1. Discussion on the potential pitfalls in project design.
While coming up with projects for your students to complete you need to make sure to keep in mind some of things that could make these lessons less effective. Some of the pitfalls you should avoid are: long on activity and short on learning outcomes, technology layered over traditional practice, trivial thematic units and overly scripted with many steps. When writing lesson plans keeping the core standards in mind are essential to the keeping the outcome of the lesson on track with classroom goals.
2. Discussion on the features of a good project.
Several components come together to create a project for students that is unique, relevant, and meaningful. In the text it lists several qualities that are needed for a project to be considered "great". This list includes: the possibility of different learning paths, students are constructing meaning, inquiry based lessons, lessons/projects are based off real-world experiences, are realistic and cross multiple disciplines, involve other schools in different areas, data and resource based learning, projects are structured for students to learn from one another, cultivate 21st century skills needed for the future and to ensure that students learn by doing. Including these components in each project and lesson plan will ensure that your students are expanding their outlooks on life and learning at the same time.
3. Discussion on where project ideas come from.
Project ideas come from numerous sources. You can look on pinterest for project ideas, which I have done with the children at the daycare that I work at. The ones that I did obviously weren't as in depth as what we are doing in this course. There are several websites listed on pages 38 and 39 of our text book, Reinvented Project-Based Learning. Many of the websites are teacher resources to find other classrooms that are using collaboration projects. Finding project ideas can also be as simple as talking with fellow colleagues.
4. Discussion on the steps to design a project.
Designing a project is time consuming and tends to be a learning process for the teacher as well. A lot of time and effort have to be put into a project. Each component must be thoroughly thought out before the students can begin their work. Teachers need to communicate with one another prior to implementing any project into their planning because collaborative teaching is an important part to the success of project-based learning. Another key point is to make sure to trouble-shoot any problems that could arise while students are researching for their projects. Being prepared for these projects gives teachers the upper hand in managing the time it takes to complete the specific project. Making sure to also take into account your students interests makes a big difference in their learning experience.
On page 66, the authors want us to keep in mind that one successful project often leads to another. This is important to remember because much like anything else, project-based learning is a trial and error situation.
5. Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to our topic/project.
This chapter definitely plays a role in the group projects that we are doing in this course. I really liked that the authors included pitfalls to avoid when planning projects for our students. This list will help us in the creation of our lesson plans and to make sure that we aren't doing any of the pitfalls during instruction. The section on where to get project ideas from will be extremely helpful as well. Though we have already found our topics we can use these websites for our lesson plans and pod casts.
Your reflection hits on all of the main points for each of these discussions - good findings! I have definitely looked on Pinterest for multiple different lesson plan and activity ideas, it's such a great resource! Thank you for referencing page numbers from our book about the websites, that was very helpful, and I will most likely research some of those websites. I liked that you expanded outside of the textbook when answering questions 3. You mentioned things like websites, specifically Pinterest, rather than just summarize what the reading said.
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely right in that lesson planning is a learning process, even for teachers. It's so important that we stay flexible, because chances are, our lessons won't always go exactly how we planned them! Also, great idea to use some of those websites for your project. I'll definitely take a look at them to see if they'd be helpful for our project as well.