PBL Journal Article Review

The teacher in this article created a PBL based on the book, Harry Potter. What I really liked about this PBL assignment was that it was cross curricular. The teacher took their literature reading, Harry Potter, and turned the book into a real-life budgeting problem. The students were fascinated with the book and were excited to be assigned a character with a specific budget. Budgeting was a topic that was not completely unfamiliar with the students. The teacher introduced the budgeting problem and explained the term budget and how it applied directly to their real-life. The children were given a character with a specific budget amount and had to create a budget for their entire year worth of school supplies for Hogwarts. Students were given a price sheet showing the amount for specific items. Some of the items were required during the school year, and others were luxuries that the students could purchase if their budget allowed. This shows a great use of PBL in a classroom. The teacher took a real life problem and related to the world of her students through Harry Potter. In order to address the budgeting problem for the school year, the students had to use prior mathematical knowledge in order to break down the problem and start to find methods to solve the problem. The teacher noted that many students used different methods for solving their specific problem. One student decided to save some of her money and put it in the bank so that she could have access to more money throughout the school year. Other students wanted to buy luxury items and based their budget on trial and error. Students helped each other with their differing budgets and their methods for working on their problems. The teacher was more the facilitator while the students lead their own learning experience. Once the students had spent two class periods working on the PBL, the students discussed their methods to their specific budget plan with the class. In the debriefing period of the PBL assignment, the teacher stated that her class was able to make higher level connections about budgeting based on their own experiences working with their ‘imaginary’ Hogwarts budget. One child said that his parents had to budget a member in his family going to college while another student said that a previous teacher budgeted for school supplies for the entire classroom.

I really liked the entire PBL assignment in this article for numerous reasons. The students were already reading the book, Harry Potter, for their literature class. The teacher saw that the students were very interested in the subject of Harry Potter and incorporated it into a real-life budgeting problem. By using a higher level topic such as budgeting, the teacher was able to help the students understand the topic by bringing it down to their level. Through specific characters in the story, the teacher was able to assign each child a budget based on their character. I really liked how the students were all given a different budget so that they had to use their own method to buy supplies for school although the concept method for all the students could be similar. Students were able to discuss with each other the different methods and approaches they were using to buy their school supplies. By having required items and luxury items, students had to learn to manage their money appropriately. Students went about the problem in many different ways which was very interesting. Some students started with required items while others tried the method of trial and error. Allowing the students to discuss their methods showed other students in the class better methods for buying their school supplies based on their budget. The teacher really focused on the PBL being student centered while she took a step back and became the facilitator. Students learned the learning process through trying different methods for buying required items/luxury items with their given budget. In order to make the problem more difficult, the teacher stated that you could use ‘wizard’ currency which could be valued different than our American currency. This could be applied at a higher grade level as well as made cross curricular when studying different cultures and money. I did not believe that there were many weaknesses to this PBL method. I think that the teacher focused on the main criteria for a PBL assignment and did a great job relating the topic of budgeting to her students. The only weakness that I could really see was that the students did not really relate much to the subject of budgeting yet. However, I do not believe it is a bad idea to relate this subject to younger aged children if it can be done through their world. I think the teacher did a great job of relating a bigger concept to her students’ real world.



Beaton, T. (2004). Harry potter in the mathematics classroom. MathematicsTeaching in the Middle School 10(1), 23-25.