Reframing BOBs: BYOB, BIYB or Build-a-BOB?

This is my first stream-of-consciousness post, but I want to settle something in my head. For many years, I have been creating and developing projects that I have come to call BOBs. I create personalizing projects, The Building Outside the Blocks projects, that helps learners build skill, autonomy, community and connection in minimal class time. I have created One-Off BOBs that are projects cycles that can go from 2 weeks to 3 months. I have scaffolded BOBs over a school year in spiralling ways that build, broaden and deepen skills over time. I joyfully refer to three part projects as Tri-BOBs as they have elements that are revisited three times and are connected to each other. Now that I am teaching Grade 8, I have more BOBS than I know what to do with, and I love them all. They really truly help learners engage deeply and build skill over time, so I try to pack in as many in as possible.

In the past, I have optimized my teaching with a One-off BOB and then a Tri-BOB so my students experience 4 BOB projects in a school year. Even though I am teaching only half the day, I have the same class for the entire time.. This is new to me coming from a rotary system. As such, I have the opportunity to eclectically grab a variety of BOB, but some come from the Tri-BOB group and are linked to each other.

One Off BOBS

Tri-BOB

As I was doing my long range planning, I was seeing connections between different BOBs in new ways. I actually asked myself if I cloud breakup a Tri-BOB and build it in a new way. What a linear questions from a creative and divergent thinker! Why couldn’t I think differently about my projects? I decided to play out some ideas out loud to my husband last night, and although he laughed at my enthusiastic rant and deep engagement in my process, I am not sure that I got a definitive answer, so I am reaching out.

What if I added an additional "kind" of BOB to my repertoire? What if you could pick and choose as many BOBs for a classroom and weave your own common thread to build a BOB series of your own instead of the Tri-BOBs that I built to go with each other? I have to name things to make them real- it's part of my process.

I excitedly started calling this mix and match approach a Build Your Own BOB, but I felt that that the BYOB drinking reference, although funny, was not really appropriate for the education field except after hours. Then, I considered BIYB- Build It Yourself BOB, but that just sounded laborious and unsupported. Plus, the DIY reference was lost in the letter change. Then, envisioning a morning worksop introducing BOB and afternoon of combining BOBs to create a new series that builds on each other with common threads, I came to Build-a-BOB.

When I originally thought of that reference, I considered leading a workshop on how to build a BOB. This could incorporate that because teachers could also spend the second half of the workshop with supported BOB building, but they could also pick from one of the 20 plus projects I have created and adjust it to meet the needs of their learners in their context. The cuddly allusion brought me comfort and joy last night when I stopped thinking, but did I over-think it, which has been known to happen. Would you call it BYOB, BIYB or Build-a-BOB? Your response in whatever positively constructed form is valued and invited.