Running Head: SIGNATURE ASSIGNMENT PBL 1

Signature Assignment PBL

TEL311

Angel Zarraga

Arizona State University

SIGNATURE ASSIGNMENT PBL 2

Introductions

My name is Angel Zarraga, my students call me Mr. Z, and I am an 8th Grade social

studies teacher at Palo Verde Middle School. Our mission statement is, "Producing Valued

Motivated Students where everyone does everything to achieve their personal best!”

(WESDschools, 2019) As a Teacher of Palo Verde middle school my priority is the student

achievement. My goals in successfully achieving this priority include: partnerships with each

family, observation of students’ progress , assist student in a timely manner, the use of effect

teaching strategies, clear expectation, inform students of standards, grade promptly, check

competency levels of students regularly, and preparation for education after middle school.

Teaching Philosophy

I have five years of teaching experience here at Palo Verde Middle School. My teaching

philosophy is focused around why we educate, the roles of teacher, student, and

parents/community. The purpose of education is to create a brighter future. Education is a

necessity in creating well-functioning members of society. Each generation takes a turn teaching

the other. A generation's perspective was taught to them by the generation before them, and they

will teach it to the next. Thus, creating a cycle of growth. Without education, the younger

generation will make mistakes that someone could have taught them otherwise.

The role of the teacher is to be a leader to the students. The teacher needs to give these students

the motivation to learn. Teachers cannot force the students to learn, but the teacher can inspire

them. The teacher will do this by having a high but reasonable expectation. Also, giving students

positive feedback. Teachers should also be knowledgeable about their subject. A deep

understanding of the subject allows the teacher to simplify content. This would help with student

comprehension. Teachers also need to be students, continually learning. My motto is, "if you are
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not getting better, you are getting worse." While that motto is not positive encouragement to

students, it sure gives me drive. Finally, the teacher needs to work cooperatively with the parents

because they both have influential roles in student life.

The student's role is an active participant in the classroom. They need to ask questions, have

intellectual discuss amongst peers, and challenge themselves. They to work hard and have a

hunger for success. They also need to be adaptable. They need to adapt to the ever-growing

challenging levels of education and teacher's teaching styles. Finally, the student needs to follow

the rules and procedures the teacher has set in place, as it benefits student achievement.

The role of the Parent/community is to support the student, while cooperatively working

with the teacher. The parents to motive the student to be an avid learner. They need to lay the

foundation for the student's morals and work ethic. The community needs to support the school

financially. The community should be able to supply the students with tools they will need to

enhance their learning processes, like computers and tablets. The community needs to support

events. Host tailgates before games, to boost morale. Create fundraisers to support the school.

Finally, host tutoring events for specific subjects, SATs, and ACTs. The community needs to

support those less fortunate with essential tools or even transportation. The community needs to

be an actual "Community." Not just the general area someone lives in, but a place with friendly

familiar people, that everyone can look towards for support.

PBL Experience

In my experience, project-based learning(PBL) is far more stimulating for the students

than lectures and worksheets. It's not just getting rid of lectures, textbooks and worksheets. I am

still able to utilize a brief lecture for content knowledge, Students can use textbooks as a

resource, and worksheets can still be utilized for scaffolding. Another factor that’s benefit about
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PBL is it focus on real-work problems, which helps make it more relevant to the students.

Before, I have organized smaller PBL, that only lasted two weeks, rather than a whole quarter. It

is similar to the PBL I will be introduction during this read. I had the whole class create a

solution for homelessness. I learned a lot form that experience, and I plan to install those changes

into my new PBL.

Technology Integration

My experience with Technology integration is that it is difficult. It is beneficial for that

students because they find it more engaging. The counter to this is it takes a lot more planning

and knowledge on how to use these technological tools effectively. What I have had students do

before is create websites on a country of their choice. Depending on the standard, for example

understand different types of government systems, they would create a page on their country’s

government. Then I would have them present or do a group discuss on the difference between

their types of governments.

SA Part II - Summary of Project and Project Impact

Summary of Project

My students’ project is identifying issues in the community and coming up with solutions

to those issues. This project is vital to have in my school because my students are becoming

young adults. They need to be aware that there are many issues within our community, county,

state, country, and world. It essential for these students to become educated on issues that affect

them. A lot of these issues may not hurt the students directly, but they defiantly affect them

indirectly. For example, Arizona is the number one kidnapping capital in the United States. It

does not affect them directly because they are still here and were not kidnapped. However, in our

community, a young girl had recently gone missing. She was autistic and had not returned home
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from school. The police have had no luck finding her. This young girl could be related or

someway connected to one of my students, and that can affect them. Another reason this project

is critical to have in my school is that school does not ready students for adult life. Teaching

students problem-solving skills will ready them for jobs and adult life. Careers and adult-life are

filled with problems that people have to solve daily. This project will teach them to analyze an

issue and come up with a solution. While their solution for their community issue might not be

realistic. For example, one of my students said to solve the abduction issue was to put a lot of

cameras in every neighborhood and have someone watch them all. That happens to be a great

solution to the problem, but extremely unrealistic. This project will bring students to the

conclusion that the answer to fixing significant issues is starting small.

The theme for my PBL is a world apocalypse. Each student represents a country in the

UN, and they can make up their nation. An important activity I will have is on the first day

identifying issues they already know. I will use this to demonstrate progress because by the end

of the PBL I will have them tell me issues they know again and compare the first day to the last.

Other activities I will have them do is research, presentations on their issue, voting on which

issue is more important to tackle, and debts to persuade voters.

This project is relevant to the students because these are issues that affect them. Students

that can relate to these issues will be more engaged in the project. This project is something they

can do outside of education, which impacts their learning. This project is student lead, in that the

students will make decisions about the importance of each identified issue and decide how to

best solve for the issues. They can work on a topic that interests them, which makes them more

engaged.

Project Impact
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I talk a lot about how this impacts students in the summary of my project. This project

helps students identify real-world-problem. They have the option to work in groups to problem

solve. This project will hit work readiness standards, because they can collaborate with peers to

solve a real-world issue. That collaboration can be done in person or the internet. I expect this to

impact all my students because they are all affected by issues within the community. A lot of

these issues will not go away anytime soon; thus, they can continue to work on their solutions

through their academic careers. Once they get to high school, they have the opportunity to

continue their work in senior projects, student government, community service, and after school

clubs. My project's goal is to expose these adolescents to impending issues.

This project benefits my teaching skills. Each class will be unique and an experiment.

Each run through will allow me to fine-tune my craft for the betterment of the classes to follow

them. My teaching philosophy is to educate the youth for a brighter future. Witnessing my

students working to improve their community is more than I can ask. Their hard work will

motivate me to work even harder.

The primary beneficiary of this project is the community. There are countless issues in

our country. Our government is vast and limited in funding that it can barely help with a lot of

community issues. This project will teach students and the community that the only way to solve

the local problems is from the power of the local people. I know not every class will have some

life-altering solutions to a severe problem, but my short-term goal is to help get the exposure out

on local issues. My long-term goal is to create a caring community, that actively helps in solving

local problems and empathetic towards all of whom live within it.

SA Part III - Project Narrative

Learning Goals and Outcomes

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My PBL is organized around reaching the civics’ anchor standards for eighth graders.

Eighth Graders are expected to learn every anchor standard under civics. Thus, this PBL will

touch on every one of those civic standards. I expect my PBL to last at least the whole second

quarter.

Civic Anchor Standards

 C1- Civic virtues and democratic principles are key components of the American political

system

o Learning Objective- identify, evaluate, and apply civil virtue . Analyze the

influence of personal interests when people address issues and problems in

government/community. Create ways of informing the community on local issues.

o Guiding question- What is civil virtue? Should civil virtue’s be enforced by law?

Is our civil virtue as strong as it was when the nation was founded? How do you

fix issues in your community? Why should other people care about your issue?

What are ways you can persuade people to care about your issue?

 C2- Citizens have individual rights, roles, and responsibilities

o Learning objectives- Analyze the power of civilians. Analyze roles, right and

responsibility of citizens.

o Guiding questions- what are your responsibility as a U.S. citizen? Why is it

important that citizens of a democracy vote? Why did the founding fathers limit

voting? Should the voting age be changed?

 C3- An understanding of civic and political institutions in society and the principles these

institutions are intended to reflect including knowledge about law, politics, and

government is essential to effective citizenship.

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o Learning Objectives- Analyze political and civic institutions such as political

parties, interest groups, elections, and the media in shaping policy. Analyze

origins of current government. Analyze the structures, powers, and limits of

government at distinct levels in the United States

o Guiding questions- Why is it difficult for the government to fix local issues?

What level will your policy need to be altered at? Could any institution help with

your policy change?

 C4- Process, rules, and laws direct how individuals are governed and how society

addresses problems

o Learning Objectives- Analyze means of changing societies to promote the

common good. Evaluate specific rules and laws addressing public problems.

Analyze the purpose, process, implementation, and consequences of decision

making and public policies at different levels including the national, state, local

(county, city, school board), and tribal. Identify, research, analyze, discuss, and

defend a position on a national, state, or local public policy issue including an

action plan to address or inform others about the issue. Analyze how a specific

problem can manifest itself at the local, regional, and global levels. Identify

characteristics, causes, challenges and opportunities for these problems. Apply

democratic procedures to solve a problem.

o Guiding questions- how does your local issues compare to itself at other levels?

Are there similarities in some local issues? What has been done to solve your

issue? Is your issue more important than others?

ISTE Standards
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During this PBL, students will have the opportunity to meet all ISTE standards. Students

will be empower learners by using an online portfolio to create goals, tracking learning progress,

and keep reflections. Students will learn to be digital citizens by learning how to maintain a

social media account to promote their local issue. They will understand how manage their online

identity, create a positive online environment, understand intellectual property, and keep their

information safe. Students will learn to be knowledge constructors by analyzing credible sources,

using tools to demonstrate connections, and build knowledge on their local issues. Students will

learn to be innovative designers by using online tools to develop solutions or curate persuasive

ways of informing people of their issues. Students will learn to be computational thinkers by

learning how to break down their issue into part, collect and analyze data about their issue.

Students will learn to be creative communicators by using their social media platforms, online

portfolios, and other tools to communicates their complex solutions to their local problems.

Finally, students will learn to be global collaborates by using their social platforms to discuss

with other people working on the same issue at the same or different government levels. Also,

students will use brainstorming tools and their portfolio to collaborate with peers on the same

topic.

My project is designed for students to enhance their 21st century skills. They will have to

research data about a local issue. They will have to communicate and collaborate with peers who

have the related topic. Create persuasive presentations, letters, art, and social media pages to

inform the community about their issue. Finally, innovate create public polies that will improve

data about their issue.

Description of Project-Based Learning Unit Activities

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During the duration of my PBL, students will engage in activities like, class discussions,

debates, presentations, research, reflections and creating solutions. The idea of my project is for

students to be educated about issue that can affect them. I will give them the power to pick their

own issue, so it feels relevant to them and for them to feel motivated to put effort towards

learning the power they have on their community. The activities tie into educating them on

multiple issues with debates and presentations. Working with their peers allows they see their

issue or other issues from different perspectives.

Assessment

My Formative assessment will be a check list. Checking to see they have placed

everything we might have worked on that week into the portfolio. My summative assessment

will be the portfolio. This will show the development of learning for each student. It shows their

reflections, independent work, group work, and presentation.

Technology Support

Chrome books will be used to do research, input work into portfolio, and maintain their

social media account if they don’t have a phone. The school will supply the chrome books.

Sustaining the Project after the Proposal Period

Depending on how the first year goes with the PBL, if we were able to secure a

community member to work with us during our first year, the hope is that they would like to

support our project in the future. I am confident that we will be able to find more members of the

community willing to support the project after the first year is complete.

Innovation
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The students have no limitations to figure out a solution for their community problem.

They can use any tools and write to any person to help with their solution or policy change. If

money becomes an issue we can create a budget plan and present it to whomever it may concern.

SA Part IV -Budget Narrative and Appendix

Item # and Cost Where to Purchase Possible funding

source
Chrome Books 30 @ Free We already own it N/A

Pencils 1 @ $12.49 Amazon Share Amazon

List, Donors
Choose,
GoFundMe
folders 2 @ $7.38 Amazon Share Amazon
List, Donors
Choose,
GoFundMe
Evernote account 200 @ Free Evernote N/A

Lined Paper 2 @ $10.99 Amazon Share Amazon

List, Donors
Choose,
GoFundMe

Budget Narrative

Most of the work for the PBL will be done on computers. Since I already have a cart of

thirty chrome books in my class room, I will mainly use those. Students will type up their

assessments on a word document, I can share assessment templates, or print out a work sheets.

Student will store most of their work in Evernote. Evernote is a free portfolio, Brainstorming,

collaboration tool. This is a great tool for my project because multiple people can be working on

something at time. They can share things, give feed, I can give feedback, I can observe, and

document everything they do. The pencil and paper is mainly a preference for my students. They
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don’t always have to use chrome books for every activity. The folders will be to hold any work

sheets or paper they use. This project is focused on research, collaboration, presentations, and

developing a solutions as they learn new things about the job and power of well-informed

citizens. That being said, I can use many free tools online to develop the skills the curriculum

expects them to master by the end of the quarter. Thus, my lack of necessity for the purchasing

many tools.

Appendix

Day 1 Lesson Plan

Teachers: Subject:
Angel Zarraga Social Studies Day 1
Common Core State Standards:
 8.C4.4 Identify, research, analyze, discuss, and defend a position on a national, state, or local public policy issue
including an action plan to address or inform others about the issue.
Objective (Explicit):
 By the end of the class period, students will analyze issues within their community. Students will evaluate their peers
interoperation of a different issue.
Evidence of Mastery (Measurable):
 Include a copy of the lesson assessment.
 Provide exemplar student responses with the level of detail you expect to see.
 Assign value to each portion of the response.

 Answers from student presentations are relevant with supporting evidence.

 In ELABOATE student are expected be do research on some issues, here they will gather most of their answers
reasoning and evidence.
 Students will can use evidence from prior knowledge and/or use evidence from their peers arguments.
 Students will collaborate with another to forma a quick presentation about their issue.
Sub-objectives, SWBAT (Sequenced from basic to complex):
 How will you review past learning and make connections to previous lessons?
 What skills and content are needed to ultimately master this lesson objective?
 How is this objective relevant to students, their lives, and/or the real world?
 Quarter 1 was about economics. In economics, the students learned about current and past economic issues. This
activity is to bring back that prior knowledge, and try to fix issue they learned about.
 Relevant to students because they are working on solving issues in their community that affects them.
Key vocabulary: Materials: pen/pencil, paper, construction paper, chrome
books
Engage
 How will you activate student interest?
 How will you hook student attention?
 What questions will you pose, based on your objective, that students will seek to answer in Explore?
Teacher Will: Student Will:
 re-arrange the class seating to replicate seating at the
UN’s General Assembly
 Name their nation.
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 Set the stage- each individual student represents their

own “country”.
 Create name tag with nation
 World is on the brink of collapse and this emergence name on it
UN meeting has been called to solve pressing issue.
 Explain that students community is the “world”, the
students are representatives of sections in their
community or representatives of their “countries”

Explore
 How will model your performance expectations? Remember, you are not modeling what you want students to discover but need to
model expected behavior or required procedures.
 How will students take the lead and actively use materials to discover information that will help them answer the question posed in
Engage?
 What questions or prompts will you be prepared to use with students while they are “exploring”?
Teacher Will: Student Will:
 ask the students what is the most pressing issue  write down the first topic that comes to mind for
that effect their “world?” both questions
 what is the most pressing issue that effect their  write down a built point to why it's a concern
“Country?”
Co-Teaching Strategy
 What co-teaching approach will you use to maximize student achievement?

Differentiation Strategy
 What accommodations/modifications will you provide for specific students?
 How will you anticipate students that need an additional challenge?

Give examples of issues and why for students that may be stuck
Explain
 How will all students have an opportunity to share what they discovered?
 How will you connect student discoveries to correct content terms/explanations?
 How will all students articulate/demonstrate a clear and correct understanding of the sub-objectives by answering the question from
Engage before moving on?
Teacher Will: Student Will:
 have students come to the front, and say what  read their issues and why.
they wrote down.  Any issues they agree with, they will wrote down

Co-Teaching Strategy
 What co-teaching approach will you use to maximize student achievement?

Differentiation Strategy
 What accommodations/modifications will you provide for specific students?
 How will you anticipate students that need an additional challenge?

Students that may not have written anything can pass, but will have to speak at the end. Maybe they will be inspired by their peers reasoning if they
go last.
Elaborate
 How will students take the learning from Explore and Explain and apply it to a new circumstance or explore a particular aspect of this
learning at a deep level?
 How will students use higher order thinking at this stage? (e.g. A common practice in this section is to pose a “what If question”)
 How will all students articulate how their understanding has changed or been solidified?
Teacher Will: Student Will:
 Pass out chrome books  Research a total of 3 topics that are an issue in
 Introduced google scholar their “Country” or “world”
 Walk around and assist students  Write a down 1-2 sentences as to why it's an issue.
 Pick their #1 issue.
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Co-Teaching Strategy
 What co-teaching approach will you use to maximize student achievement?

Differentiation Strategy
 What accommodations/modifications will you provide for specific students?
 How will you anticipate students that need an additional challenge?
Evaluate
 How will all students demonstrate mastery of the lesson objective (though perhaps not mastery of the Elaborate content)?
 How will students have an opportunity to summarize the big concepts they learned (separate from the assessment)?
Teacher Will: Student Will:
 have students group according to their #1
issue.
 In groups, collaboratively write
 One group member presents their issue and why. their “why”.
 Let class know this will be their PBL topic and give
chance to choose a different issue if they were  Choose to stay or move to
persuaded by other issues. different group
Co-Teaching Strategy
 What co-teaching approach will you use to maximize student achievement?

Differentiation Strategy
 What accommodations/modifications will you provide for specific students?
 How will you anticipate students that need an additional challenge?

Check list Assessment portfolio

1. issue and reasoning

2. goals

3. sources

4. collaborative source summarization and individual

5. reflection on research and what they learned from working with a group

6. a solution

7. essay to how their issue became an issue

8. presentation

9. people they contacted for support on their issue

10. debate script

11. final reflection

SIGNATURE ASSIGNMENT PBL
Tables
10 Day plan
Project Schedule: List the Standards Addressed:
Daily goal for each day List the standards
(Content, anchor,
technology,
employability) that may
be addressed within the
lesson/activities
Day One: 8.C4.4 Identify, research,
Daily Goal: Into the analyze, discuss, and
project defend a position on a
national, state, or local
public policy issue
including an action plan
to address or inform
others about the issue.
Day Two ISTE- 1aStudents
Daily Goal: articulate and set personal
Introduce how student learning goals, develop
will submit work strategies leveraging
technology to achieve
them and reflect on the
learning process itself to
improve learning
outcomes.
Day Three ISTE- 3b Students
Daily Goal: Teach evaluate the accuracy,
students how to do perspective, credibility
research and relevance of
information, media, data
or other resources.
Day Four ISTE- 3c Students curate
Daily Goal: have students information from digital
gain knowledge about resources using a variety
their local problems of tools and methods to
create collections of
artifacts that demonstrate
meaningful connections
or conclusions.
Day Five ISTE- 3d Students build
Daily Goal: students who knowledge by actively
get it teach students who exploring real-world
don’t issues and problems,
developing ideas and
Activities: List the
various activities students
may engage in within the
lesson for the day. Think
“What will the students be
doing within the 50
minute class time”
Into- Mock UN meeting
for impending
apocalypse. Students
create fake nation to
represent in the UN
meeting. Off whatever
knowledge they know
about local issues, they
will pick one to attack.
They will collaborate with
students about why their
issue is bad. Present to the
class.
Based off yesterday’s
discussion and
presentation student may
change or keep issue.
Students will create
portfolio and set goals.
This day will be Direct
instruction. I will show
students how to do
research using the “I do,
we do, you do” method.
Students will find 5
sources about their issues.
Summarize main point a
put them in the portfolio
In groups based on the
same issue, students will
collaboratively
summarize the issue from
all of their sources and
15
Goal of the Activities:
Identify the goals that
students will achieve
within each activity.
Think “What is the
purpose of the activity”
Quarter 1 was about
economic. In economics,
the students learn about
current and past economic
issues. This activity is to
bring back the prior
knowledge, and try to fix
issue they learned about.
Goal is to hit the first
ISTE learning standard.
Set goals and use a tool to
track progress thought the
course of this project.
This will teach students
on what search tools to
use. Also, identify bad
tools.
This activity is to educate
the student on their issue,
summarize sources, and
use a tool to collect their
documents.
The goal of this activity is
great for differentiation.
Students they may have
struggled to find or
understand sources can
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Day Six
Daily Goal: teach students
why it's important to help
their community
Day Seven
Daily Goal: get them to
start thinking of solutions
Day Eight
Daily Goal: explain
what’s expected of them
as citizens
Day Nine
Daily Goal: research how
problems happen to
prevent it from happening
again.
Day Ten
Daily Goal: have them
start compiling their
information.
theories and pursuing
answers and solutions.
8.C1.2 Demonstrate civic
virtues that contribute to
the common good and
democratic principles
within a variety of
deliberative processes and
settings.
ISTE- 4a Students know
and use a deliberate
design process for
generating ideas, testing
theories, creating
innovative artifacts or
solving authentic
problems.
8.C2.2
Explain specific roles,
rights and responsibilities
of people in a society.
8.C4.5
Analyze how a specific
problem can manifest
itself at the local,
regional, and global
levels, identifying its
characteristics and causes,
and the challenges and
opportunities faced by
those trying to address the
problem. Apply a range of
deliberative and
democratic procedures to
take action and solve the
problem.
Identify, research,
analyze, discuss, and
defend a position on a
national, state, or local
public policy issue
including an action plan
to address or inform
others about the issue.
put in portfolio. Students
will reflect on their
researching strategies.
Lecture/discussion based
lesson. Teach origins of
civic virtue. Discuss it's
important. Ask driving
question at different
levels.
Student will come up with
3 solutions to their issue.
Collaborate with peers
focused on the same issue
to pick one solution to
focus on. Students will do
a pros and cons all
solutions is group to
explain why they picked
the one they did and put it
in their portfolio.
Lecture discussion based
Ask driving questions
Research 3 sources on
how their issue became an
issue.
Begin creating prestation
for class debates
16
have their peers teach
them. The students
teaching benefit because
they develop a better
understanding by
teaching. Exchange of
research tips.
The goal is for students to
learn about civic virtue.
Understanding of social
unwritten rules. The
question drive interest and
force deeper
understanding.
The goal is to get their
brains focus on a solution.
Using prior knowledge
from their resources to
start working on a
solutions. Also, getting
rid of less than realistic
solutions.
Goal is for students to
learn their roles, rights
and responsibilities
Goal is to better
understand their issue
Goal is to give students
time to create a persuasive
presentation
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References
Palo Verde. (n.d.). Retrieved November 27, 2019, from http://paloverde.wesdschools.org/.

Amazon.com: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel ... (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://www.amazon.com/.