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I'm really thankful to to McMillan for giving me this chance and I'm here excited to share what I did during last two terms about uh project based learning and how I included uh artificial intelligence AI tools with my students uh and how it worked uh what were the outcomes here we go so from concept pitch engaging ESL learners in real world projects. Uh this is the title and you are going to see a lot of real world uh problems and solutions presented by students in my presentation. This is what I believe in as you can see

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on my screen. Uh this is from Benjamin Franklin. Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn. And this is the basic core of the uh PBL that is project based learning. And this is what I have felt many many times during the last 15 plus years while I have been there in this uh institute that is I just introduced which is completely based on project- based learning. No textbooks uh no exams no quizzes. So what we do there we uh just uh engage students into uh short-term projects that range from one week to two

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weeks maximum both in reading and writing and communication and within that we um we try to engage them into critical thinking decision making process and applying their independent creativity. um when I talk about uh project based learning and teaching we get help from textbooks and a lot of textbooks but it's not like uh it's not tied with any particular uh textbook or any particular kind of text so here we start so uh about like PBL a little bit uh theoretical background background it's a

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dynamic and student centered teaching method uh students actively investigate a real life question. They they are invited to think about a real life problem and suggest a real life solution which can work. >> Great. >> So students the during the whole process that I'm going to share shortly students respond to authentic complex and engaging questions. So they they're told to to talk about uh to to to search for the issues which are current and which a large population is facing and then they

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find the solutions and they come up with their own way to present it, their own method to present it and then they're invited to present. So it is the problem solving approach. So characteristics are like a question that drives their creativity that drives their uh investigative approach their questioning and uh their explorative nature. Then uh this uh project based learning uh it is a long process. It goes on like from one week to two weeks and the larger the bigger projects can go even longer than that. So it is a

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sustained inquiry. As a teacher I have to I have to like focus on their progress where they are going. I just supervise them and wherever they are like uh there is a threat of uh students like moving away from their main focus I bring them back. So but there's a lot of authenticity student voice they have a freedom of choice. they critique uh on themselves on their classmates's work and then they revise. So there is an iteration, revision, refining and reproducing and uh at the end their product is a project

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uh that is public uh that is for public interest and very very practical. And here I'm going to share a lot of images and pictures. Uh you will see my students and I uh I took permission from them to to use their pictures there. So I I already talked about that there's a lot of collaboration all also and communication. So uh coming to the project how I prepare the grounds here are the details. It is an intermediate level communication course which I'm going to present. Uh it is about designing a

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business plan is two weeks long. Um and the mode is inclass order presentation with the help of uh slides. The assessment is done at two levels PS assessment and teacher assessment. The sources are group discussions inclass process work and AI powered tools. uh before starting the before starting the uh project what I do I have an open discussion with my students where we discuss that as a learner what is the job of a student as a teacher what do they expect from me and as an AI user how responsibly they are going to use AI

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and how they are going to incorporate into their project. This sets the ground and this sets the tone that they can take only the images from AI. The rest of description should be original should come from their own minds. So uh here are the details. The there two kinds of projects. One is for group one and the other is independent advertising commercial design and for the students who come from the law department there's a mock trial for them. And the final group project is business proposal.

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Uh if I talk about their level, so in reading and writing they uh in this level um in intermediate level they they're supposed to compare and contrast various topics. But in communication they have to prove that they can think critically. They can explain both sides of an issue, express different ideas, complex ideas and support opinions. So the gowns are ready and now we can get into the first stage. So I um I upload project instructions on LMS and I do a lot of scaffolding with different activities.

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Um and then I take some sources from textbooks from YouTube and I also encourage my students to generate their own text, their own videos, their own uh ideas and then we discuss them in the class. Students share their prior knowledge. The assessment is done two ways. Peer assessment and teacher led assessments. Sorry again. And the final day of presentation is mutually decided by uh I do it with my my my students and the final assessment is done both by the teacher and by the classmates on LMS.

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And uh here just for for a minute I would like to share my LMS how it looks. Here it goes. I hope you can see that. So this is for the individual project. I uh upload all the uh details. Before that I have a discussion with my students and then we decide it uh mutually what elements to be added, what is to be excluded something like that. So it is all what they can do. So it's very practical. It's very realistical, very realistic. So you can see that uh there are like I keep my language simple

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and I give them a lot of options. It it can be a poster, it can be a video and uh they they can uh they can even choose the day that they want to present. I need to stop sharing this one. And I will go back to my slides. Here we are. Right. Okay. So, uh as a start I asked my students to prepare uh as I told you that I have an open discussion with my students about AI and its role and the role of the teacher role of the students. I want them to speak about that. I want to hear this from from them. So I ask them to prepare

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posters. They do it in the class. We have two hours class. So they have a lot of time. So and then I uh I display their work on the walls and then they can they can explain them one by one. They can refer to their poster which is on the wall and we have question answer session. Why it's important? It's important because because uh like students need to be aware what they're going to do, how they're going to use AI, what I'm expecting from them, what they are expecting from me and what are

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the uh what outcomes they're going to expect in terms of their learning in terms of their you know communication skills from this project. So here are some of the results. So uh this was uh first of all I would like to talk about this handband or wristband that you can see and this is uh one of the uh products that one of the students um presented. The idea was that parents who have, you know, newborn kids, so they can they can uh have uh they can put it on on on on the kids's arm or or ankles and it is

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connected with their phones. And so this uh it will tell them when the kid is sleeping, how long the the child is sleeping and when the child is disturbed or awake. So tap and go it is tap and go is uh the concept the student presented it as a concept of like a an application which is connected with a drive-thru grocery store. So in the same way uh the other students came up with these ideas. Now uh echo wave is no paste no mess kind of toothbrush uh uh which vibrates cleans and rinses focused on a student presented this idea

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this image is created with the help of AI. So this device is connected with the phone of the students whenever the whenever a student is distracted whenever the student is you know moves on to another uh application or something like this. So this focused thought uh brings them back it starts vibrating. So in the same way these projects were smart came for visually impaired people with a camera with a vibrator pocket soap and here are some images that's was representing in the class um I did not provide them with the names

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of uh AI tools that they can use. It was own it was their own discovery. Um because in my instructions I never I never said anything about any particular AI tool to be used. This one was a beauty product for the people of Middle East uh because they the students claimed that uh they uh other products do not understand the skin type or you know um the skin type of people in Middle East. So they created the solution. So these were the ideas. So um a lot of iteration happens there. Students reflect, refine and improve and they

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create and recreate. So instead of aiming for perfection in the first try, the iterative process encourages them to have a cycle of creation, feedback and revision. And so here are a few attempts by one student. He came up with these images with the help of AI but he was not satisfied. So he came up finally with this van thing right. So uh at the end PBL AI and problem solving approach why we need that especially in the 21st century when students have a lot of means of engagement but we need to give them this freedom

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and the option for sustained interest. uh like you know if if I if I go to my class with lot of u worksheets their interest will die so they have to be engaged they have to be there in the process of learning themselves so it gives them choice autonomy of authenticity options for sustaining effort and persistence it gives them options for self-regulation and I have noticed many times it gives them multiple means of representation representation of their own ideas, their independent thought, their creativity

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and it obviously it it creates lots of options for comprehension. But as a teacher I have to keep a check on their comprehension, understanding and focus. But at the end uh my uh like even through the process my um uh my supervision is just minimal and options for expression and communication. a lot of it and options for executive functions, decision making power, um the power of rejection, acceptance by themselves first and then through their uh peer assessment. Uh so that was my idea about project- based

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learning and how we can integrate uh different options created by AI into it. I hope you have enjoyed that. Here are the references that I use for this presentation. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much. Thank you for hearing out me.