The UTeach Project-based Instruction (PBI) conference is a two-day mini-conference held each year which allows leaders from around the UTeach replication cites to meet and discuss issues related to PBI. This year, the conference was held at The University of Texas at Austin in the Student Activity Center over the course of two days. Eight participants joined in the conference this year: two from Murray State University in Kentucky, one from West Virginia State University, and five from the UTeach headquarters in Austin, Texas.
Presentations given throughout the two-day series included:
Dr. Anthony Petrosino from the University of Texas presenting on the history of Project-based Instruction and the course sequence for the UTeach program.
Dr. Walter Stroup from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth presenting on SmarterQ ™ questions and their role in PBI assessment as well as demonstrating the Group-based Cloud Computing x Geogebra models.
Graduate Students Sneha Tharayil, Sarah Jenevein, and Max Sherard presenting on Project-based Service Learning, the role of anchoring phenomena in instruction, and planning for the field teach.
Conference participants were able to visit the current PBI course under way, observe the class, meet students, and ask questions. PBI students shared their ideas for their field-teach mini-projects and conference participants asked questions about their preparation for the field teach component. Participants and students ended by demoing a variety of GbCC models from the models library.