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.

Chapter 9 Reading Response

Before beginning a project, it is important to find out what your students know already.  This helps you understand what has to be taught and where everyone stands on the topic.  In order to find this out, an activity called K-W-L is a great way to collect information.  The K is what you already know, W is what you want to learn and L is what you learned.  This is the most effective way to know what your students already know because you can record all the data and compare to what you need to teach.  It is important to establish anchors because you know where all the students are going to start and how much they will learn and work toward that one goal.  At the end of the project, it is always good to see what the students learned.  In order for this, students can do many things to show you that they learned something new and want to show it off.  They can create books, paintings, blogs, and portfolios.  There are so many more projects they can do because there are so many options through technology.  This chapter relates to our project because in the beginning of the project, we all input what we already new and started from there.  Then we researched and put together little projects to create our last and final project.  We are taking all of our projects and putting it into one big website for the final product.  That way we can see how far we've come since the beginning.

Ryeasha's Chapter 8 Response

   In the opening paragraphs of this chapter we were briefly introduced to some of the methods of Anne Davis. She uses blogs to monitor and improve her student’s writing. Not only has this transformed her students into competent and confident writers, but there were other added benefits to method. Like mentioned in this chapter, integrating technology has the potential to help students reach an authentic audience and Anne Davis’s integration of technology was a prime example of that. This chapter highlighted many important concepts we could use for implementation in our future classroom and in our project as well.

   Part of the chapter described some ways to build connections and how to branch out beyond the classrooms. This can be done by connecting student with experts. This entails connecting students with experts or professionals that are related to your project and could assist students. Davis does this by arranging interviews between politicians, academics and other experts and her students at a leadership forum on the campus of University of Georgia. Students were able to brainstorm good questions beforehand and were then able to include the responses in their blogs. When projects are designed to incorporate inquiry, like every PBL unit does, asking questions of experts becomes a natural component of the learning experience.

  Other ways of building connections and branching out include expanding the learning circle and communicating findings. Expanding the circle is similar to the idea of creating a professional learning community (Chapter 2). Not only can students build connections with other students but they are also able to expand their thinking by inviting the knowledge of others into the classroom. In communicating findings students can harness their 21^st century communications skills to share findings or advocate for change. In sharing their findings with others students can participate in authentic experiences that share some common goals with service learning, as students contribute to the larger community.

EAST initiative model is a network of schools that participate  in the Environmental and Spatial Technologies program that utilizes various technologies to solve problems and improve their communities. The students have uses technologic tools such as GIS, GPS, AND CAD, made documentaries. These projects make use of geospatial technologies and multimedia tools that are more commonly found in professional settings. In using these ways of helping students build connections and branch out we are letting them lead their own projects.

I thought this chapter was really insightful and a great model for our own classrooms and projects. It was also interesting to see how the teacher uses the blog in her classroom as a tool for improving students’ writing. It could also be use as a means of communication findings, which is what our groups use for while creating our PBL. I would definitely use this same idea in a PBL unit.

chapter 8 spreading learning!

I really like the thought of bringing in experts and outside help. Students love to have guest speakers and video conferences or IM chats with people who can legitimately answer their questions. Some ways to branch out include reaching out to parents or previous parents who can help, put stuff out o a blog, reaching through old networking connections. Finding people willing to help is only limited by what you're willing to put out there. The EAST initiative was a really interesting thing. To me it sounded like that was almost the baby of some progressive teaching and spread into what we look at now as common project based learning. A teacher who's kids had trouble being interested in learning got sucked into a project that garnered national and international attention. It was so great that other teachers wanted to implement this learning style and learned to apply it in their own classrooms. How exciting would that be to get that kind of recognition for something you thought was just a nice idea. That now we have even more opportunities than he had in 1997 is great every neat idea we can share immediately if we want! By the way, I was really touched by the story of the girl with dyslexia who started that conversation with the teacher in China. That, to me, is why it's important to sometimes let students lead. Students will be more than eager to start a project about something they are passionate for. That girl had dyslexia, no one cold really relate and she found a companion in this other teacher who also had dyslexia and it triggered her to type her own wiki to explain and give helpful tips to other people,e who have dyslexia. When the project we are working on needs help from some experts I think my first step would be my gym. We are doing health and nutrition and I could even go to the REC center and have a guest come in to talk about eating healthy and the right kinds of exercise. I also think that it would be nice to let my students take the lead a bit. I really like the idea of before an interview with an expert that the teacher talks about how to talk to kids with the expert, and what are appropriate questions for the expert. I think that it is crucial that you do that for a smooth communication.

Chapter 8 Reading Response

When classrooms are working on projects, it is beneficial for the students to branch out and connect with other people rather than just people inside their school.  Having connections with adults such as authors, writers and executives from companies is a great way to ask certain questions.  First, teachers should look up people for their students to meet or Skype through the internet.  They need to assess their students to make up questions to ask so they can better their understanding for the project they are working on.  After the teachers do it once, students should be taught how to locate experts by themselves and contact them.  Also, a community is a pretty big place for students to reach out but globally is an even better way to connect and find out interesting materials.  That is when technology comes to good use, blogs and classroom websites is a good way for others to see the work that is being done and comment positive or negative feedback.  The EAST initiative model teaches students that technology is purposeful for real life issues and projects.  EAST initiative started in Arkansas and reached out to two hundred sixty school and expanded from high school programs to elementary schools. This initiative consists of four ideas and were part of the original design.  The first idea is student-driven learning which is telling students to be responsible for their own learning. The second idea is authentic project-based learning, students need to be engaged in solving real world problems in their communities.  The third idea is technology as tools-students access to the relevant technologies that professionals use to solve real problems. The last idea is collaboration: students collaborate in teams to pursue authentic projects as they accomplish more than any one person can do in isolation.  It is a good idea to let students lead their own projects because the project is in their own hands and they are in full control.  If its what they care about, it is certain they will finish it.  Projects can be lifelong and have a lifespan so putting more time into it will create a fantastic project.  Students contribute their knowledge and research into their project and that contributes to their school.

Reader Response #7

      This chapter focused on methods to keep the project running smoothly. The levels of classroom discussion were among the first topics covered in this chapter. We learned that the levels of classroom discussions include: teacher to teacher, student to student, and teacher to student. Each of these comprises different questions and a different aim. The teacher to teacher discussion implements the effort that went into those long hours of project planning and is a feature of the professional learning community. Teacher to teacher discussion focuses on everything from procedural questions to formal assessments question. This level of classroom discussion is helpful to teachers as they use each other as resources, collaborate, and ultimately diminish teacher isolation.
     
      In student to student discussion the conversation should be focused on the experiment and their learn experiences as they unfold. Giving students time to talk to their peers will improve their communication skills which is major component of teamwork and ultimately it will keep their team organized and on track. In teacher to student discussions in a project based learning classroom the tables are turned as the teacher’s roles changes from the sage on the stage to the guide on the side. This is a crucial to the project based classroom where learning is student-led and inquiry-based. The teacher’s job is to “check-in” on students, circulate, observe and ask probing questions that will engage learners further.

   

    Questions for checking in with students include preocedural questions. These are questions that track progress towards milestones and deadlines within the project. Other questions include teamwork, understanding and self-assessment. Teamwork monitors the effectiveness and progress made by the group. Understanding questions are those probing questions teachers can use a tool to measure students understanding and to keep them focused at the same time. The self-assessment questions are used to find out what students are thinking about the project and are used to encourage reflection and self-assessment. This chapter also highlighted a few of the many benefits to students when technology is used. As mentioned in the ‘Project Launch’ chapter, we are introduced to ideas about methods to teach students how to use the various technologies chosen for the project. In this chapter we learn that when technology is properly used and optimized for the benefit of the project, it will provide students the additional tools to communicate and expand their horizons by connecting them to outside resources, students can access their workplace from anywhere at any time, it can assist students with learning goals  and can be used as a tool to help them organize their research.

     Trouble-shooting and teamwork are the two 21^st century skills that will make or break a project. Trouble shooting will distinguish the effective project managers and will also demonstrate to students that real-world projects come with real-world problems. Trouble-shooting will help students learn from obstacles and will adjust their strategies for the next go-round. Teamwork goes hand in hand with  troubleshooting. In teamwork student work together to manage conflicts. If you detect trouble, help students learn to manage their team conflicts, it’s a real-life skill that will serve them for years to come.This chapter was helpful in helping us to develop techniques for keeping the project moving. This same principle could be used in our project as well. We are creating a PBL unit but In a way, we are also the students working in a PBL unit together. So we use both the teacher-to-discussion and student-to-student discussion as we figure out what works best for students and we try them out ourselves.                           

chapter 7 review!!!

Classroom discussion during a well developed project requires some higher order questions. Lower order questions just won't take a project anywhere because you need to probe to find the next step, not rehash what you already know. All kinds of communication is important. Teacher to teacher is important because you can talk for ideas and feedback, and For opportunities to work together. Student to student for good communication and team work, and for Talking across teams about findings and sharing information. Teacher to student for Anonymously checking in among groups and asking some thought provoking questions the get the group to continue forward, or talking to the class about starting something new. Higher order questions are what need to be asked when you're meeting with students in their groups/partners from the project. Asking students Questions that make students tell you more and make them think, are good for moving further in their projects. If there is something you don't know say that and ask the students who they think who might know the answer. Checking in with students is important. Making sure teams are working together, making sure everybody has the tools they need to complete said project, and Self assessment like blogging while working on the project to reflect on what they are doing are all important things that as a teacher you need to be checking in on. On the technology front, technology is fine for projects. Many times it helps students communicate with other who live a little far away for face to face, helps keep them organized, and gives them access to the information they need at all times. It can be great but you have to be cautious, technology can distract students from the project. You have to work at keeping them on task. The real life skills that are being put to use in these projects are team work and over coming obsticles with problem solving skills. Teamwork can be hard if you don't have the right people paired together. Having the right team dynamics can make a huge difference. Another problem you might run into is challenges that the students get stuck on. Being aware and ready to change gears on the fly and be ready to help your students learn from their slip-ups. This really shows what thins as teachers who will be executing these techniques. Asking higher order questions is something that I want to master and quick. Questions like that open up discussion and debates that give projects like this meaning for the students. I think that 21st century skills are a great thing to be aware of too. Making use of skills that will carry through to life after school is critical for students today.

Sara's Reading reflection #7

There are different levels of classroom discussion that makes everything more productive.  The first level is from teacher to teacher.  Teachers collaborate with each other to plan about activities and assessments for the students.  Planning is key for teachers to give explicit instruction and help students understand their assignment.  If teachers can't talk face to face, they should use other forms communication to communicate with each other like blogs and wiki.  The second level is student to student.  Students communicate with each other to talk about their project and what they learn thus far.  It is really important for students to talk to their teammate or group members to keep up with what is going on and who is doing what.  Communicating is a really important skill for students to learn because that is how everyone talks to each other.  The last level is a teacher to student.  Teacher to one student is not normal these days unless no one uses project based learning.  Teachers usually give a big announcement in the beginning of class or the project to inform everyone of what they need to know.  There isn't a lot of one on one time because students work together on their project and will occasionally ask the teacher for assistance. When teachers check in on their students, there are some questions to ask themselves.  For procedural purposes, are you on schedule with the right materials? See how the team work is going and see if students are splitting up jobs evenly among group members.  For understanding, listen to what the students have to say and asking questions based off that.  The last check is self assessment, you have to find out what students think about the project and how it is coming along so far.  Journals and blogs are encouraged so they pour out what they think.When students use technology, there are many benefits.  Students learn to communicate and create goals for themselves.  They stay organized collaborate with other members of their team.  Using technology helps them reach out and broader there thinking.  There is troubleshooting when it comes to 21st century skills.  This teaches students that there are real life situation they have to face.  Dilemmas will come up when something will never or always or sometimes go your way.  Students have to learn to interact and communicate with each other and really have to work out the kinks to make it work.  All of these concepts are exactly what me and my teammate are going through.  We have explanations from our professor and after that, it is our job as a team to figure out what we are doing and help each other out.  We keep blogs to communicate with each other.  Not everything goes our way and we have to push a little harder to get the outcomes we want.

collaborative web

Sara's reading reflection #6

When it comes down to strategies to help students with their projects, there are many ways of doing it. Technology encourages students to evaluate and be reflective of their own strengths. As we are doing, we have a blog to reflect on a chapter we read or other homework that is due. Also using survey sites is a good way to evaluate their feelings and thoughts about something and also look at the results to reflect on what they are doing. When getting students minds ready for a project, always start out with what they know. Let them explore and search on their topic and let the idea settle into their minds. Tell the students interesting facts and stories about the topic so it grabs their attention and it also gets them excited. Teaching fundamentals is the first step in introducing the project. In order to successfully complete a project, start out with the starting point and the road you're going to take next. Students need to know the points and what they are going to make or create. They need a set point of how everything is going to be done. The KWL process is helpful because students generate what they know then what they wonder and lastly, what they want to learn. As the project gets deeper, give them questions so they can look more into their topic and answer questions. Students will use technology in their project and their are important steps to take. First, set up a technology playground which means students should play around with it and get to know it. Tap student expertise is a way to set up tools in a station and let them go around to get familiar with each one. Project management tools is a good way for students to keep a log and record their process so far and reflect. Teachers should promote inquiry and deep learning to their students. Students should understand that humans are interdependent, economics, health and well-being are related in some ways. Modern money has a symbolic worth as an exchange medium and also money means different things to different people. These concepts relate to our health and nutrition project because we keep blogs and talk about the chapter we read and post things up about or project. When we made a concept map, we started out with what we knew in order to make the map and put what we want to learn. This concept will keep helping us out in the future.

Chapter 6

In chapter 6, our focus shifted from prepping for our project to putting our plans into action. The ideas in this chapter were very informative to our project because it prepares us for launching our project and will this can be exhilarating for some, and can also be stressful for the teacher who has finally gets to put all that careful planning into action. Most importantly, chapter 6 provided strategies for implementing our project that were useful in so many ways: time-saving, technologically supportive, organized, and a light at the end of the project-planning tunnel for pre-service teachers like me.

  The chapter began by describing the project kick-off as a deep, thoughtful learning cycle. It was suggested to incite the interest of students before the project is introduced and to learn what they know and care about before beginning the projects. Teachers are encouraged to teach prerequisite concepts and skills, including those related to technology, as students will need them to carry out the project’s objectives. In taking care to do these things before the start of the project, students and teachers will make a smooth, optimism-filled transition into the project.

   Technology tools can be used to encourage students to be reflective of strengths. Some examples of this could be to use an online survey tool, like profilerPRO, or create your own on Survey Monkey so students can evaluate themselves. At the end of the project, students can complete this same survey and as a result, they will be aware of the progress they’ve made and can feel accomplished and motivated for the next project. Students can also create a blog to log progress and reflect over time on the learnings they've made.

  Some ways to get students’ minds ready for the projects is to figure out what they already know. Know-Wonder-Learn activities are often introduced at the beginning of projects but you can simply engage students in conversation about the projects or related topics and invite them to open their eyes to the possibilities. Ways for promoting inquiry and deep thought include discrepant-events and role-playing predictions. Discrepant events are attention-getting, thought-provoking events like the student-designed investigations led by the 5^th grade teacher and her student about density and buoyancy to generate interest amongst students and to provoke deep—thinking and inquiry in the classroom.

    There are steps that need to be taken when implementing technology in the project. When preparing for technology for students teachers should remember that technology isn’t the focus of the project but rather a tool for completing the project. These steps include setting up a technology playground in the classroom, tapping student expertise, introducing the project management tools and demonstrating for students. While this is important, it’s still imperative to teach the fundamentals first by setting the stage for independent inquiry and to share the assessment rubric.
  
   All of this information can be useful in our PBL unit. The steps to project launching are rather lengthy but the result is a well-carried out projects and students who are ready to learn because their interest has been cultivated and are excited about the project. We can implemtent these steps in our own projects and think about ways to evaluate students to see what they know and to get them thinking about the projects in ways that make them excited about it.

Chapter 5 setting up

Before starting a project, you should look into some experts to help answer your student's questions and giving presentations on the subjects your students are interested in. Another thing you should look into is how you're going to organize all the information your students will acquire during the course of the project. And ways for your students to submit work to you. The students will need tools for looking up research. A place to work independently and store their work individually. They will also need a space where they can see other group's information. This will let them see other peoples work and gather their own ideas. Also it will allow them to work in partners or small groups because they will be able to see each others works. As a teacher, you will need a place to see and correct all your student's work and progress. You will also need a place to communicate milestones and deadlines for the project. A place for all your students information to be organized and easily go back to old work. Some great technology that could really come in handy for some of your student and teacher project needs are first a learning Management System ( or LMS). A LMS Like desire2learn for example, is a place where teachers can post instructions for the project, Post a timeline on a calendar for the milestones and deadlines, and give students a place to put assignments in a dropbox. Other great ideas for the project would be a wiki page. It will give your students a place to archive their work and progressively go and come back to what they are working on form any computer that they have access to. They can change the information they have gathered and see what others have added to what they have found. It could easily be the hub of your project. Also a blog might be useful for telling and sharing student's final work and how a project is progressing. A blog would update readers, like students parents and fellow teachers, on how your project is doing and get some feedback as well. For a student's personal work space you might want to consider igoogle, Protopage, my yahoo. All places where a student can save his or her work in an organized manner that he or she understands. I think that the personal student work space is a very cool idea for the project. I can see students keeping their food journals in there for our nutrition project or maybe me posting neat articles to share with the students on a shared learning management system. I can see many practical uses for all of the mentioned technology in this chapter. I am be coming particularly fond of using a blog to hear what others have to say and sharing information. Another thing that I wished I could figure out how to make work would be like a classroom twitter. I think that maybe individual blogs and following them might be the closest I can get but to just work in small groups and be able to more or less IM what's going on in that group would be great for teachers monitoring and assessing understanding.

Chapter 5 Reading Response: Ryeasha

   In chapters 1-4, readers are introduced to new methods of teaching that involve technological tools, how to create professional learning communities, establishling a framework of reference for our project, and ideas about our project design. In chapter 5, we use the skills we've collected thus far and learn how to manage them and our collective efforts to make the most of the project and more importantly, the learning experience. In this chapter, we learned that the first things to consider before starting the project is to begin thinking about the resources you will need for the project, to plan strategies for the execution of your project to support effective time management, teaming and assessment. By taking care of these in advance it ensure the functionality of the project once it's launched and thatyou are ready to make the best use of instructional time once the project is underway. This same idea can be applied to any project of any concentration. Planning ahead organizes your project. While it may take time to organize the project, it also saves you time when your project is underway and will ultimately give your project a better chance at being a success because it's been so carefully planned.
     Before gathering resources, teacher should check to see what they have in their inventory. This can save money and help them stick to their budget. Gathering resources also requires a level of resourcefulness. Teachers can use many other avenues of acquiring resources for projects, such as sending out letters to parents, general supporters, and even community resources. While it may be admirable to dig into your own pockets for the sake of the students, it would be wiser to search for other sources of supplies and this is a great way to save money. In regards to teaming students, it's nice to allow students to work with who they want but in some situations it's better to mix students at different skill and learning levels so they can complement and add to each other's learning. This is especially important when carrying out a PBL unit. Students are going to do a lot of learning themselves so it's important that they are able to learn from and teach each other . Assessment can demonstrate to teachers what students know and how successful a project is, so it's important to select the best method for assessing students. The chapter listed formative assessment as the most effective method of assessing students. This method maximizes the opportunities to know what students are thinking and understanding. Technology can be used to support a range of assessment activities similar to the ones we have at the end of every lecture:)
   Teachers and students will have different project management needs and both parties needs should be met to warrant optimal results for both. For the teacher, they will need tools for commuicating with students and others about the project and tools for making milestones and events during the project visible, methods fo getting resources and systems for managing work products. For students, their needs include collaboration tools, systems that manage materials and time, methods for seeking assistance and ways to receive and use feedback while also being able to work iteratively and to see how parts add to the whole.The skills learned in this chapter have not only sharpened some of my 21st century skills but will be assistive in my PBL unit, as well. My group can use this chapter as we begin to manage our own projects as we keep in mind the components of our PBL. We can be certain to incorporate the management needs of teachers and students into our project and to make sure we have considered the strategies for teaming, time-management planning and assessment for student when creating our project and as we prepare ourselves to become teachers.

Sara's reading reflection #5

This week's chapter about project management strategies was a helpful read because it said everything we needed and who we needed. When students start their project, any resources and materials can be used. It all depends on what type of project you're doing. Teachers should make sure that materials are available for their students in the classroom or around the school. If there are materials needed, make sure to notify the parents through newsletters, pod casts, emails so they can supply their children with what every they need. Teachers also have to make sure that students know how to use all technology in the classrooms. Managing is a big part of a project both the students and the teacher. Teachers are the ones to teach their students about managing time splitting up the work so they can get everything done. Teachers should be responsible for providing materials and tools for the project. They should also present a time table for every part of the project that is due on a specific date. Setting a time a couple months away from when they start is a good way teach the students to manage time and figure out how to plan each part of the step. Students also have management needs that need to be accomplished. Students need tools and systems that will help build their project. They need the most help they can from teachers, parents and volunteers. Students need to work individually yet collaboratively to see results and for self reflection. This is a time to test themselves and try hard to make deadlines and come up with project using the community and tools provided. Web-based applications is a form of technology application that should be used in the students projects. There are many forms of web based application and each one is beneficial. Students can use blogs, pictures, audio instruction and resources pages. Students can make a web page and customize to their own needs and based on their project. These concepts relate to our project because we've been following all the materials needed and all the deadlines. This really gets us motivated to know that schools use this method and students are responsible for their project and to get it done on time. We are currently recording pod casts and we have this blog to post so that others can see.

Ryeasha's Response Chapter 4

  In this chapter we were introduced to the Finnish teachers who created a learning networking environment called Moop. This project spurred from their acknowledging that most students had mobile phones. The phones provided students with access to other networks and in their words, "went wherever the learners went." The teachers recognized this and applied this fact to a project that would combine all the aspects for an amazing project : instructional goals, accessible technologies, student collaboration and problem solving skills. This project was a great example of selecting and designing projects, the topic of the chapter.

  It's important to be selective when considering project plans. It would be advantageous to collaborate with colleagues in your professional learning communities and to review existing plans. This way you can provide feedback and prevent any pitifalls from occuring. Pitfalls in the project design include an extensive amount of time being spent on the activity but less time spent on learning outcomes. While the activity is an important component to the lesson, the learning outcome is what is trying to be transpired to students so much more care should be spent on that. Other issues include overly scripted lessons with many steps. Students need to be able to learn some things by making their own decisions so lessons with too many instructions hurt more than they help. Technology layered over traditional practice and trivial thematic untis are two other possible pitfalls.

  Using technology is not always the best instrument to be used in projects. While they may seem fancier and will often be more aesthetically-pleasing, the more important component of projects are that the learning outcomes are present and that the objectives have been reached. Additionally, I liked the example of the "apple" project that the author used. It is this thematic approach that is discouraged because of its lack of the other necesary components of a project. Features of a good project are that they are interdisciplinary, collaborative, and rigorous. However, one of the most important places where good project ideas come from are from the students themselves, just as how Weighill and her class began their boat project.

  Students will tell you what they want to do and sometimes using their interests as the driving force of the project is best because students will be more enthralled in the project makig for a better learnig experience for them and the teachers. But good projects come from everywhere. New stories, current issues, classroom irritants, tried-and-true projects, ad those created from other teachers. Any of these resources can be used to come up with good projects. Another thing to consider is how to design the project. The steps to designing a project are to consult the framework and to make sure the objectives are aligned with standards, decide on a 21st century skill, identifying the learning dispositions you want fostered, establish evidence of understanding, plan the project challenge, and plan the entree for the project. This requires you to think about what to say to get student's attention and an asset map.

  The steps and ideas that came from this project can be used in our future classrooms and even in our PBL unit. When selecting and designing a problem we can use the suggestions for finding good project ideas, which is maybe what we should have done first, but this information is still very helpful because we know which pitfalls to avoid, like the trivial thematic units, which aren't very helpful to our students' learning experience and we can institute the good features of a project that the chapter provided to ensure our project is at its best and will be helpful to us and to other teachers so that we may be able to share them with other teachers in our learning community.

chapter 4

I agreed with some of the pitfalls of a not made from scratch project. I am definitely sure about the step by step kind of pitfall. Any project that holds your hand too much is not letting you learn through your mistakes and doesn't leave enough room for individual results. I also think that another offending pitfall technology that glosses over traditional teaching, because the point to PBL is that it isn't traditional learning but more about the students looking for information and finding things out for themselves. I think that being flexible is commandment number one in being a teacher in general so that they brought it up in PBL as well, I certainly agree. A topic of a project can't be to restricting. You need to let the project be carried in a different direction if you see the kids leaning that way. I thought the ocean/boat example was great, that the students lead the teachers in a different direction. I also like the idea of having real world project base. When things are based in the real world it is preparing students for being outside of a school setting and true problem solving. I like that a good project involves other people. I think that its important for the students to build communication skills too. I think good projects come from real world problems. Students need things from the outside world because that's what they live in. Its things that keep them engaged and cross over multiple subjects. Steps that lead to a good project first of all is research. By the teacher and then by the students. I think knowing about the subject Would be a start. Collaborating with colleagues and getting feedback before trying it on the students. I think involving others outside of the classroom is an important step to have children dealing with others. And my last big step would be recording our findings as a class to improve and add to the project the next time around. This chapter really helped me to think about the project we are doing and things that I should watch for in my own project. I think it showed me to stay flexible and let the project lead itself.

Sara's reading reflection #4

When reviewing projects, there could be many pitfalls and problems. There are four pitfalls and they are long on activity, short on learning outcomes. The second one is technology that is layered over traditional practice, trivial thematic units. The last pitfall in overly scripted with many steps. When the project is long on activity, short on learning outcomes it means that the project isn't worth doing because the students don't learn as much as they should. Projects should be the right size not falling short. The second pitfall is technology layered over traditional practice which means that projects should focus on reaching learning outcomes not just a quick slideshow. The third pitfall is trivial thematic units. When teachers do projects in class, it shouldn't just be for the fun of it. It should be effective learning and because thematic learning isn't project based learning. The last pitfall is projects that are overly scripted with many steps. Not every project needs so many steps to get the job done. The steps have to be clear and to the point to complete the project. There are many features of a good project and many don't know what it includes. These are some qualities of a good project. Projects are designed with a learning path, construct meaning, structured for inquiry and capturing student interest. Projects have to be realistic and involve other students from different schools so that they know how to branch out and work together. Many teachers and people think that projects are just to be done without meaning or research. Research is the biggest part of a project because students know what goes in and they learn at the same time. Project ideas come from everywhere. Books, magazines, movies, dictionaries, and music. The ideas come from what you are looking for and what you want in your project. There is no right or wrong answer from where you got your ideas from. AS long as it fits into your project, it works. When designing a project, steps should be followed to create a successful one. Your project is based off of something else so look at that first. Then make a list of objectives and subjects of the project. You have to come up with a 21st century skill that you want to incorporate then think about learning dispositions. Then think of these points will effect the students and what they will get out of it. Create a theme or what you want to challenge the students with. After that, get the students attention by thinking of something catchy to say or show. This whole concept of how to create a project can be good use to my project. I have to go back and re think the main points of what the project is going to be on. I have to use other sources and grab ideas from that to incorporate into my project. I want to make sure that my project can actually be used for students and engage their attention.

chapter 3- all about the project

The BIG IDEA should be something that can cover more than one subject. I also think that it should be a worthwhile project,something that would have meaning outside in the real world outside of the classroom. I think that 21st century skills are important to kids today. They need these skills in working cooperatively, working with multimedia tools, and thinking as a team. They are all Skills to use in the world outside of school. About the 21st century literacies are not something I would think about really. It was a new thing for me to learn about. I think it makes sense that We would try to encompas world learning and technology and Inventive thinking and Effective communication. I'm glad that they have moved the literacies into the 21st century. The essential learning functions are Ubiquity,Deep learning,Making things Visible and discussable,Expressing ourselves or Sharing ideas, collaboration or teaching others, Research, Project management, and Reflection and iteration. I think to begin ubiquity is an inevitable thing. The use of cellphones, mp3's, and other things like tablets allowing students to learn anywhere are things that open the world up to students. Deep learning is good for any student. The amount of data students have at their fingertips because of ubiquity is amazing, the process of digging through the information is an important skill. Making things that we know into visual pictures or maps, etc... make it easier for students that have trouble expressing things in words. Social expression and sharing ideas are made very possible by messengers and blogs open doors for sharing information and ideas between everywhere. Students can be half way around the world from each other and still share the idea they want to with each other. Reflection and iteration are important to students so that they can look back on what they have done on their project and look back to make corrections or improve on the project overtime. I think everything falls into my project from this chapter. All the aspects are what project teaching is about. My students will have to work together with students abroad, dig through data and material to find what they need record what they've done, and reflect on what they could have done better.

Virtual Penpal Document

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Reading Response on Chapter 3

The concepts in this chapter are definitely relatable to our project because it will give us the framework for our projects, and particularly our PBL unit. Good teachers will need to use the student's frame of reference, interests, and experiences in addition to formatting the lesson to cater to your students' learning needs. In considering 'the Big Idea' for a project teachers should first identify the overarching concepts and processes you want students to understand and to reflect on why these concepts are important for students to learn. This will inspire both students and teachers to think about if and how they can be applied to real life situations and how relevant they are to these situations. Just like how Robert Griffin did with his students. Students can benefit from lessons like these that demonstrate the inter-disciplinary nature of a project. A great portion of this chapter also identified how to use the big ideas to help develop student's 21-st century skills. These skills include analyzing, evaluating, and creating. The objectives are covered in Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational guideline and are used to ensure rigor in the classroom. Some of the thinking that evolves from well-designed projects causes students to stretch their thiking in ways traditional learnig activities cannot. Technologuical immersion is one example of this. The 21st century literacies involved in this methods of learning include the Netsis which are the standards usedto guide learning i the 21st century and also to address digital literacies. Additionally with projects there are certain learning functions that are expected to come as a result of them. These can also provide a model for teachers to curve certain learning dispositions. These are the essential learning functions include ubiquity, deep learning, making things visible and discussale, research, collaboration, expressing ourselves, sharing ideas, building community, project management, and reflection and iteration.

Sara's reading reflection #3

When you think of a "big idea" for a project, make it into your own. Your big idea has to do with a concept that is for a project so you want to make it known to other people to help you out. Think of why these concepts are important and how you can make it interesting to your students and reach out to the community for help. Students and teachers also should keep to fit in 21st century skills. 21st century skills help think beyond your skills, attitudes and habits. This skill uses higher-order thinking skills which includes analyzing, evaluating and creating plans. This is the concept of moving from lower-order to higher order. 21st century literacy is how well you can show yourself through certain skills. How you think, communicate, perform skills and plan is part of 21st century literacy. This prepares young aged students to work on their speaking skills and collaborating with other students to better their performance for projects or whatever they are assigned in class. This also prepares you for the future and what job you're going to have. Being independent, aware and productivity sums up what literacy is. Ubiquity is a good way for students to get a feel for different technology and web-based programs to help themselves improve technique and for learning. Deep learning is pretty much high order thinking where they have to be on top of their game to perform tasks and think outside the box. Making things visible and discussable is good because some people learning visually and many people learn by discussing topics. Pictures and graphical representations mean so much than people think. Expressing ourselves, sharing ideas, building community is the fourth learning function. Sharing ideas is great for students because they use myspace, facebook, and twitter to talk about their day and just to express themselves. This allows searching and using the web to share things. Collaboration is probably one of the most top rated learning function for me because working together is the best way to sum up more ideas. You earn at the same time others learn because you are exchanging ideas. Research is also important because you have to know what type of search engine you're using and which ones will give you a legit website to use. Project management helps students and teachers manage time, source and feedback. Everyone has to have their own way of organizing all their information so that they can plan off of that. Reflection and Iteration is a good way of going back to your information and searching the past for answers. That sounds so cheesy but it is a good way to see how far you've come from the beginning and all that information can help you out in the end. These concepts could be so beneficial to me because i work with two other people that are in my group. We all have a blog to post our work and reading reflections. This helps our project because all of us post helpful tips and websites that we could always go back to and look at.

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Ryeasha's websites (so far)..

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letsmove.gov

http://kidsheartfelthealth.com/index.html

Learning communities are a great idea for teaching. I thought that the book made a good point about teaching being a very isolating profession. I like the idea of collaboration with other teachers for better results and being able to come back after you've done to talk about the results of whatever you did and get feedback. It would help also because kids love doing things with other classes. It is memorable thing to bring classes together and work with students that they don't see everyday that whatever lesson you're working on they will remember. I also think that its beneficial for teachers because its a chance to share ideas and support one another in their teacher-y endeavors. Its a great way to do the penpal thing. Its also Is a good thing to maybe use Skype for things like meeting classroom to classroom. It's nice for students because they are getting a chance to interact and share ideas as well. Just like the teaching pluses, the students get support and get to share information and ideas towards the same goal. Working together is having a shared vision can be great. Science seems to be a big benefactor in a lot of these ideas. Because it is easy to share data and collect it from everywhere and bring it together. Like in the chapter it shows examples of kids collecting meteorological data or rainfall. Overall I think that learning communities is a great tool for teachers to share and connect with other teachers and expand thier horizons as well as their student's.

Ryeasha's 2nd Reading Reflection

In this chapter we were introduced to communities in the schools, but the focus wasn't on students instead this chapter centered on the importance of a learning community amongst teachers. This concept includes the sharing of ideas, lessons, and teacher strategies for teachers by teachers. Conceptually, this ideal seems rather simple but in reality, the notion of teamwork in the education field is scarce in comparison to other fields. This fairly new concept entails fruitful discussions and the exchange of ideas between teachers. In this digital age, where communication is made easier by technology, it strengthens 'learning communities' by supplying teachers with even more resources and opportunities to network with other teachers. Benefits of Learning communities include lower teacher isolation, and higher level of commitment to the mission, shared responsibility, more powerful learing and a higher likelihood of fundamental, systemic change. The benefits to students are that it shift the focus from looking at what you teach to focusing on what children are learning. This practice ensures that students learn, it creates a culture of collaboration for school improvement, and focuses on results. For both the teacher and student skills and dispositions are developed that will prepare them for the real world. Both will learn to learn and even more importantly, will learn to work together as they strengthen communication, problem-solving, and project management skills. In this chapter, we learned that one must consider many components when enlisting like minded people to collaborate with in your learning community. This includes collaboration between individuals who share a vision of the conditions they must create to achieve the mission. In using this concept will strengthen our Project-based learning classrooms by providing both the teachers and the students a community to learn from and with.

Sara's reading reflection #2

I thought this chapter was really interesting because i learned so much about working together and collaborating ideas with other people. I thought that the focus of learning communities was about getting people together not just in your community but all around the world to collaborate ideas. This chapter talked a lot about teachers getting a team together to brainstorm ideas for new ways to teach students that incorporated technology. When teachers worked together, they expected to produce something greater than what they had by themselves. A quote that i found interesting was "having somebody to brainstorm with about planning, having colleagues to reflect with about what was going on in the classroom" (Mueller 29). I absolutely agreed with what she said because having someone to talk to is better than being isolated and thinking of your own ideas. Some of the benefits to learning communities included decreased teacher isolation, increased commitment to the mission, shared responsibility, more powerful thinking and a higher likelihood of fundamental, systematic change. These points just show how beneficial it is to share ideas with other teachers and how they have such a passion for teaching. When teachers work together, not everything will turn out the way they want it too. If they made a mistake, they have to look at what they did and move on. Students aren't the only ones learning, teachers learn as much as the students do in order to teach them and pass on the knowledge. Learning communities share the same vision and they are all goal and result oriented. Along with a clear sense of mission and working together to get the best results. Students are organized into groups by teachers/leaders. These learners share the same values and collaborate with each other to commit to continuous improvement. This whole learning community really ties into our group project for education technology because we have a group of three people and we are working together to get the same goal at the end. We have an online blog to communicate with each other and to share ideas. If something doesn't work out, we just re-do it and think of a way to make it better. I'm glad that i am taking this class and reading about other people that share the same goal because it encourages me to try harder.

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Sara's websites

http://kidshealth.org/kid/stay_healthy/ http://www.childrensaidsociety.org/ http://classroom.kidshealth.org/ http://www.pbs.org/parents/food-and-fitness/

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Lindsey's Late Reading Reflection

First. I know my post is late :(

     The chapter helped me think about PBL. I don't have a lot of experience with project based learning and this was an eye-opening thought to base my learning on projects and use that project in every aspect of my classroom. I think that project based learning is a big step up from what I remember form school.

     As far as technology, I think that the younger generation is very savvy when it comes to computers and things. They use technology everyday and it's only right that they use it in school. Not only does it give them a wealth of information at their fingertips but I think it gives students confidence because technology is something that they know how to use. Although I'm not a wiz-kid when it comes to technology, but I think it would be a great asset to any project based learning environment.

Again sorry for the late and quick post. I will give it a better go next assignment.

Ryeasha's Reader Response #!

  As a life-long learner and future educator, it is my job to make my self aware of the constant changes made in the world around me. I will be teaching in a classroom of students who have almost unlimited access to information at their fingertips, literally. As a result of the wide-spread use of technology there will be certain demands of the outside-world for my students as they tackle this changing world after leaving the classroom. It will be my job to prepare them for this transition. I will use Project-Based Learning to facilitate technology-use, collaborative work and creative thinking that will eventually lead to growth, for both myself and my students.

  Some issues to this approach are that I may need to reconsider my learning goals, classroom manangement style, how I will assess student learning, and even how I set-up my classroom and communicate with students. However, in my journey to project-based learning I will keep in mind that we, my students and I, are both learning and growing. I will need to get familiar with the 'learner' role again and be comfortable with change as many of the methods I was taught as a pre-service teacher will indefinitely be tested in mapping out my own project-based, technology-enriched curriculum. In modeling my role as a 'learner' it will demonstrate to my students that change is essential for their own future success.  I will need to keep in mind that my students are up for the challenge because they live in the real world. While the projects may appear challenging, they are certainly worth the effort,

  An example of PBL in action was illustrated in Chapter 1 as readers were introduced to New Technology HIgh, PBL was the framework for the curriculum at New Technology High, where the school population was 400 students. The district  was faced with the demands of the 21st century's workforce needs. The district was challenged with creating an infrastructure of learning that promoted technology as a tool for research and problem solving but also for challenging students to think critically and to collaborate as a team. This lead to the New Tech model, in which schools are smaller by design which allows for personalization which transforms the school into a community of learners, both students and teachers working together. This leads to improved effectiveness in teaching. Furthermore, less time is devoted to student management issues which lends more time for learning. At New Technology High students were immersed in real-world learning, technology was easily accessible to all students, good ideas are shared, online tools that made assessing students and providing them feedback were more effective and easier for teachers. and the benefits to teachers were time and incentives to work together.

    The benefits of PBL are endless when done correctly. Overall benefits of PBL are that once a project has been perfected and proven effective I can continue to use it for future classrooms or as a reference and resource to other teachers. Additionally, it leads to stronger communication skills of the students who are often grouped with other students and are pushed into working collaboratively. PBL creates student-driven classrooms by placing the focus on them which promotes inquiry and connection-making. In this method, students will develop a greater understanding of the world and the way it works.

Reading Reflection #1

           As I start this journey of project based learning, there are some things i should keep in mind not only for myself but for others too.  This is a new and creative way of starting projects and it should be interesting to work with other people and get new ideas.  New ways of learning can sound scary at first but i know that i have to be up for the challenge and test myself to new limits.  You never know how anything is going to turn out until you try it.  Another point of starting this journey is that other people are using project based learning also and we all have to experience working together in the real world.  That's how we collaborate and brainstorm new ideas.

           Experiencing Project based learning is beneficial in many aspects.  Starting out from the old school traditional classrooms to the new and improved classroom using technology.  Students/learners think of their own questions and try to make a meaning out of what they learn, not necessarily from teachers.  Students teach themselves in this scenario and become independent learners.  Not only is this beneficial to the concept itself but beneficial to students who participate.  When using this project, students understand the world and how it functions.  Students learn how to communicate with one another and gain skills work with one another.  They become dependent on each other and hours of work they put in because deadlines are very important.

          Project based learning isn't an instant thing that just works with a snap of a finger.  You invest in this new technology and keep building on top it to create something better.  There is a lot of preparation and planning to make this possible in order for students to learn in a new and creative way.  Each project is different and what you learn the first time connects you to the second project..so on and so forth.  Everyone thinks that this project is only for the students when in fact; teachers learn as much as the student do.  Its a learning process for everyone and develops ways of teachers and students working together for ideas.

          New Technology model is like project based learning.  Its a new way of learning with technology.  Project based learning is based on technology and working together but new technology model helps students create digital portfolios to reflect on their learning from the past time.

Cool Sites for our Project

http://www.ehow.com/info_7863764_nutrition-projects-kids.html

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Yayyyy!

I've finally found my way:)

Hi! Great Job setting up!

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