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.