I am a HUGE fan of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton!! My daughter, Ashlyn, got me completely hooked on the soundtrack and I can pretty much recite the whole thing.  As a former history teacher, a lover of hip hop, and former emcee… it is a perfect combination. I was fortunate enough to see the show on Broadway this past Sunday (4/29/18) with her, Shelley, and my niece.

It.

Was.

Incredible.

I continue to be blown away by its brilliance…the story is INSANE.

That’s why when I heard the amazingly creative educator, Amanda Fox, say that she had written a Hamilton parody song to teach the steps of PBL (Problem Based Learning), I begged her to let me have it as a guest post. She graciously agreed!! She even made a video to go with it…I am pumped to introduce you to her 10 PBL Commandments!! Check out her guest post below and be sure to watch the video. Follow her at @AmandaFoxSTEM on Twitter!!!

Here’s Amanda:

Introducing frameworks and learning phases to students is an important part of expectation setting, especially regarding frameworks that are new to students or frequently guide my lesson planning. When students are repeatedly exposed to a process for completing problem based units, it’s easier for them to transfer this way of learning into new contexts, which is my ultimate goal: to leave them equipped to learn well beyond the walls of my classroom.

When I first started shifting to a PBL approach I noticed resistance from students, especially from those that haven’t been asked to actively participate in class on a daily basis. To help them become more successful with this transformation in the way they are asked to engage in the classroom, I thought maybe I should introduce PBL first and have students learn about learning, which can be a little less exciting than jumping right into engaging students with content. But how could I make learning about PBL fun, and memorable, and make students not only embrace a PBL culture, but also  succeed?

So– I got to thinking about what I do in my personal life to make less than riveting tasks more fun. Whenever I’m completing a necessary task, like grocery shopping, I have an internal playlist going at all times. Music is life for me, and I am constantly rewriting lyrics to fit my current context, and I have a ton of fun doing it.  It makes even the most mundane actions, like doing laundry enjoyable. Because problem based learning is one of the single most powerful weapons I have used to transform my classroom to one that embodies student agency and active learning, I knew I really needed to pull out all the stops and to SUMMON the EPIC–and there is no one more epic in my playlist than Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Lin-Manuel wrote and performed in THE hit broadway show Hamilton and set fire to a nation with his words during our current state of  of political unrest, and uncertainty. If we read between the lines we can find history lessons imbued with lyrics and draw parallels between revolutionary times and current day. After seeing the show in New York in 2016, it is literally the most played album in my iTunes playlist. The shirts, “my thoughts have been replaced with Hamilton lyrics’ are so true for me, and if you have listened to the show then you know what I’m talking about!! But what song would I hijack to carry my PBL message?  

The “10 Duel Commandments” immediately popped into my head as the PERFECT melodic vehicle to decode PBL for teachers and students. And then, I started replacing Hamilton lyrics with my thoughts! Leveraging this hip hop pedagogical phenomenon for education and the classroom by “put[ting] a pencil to [my] temple and connecting  it to my brain” and writing my refrains inspired by Manuel, I hope to help teachers and students alike with Problem Based Learning.

Below is my video parody of The 10 Duel Commandments—The 10 PBL Commandments– complete with a music video to help teachers understand the Problem Based Learning Cycle. After rewriting the lyrics, I connected with a local musician, DeeJay Ford, to bring my PBL song to life, and quickly made a video to help visualize the message! How amazing if students approached learning through these lyrics: ‘past patiently waitin’. I’m passionatelySmashin’ every expectation Every action’s an act of creation!”

I hope you are inspired to invite Hamilton into your classroom and look at history and pedagogy through Lin’s Lens (with an Amanda Fox twist).