Suzie Boss

In this helpful and clearly written volume, the authors explain how the familiar principles and practices of constructivist pedagogies can be effectively utilized with the framework of project-based teaching and learning.

Pre-service teachers, early career teachers, and veterans new to PBL will benefit from this book. The authors clearly describe the process of designing and facilitating a project-based approach to instruction by grounding the strategy upon sound instructional theory—creating a supportive, collaborative classroom culture; aligning student learning outcomes with standards; integrating strong elements of student choice and agency; managing, scaffolding, and assessing student activities; and promoting reflection. Furthermore, the PBL framework cultivates authentic knowledge and learning that will empower students to independently transfer their skills to new and unfamiliar contexts as they formulate questions and design their own inquiry and research projects. Perhaps most refreshingly, the authors convey their passion for the value of PBL without lapsing into the almost fanatical tone that plagues some advocates of specific teaching and learning theories that present themselves as educational panaceas. Boss and Larmer understand that PBL must be used in conjunction with a variety of other strategies to differentiate instruction that best suits a specific community of learners, and they provide abundant resources to help readers adapt PBL for their own subjects, classrooms, and grade levels.

I’m eager to explore the possibilities for using PBL in my own teaching, and I recommend this book to all educators who are interested in diversifying and enriching their own pedagogy.… (mere)

A group read for our high school's Tech Innovation team this fall - finally finished the last chapters and while parts of the book reflected my own teaching practices in the classroom, thus reassuringly familiar ... when I was an English/History teacher, it did define in much more detail what a true Project Based Learning model looks like, must incorporate to succeed, etc. The anecdotal examples from PBL teachers kept the pedagogy from becoming too dry... the suggested rubrics can be a jumping off point for our teachers for sure. Loved that PBL builds on essential questions- they call 'em "driving question(s) & with all my grad research on the role of questions/student curiosity, I wholeheartedly concur this approach to students' learning can be beneficial.... messy, but beneficial. And maybe exactly what we need to transition to in our 21st century schools.… (mere)

Honestly this wasn't as interesting as I expected. It's meant to be a study of women's sexual fantasies, but while it is even-handed and reasonably inclusive nothing was very surprising or revolutionary. The books is clearly derived from Maltz experience in sex therapy and seems more oriented at providing the sort of information and advice that is most likely provided at her workshops. It doesn't really have the meat you would expect of a serious academic work.

It is nice to be able to read a broad cross section of real women's fantasies to get an idea of the sort of diversity in fantasy, but in all honesty I found most of the fantasies boring and stereotypical. Thankfully Maltz did mange to include a few that I did find notable, either for their humor, creativity, sexiness or shock value. On the whole it was a decent sex positive book and I don't think I wasted my time, I was just hoping for something with more meat to it.… (mere)