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.