBL resources, videos and more.

The conference is co-sponsored by the TAGOS Leadership Academy and the Wisconsin Project Based Learning Network. 

Image credit: flickr/FindYourSearch

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