Chapter 11

Despite the fact that we are coming to a close in our readings of Re-inventing Project-Based Learning, our learning has only began. The final step in our PBL unit is unpacking. This entails the wrap up of our project and finally bringing the lesson 'back home.' This chapter does a great job of providing ways to wrap our project up. Some  ways to 'bring your project home' include a reflection piece, which involves students identifying with what they have done but also for them to identify with things they could have done differently for better results or what next steps that need to be taken in the project as we move on. Criticism of the project is not only important for students but also for teachers who can use this criticism as guideline for the next classroom. We can share our insights with our greater learning community for both students and teachers and it can be used as a resource for other teacher so they can use this project as a resource.

Benefits of PBL units are that they prepare students on how to deal with real-world problems. Students can choose what they want to learn which only drives their interest in the topic even more. Because PBL units are inquiry-based they are essentially teaching themselves the content and this is what makes PBL units memorable and ever-informative. There were many instances in the book where students who participated in PBL units were able to recall past lessons because of the unique nature of them. Another benefit of PBL units includes the opportunities for collaboration and making connections. Students will learn how to collaborate which is essential in every field of work and will make them more prepared to use these skills in the future. All these things will contribute to an active learning environment and better students. This is what our project is all about and being knowledgeable about these things will make our project better for both the student and teacher.

Chapter 11 Reflectiona

When you use project based learning approach, you put a lot of work into it. You have to think of ideas on ideas on ideas.  Branching off one topic gets you further into your project as a whole and you look at it from different perspectives because you are working with more than one person.  So many ideas get pursued in this and it can be a long term project or short term projects in a project.  Bringing your project home means you aren't necessarily done with your project.  This leads to so many other doors that will open up to expand. You have to reflect back on it and look at what you could of done better and what you've done well.  The next steps after this comes from you and what you want to do with it.  This journey means that you have been somewhere for the time being.  Entering a contest or sharing your work is a huge step and process in making it known that being familiarized with what you did.  It is a great way to reflect and see your own work from when it started and to when it was finished.  These concepts relate to my groups project because when we are done, we are going to reflect.  Then we have to present to other people and they will have a chance to see our journey and what we experience through out it.   

Chapter 10 Reading Response

At the end of a project, students should have time to reflect upon on their journey.  Making this time is important because it makes them feel accomplished and they learn from their own work.  Students grow by seeing what they have done before and all the work it took them to finish to get to their final product.  This gives them a chance to look at their journey and experience a different view of their own work.  Teachers should also give prepared questions for students in order for them to answer about their reflection.  Ask them what they learned, what satisfied them the most and what will they always remember about this journey.  Before the students get started on the project, make sure to discuss elaboration and where they want to go with this.  The students should take a little glimpse of what their project will turn out to be and the little details they should incorporate in their journey.  Not all schools have traditions but when you think about it, they have their own identity and that becomes their own tradition.  Once one class or a person starts something, the whole school gets involved and that makes it aware to everyone.  This is a good way to get a tradition started so this same process happens every year.  Once this is ongoing, other schools and people see this school as their own identity and known for what they do.  This is great because other schools and teachers can look up to a certain school and make them known for the great work and imaginative ideas.  Another importance of finishing a project is the celebration.  It is so important for students and teachers to celebrate the end and completion of a great project.  Holding a party or creating an event for this gives students that good feeling of accomplishing something so big.  Another way to show praise is to display the projects in a library, museum or their school to show the interesting work.  These concepts relate closely to our ongoing project.  We are done with all of our little project but the big one has yet to come.  We have to combine all of our work and present the bigger and finished one to an audience.  By doing this we have to make a website and put all of our finished products on their to show everyone what we did.  This becomes a tradition because every class will have to do this and this is class has its own identity.

Chapter 10: Reading Response

    In this chapter we finally begin to conclude our project. I found this chapter to be very informative. It provides a lot of important things to implement while wrapping up the project. This chapter culminates the project experience and celebrates it and makes it a memorable experience for students.
One of the important concepts mentioned in this chapter was reflection. By ensuring that students have time to reflect on their project, you help students reveal things they might not otherwise think about. It helps them reflect on what they learned and what they enjoy about learning. Reflection is acknowledged as being an essential element in learning. This will help students grow as learners and what and how they want to learn in projects ahead. Students need to reflect and elaborate to make the projects successful and can contibute to their greater learning communities and to build connections and share what they learned when they can apply it by elaborating.

    Identities are tied to school traditions. In this chapter, we learn how different traditions give schools an identity such as schools academic-powerhouses, or a school known for it's emphasis on music programs. We can think about ways that our project will establish an identity for our classroom on a smaller-scale in ways that can eventually influence our our school. This give the students and the school a sense and expectation of excellence that they would be held accountable for. Part of creating an identity is to build awareness. In building traditions students will remember their projects for years to come.

   Lastly it's important to celebrate the project with students can feel a sense of accomplishment. Ways to celebrate the project include a showing of student work, put on an event, create a blog, or hold a party. Classroom displays are amongst some of the most common ways to celebrate student's work. Dioramas are a great example of this but putting student work in public places such as the library or even a website. Flickr is a great website for doing just this.

   This chapter was very helpful in laying down the groundwork for the conclusion of a project. The metthods highlighted in this chapter were presented in ways that can make learning memorable and fun for students and could be an important asset for our projects and, of course, our future classroom. The use of a blog was proven to be a great way to celebrate the project and I think that was extremely important to our specifically because we use this tool to communicate with each other and we will be better equipped to use it for celebrating student work or for elaborating.

Chapter 9 Reading Response

  This book has guided us in coming up with ideas with our project and has assisted us all the way into putting our project in motion. In chapter 9, we learned how to effectively assess students. Assessment is an important concept in any project because it illustrates comprehension and that information can beneficial to both the teacher and the student. To begin your assessment journey you must begin by finding methods for collecting the prior-knowledge of students.

  Methods for understanding student’s prior knowledge activity such as a K-W-L to find out how where students are in their learning journey during the project and to measure how close they are to learning goals. However, it’s inevitable that students will be starting in different places and this is where the use of an “anchor” comes into play. An anchor is established to gain a sense of where students are starting and how far they are going to work to reach their learning goals. It will be up to the instructor to choose an anchor or many anchors in a differentiated classroom based on the prior-knowledge of students. I think it’s important to keep in mind that students are starting in different places so it would be ideal to have many different anchors instead of one that may be too challenging for some and not challenging enough for others.

 One of the ways to assess students, as listed in the chapter, is to test students. While this may seem like a more traditional method of assessment, PBL is not traditional learning and just as there were improved results amongst students in Jerome Burg’s classroom. He also showed students the film adaption of the book they studied. Students were able to draw comparisons between the two and this demonstrated to him that there had in fact been a transfer of knowledge. Other assessment tools could be to videotape students’ answers to what they learned during the unit, or by havig students create something new like a blog to share what they learned.

 The lessons learned in the chapter could be used in our own project as we come up with ways to generate assessments for or students or projects that can effectively measure students’ progress during the unit.

prior knowledge ch9

This chapter was interesting to me. Assessment is something as a person not quite in the teaching field yet that I haven't had a lot of experience in. Prior knowledge on the other hand is something that as I student I find detrimental to my career. KWL is a good way to activate prior knowledge. Getting an idea of where students are beginning to see how far they have come over the course of the project is a great way to assess how well a student has done on a project. Anchors are important for seeing how far the student has come. Because not all students go the same distance or at the same speed. It also helps students to reach their goals! I was also really taken with the online grade book. I like the thought of everyone getting to see all the grades. Being able to share between classes so the teachers can be in share information on grades among each other. I think that having students tell you what they learned and even some self assessment might be a good way to go about final assessment. Sometimes students are students hardest critics. Having peer assessment can also be a good motivator:) In our project I would want to use multiple assessments. Maybe a beginning assessment to find prior knowledge and establish anchors to establish goals. Then, a mid assignment assessment to make sure everyone's on track and check in. The a final assessment to wrap up what students have learned and evaluate progress from the beginning of the project.