Monday, November 18, 2013

Mrs. Godby's Criminal Justice Students Take Learning into Their Own Hands

We were down in the CTE Wing @ Huntsville High School and ran into these students with their head down staring intently at multiple monitors.

These students add titles to their video on Infant Neglect and Abuse
They were creating a video and Prezi for Stacy Godby's Introduction to Criminal Justice class, and they invited us to attend their presentations later in the week.

Building a Prezi on the dangers of drunk driving.
Mrs. Godby, a graduate of the WOW! Academy for Project Based Learning, implements Project Based Learning (PBL) to engage students, and make the knowledge 'stickier.'  Put simply, PBL proponents believe that people learn by doing.


An essential component to PBL is that students will be held accountable and will undertake their learning with the knowledge that they will need to report and present to members of the community.

Director of CTE, David Rosser (in foreground) was able to attend several presentations.

Mrs. Godby's students presented topics including the tragedies (and crimes) of drunk driving and infant abuse. At the end of his team's presentation on the dangers of texting while driving, team member Jose shared how his work on this subject forever changed how he viewed this issue.  Through working on the project, he realized that his own texting while driving had to stop.

Inclusion of the TEKS means that students know what they are expected to learn.
 Also required by Mrs. Godby are that all groups must include the TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge & Skills) that their project covered. Mrs. Godby says that at the beginning, implementing Project Based Learning definitely took her out of her comfort zone.
Criminal Justice teacher Stacy Godby
After the initial discomfort, she discovered she loves it and that the kids get more out of it when they seize on a subject and "own" their learning.  And, since she's opened up her class to PBL, the students have brought their own ideas to class, teaching her a thing or two about new technology.

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