Chapter 10 reflection

Taking time to reflect after a project gets finished can help your students feel accomplished and make the learning stick. Thinking ahead to how you will wrap up your project will help culminate activities to celebration the journey, and remind learners of what they have gained along the way. After reflection time, it may be a good time to think about rewarding the students with a celebration or praise of some sort. Celebrating a project once it is accomplished is very important to show students their hard work paid off and that you are proud of their performance. A celebration can be big or small, and you will be able to decide by scaling it to the size of the project. Showing student’s work and putting on a party is a great way to celebrate learning and build your schools identity as a place where kids learn through projects. It is important to remember that all celebrations should not be all seriousness. Make sure that project celebrations include the following:

-An opportunity to look back one more time

-Acknowledgement of how hard work and commitment contributed to the success of the project and a culture of excellence at your school.

-Appreciation for those who helped.

-A display of learning

-An opportunity to showcase projects to colleagues, administrators, parents and others in your learning community.

To ensure that everyone is included and having fun, you could have students create and present their own categories and awards, the sillier the better.

Reading Reflection #9

Let Students Lead! Exactly. Kids are more capable than any given amount of adults out there. They retain so much and have such an imagination. We teach them to be independent but we keep them from exploring things they are interested in. Elise Mueller really took advantage and gave her students complete creative control of their own learning. If we give them control they are not going to disappoint and you better believe we're all going to learn something from them. She allowed her student to connect with someone who had something very important in common with her and many other students will benefit from Mueller expanding her classroom. Jeff Whipple's experience with other classes outside of his classroom and school walls was truly magnificent! It's amazing what technology can do and who it can connect you with. The students got to connect with the author of the novel they were reading and he answered all of the questions they had through a blog! Lisa Parisi is the host of DENchat on Twitter that connects discovery educator network teachers with others about the topics everyone is interested in. I followed the chat! And that's me connecting!

Reading Reflection #8

There isn't necessarily a point to project based learning if your class can't pull the information from their story board, slide show, movie, etc. and respond with meaning to what we want them to learn (Let's be real). So by conducting a classroom discussion that is productive and insightful is so very important to the student and the teacher. Each level of classroom discussion plays a large role in who is learning. I really like how the book mentions that when the students are discussing they should be talking about everything as it happens and ask one another questions as they need to. I learn the most when I talk with my table mates. A lot of them times they way they explain something it is 10 times better understood than when the teacher tried to explain it. The level of classroom discussion that can benefit both at the same time would definitely be teacher to student or when the teacher and student communicate. The teacher has the opportunity to ask higher-order questions in which the entire class can be involved in. This gives everyone the chance to reall think about the project they just did and think about the outcomes that they received and why that happened.

Reading Reflection #7

Project Launch was a very interesting and informative chapter. Introducing a new project to a class is a very exciting and invigorating time for students! I love projects and think they are so much fun! I would much rather do a project than read, listen to a lecture and then take an exam. So when a project is introduced, the most important thing is how we do that and how we get our students excited about the adventure they are about to embark on! One of the most exciting things about new projects is that we are almost always introduced to a new way to present that project. Technology is s lot of focus these days and they make kids happy! The chapter gave a lot of tips on how to help the students organize their information and how we can keep technology running correctly and how to keep the right people involved.

Reading Reflection #6

The section on team planning really stuck out to me in the chapter discussing project management strategies. The first statement that is expressed, "students naturally gravitate to the kids they feel most comfortable with" is half the battle with teamwork. Even today, as a college student, if I know someone in my class and have worked with them before, chances are, I'm going to address them comfortably and continue to work with them on class work. Students all tend to do the same thing because we like to stay in our comfort zone. When we broaden our horizons and actually work with other people, we come to find a different perspective on whatever the topic may be. In a team (especially one we have chosen on our own) we know that our characteristics compliment one another and that is very important for team work. I may be good at writing but my partner may be good at the math portion. Together we can create a pretty unstoppable team! As teachers, I think it's hard to veer away from giving students the choice to work with someone they want to work with but in the long run, the practice of having to find a connection with another person will benefit them in so many cases. Teamwork is extremely important and project management bases a lot of its success on just that.

Concept Map Part B

Reading Reflection 9

The most important point that I took from Chapter 9 was to connect students with the professionals of whatever they're learning. For example, "A ninth-grade biology teacher saw potential benefits for his students when he heard about a deep-sea expedition to be conducted by marine scientists at the University of Delaware" (187). The teacher arranged for his students to be able to participate in a conference call with the marine scientists. Being able to talk to experts in the subject area that the students were learning about motivated them to do their own research about the topics so that they would be well-versed in the matter when the conference call came. Connecting students to experts not only motivates them to do more in-depth research into the subject matter so that they will better understand what the experts are talking about, but it also shows them why it is important that they learn what they do. Instead of telling your students that you're learning about deep sea vents because that's what the state told them they need to learn, you can make connections with real career opportunities that the students will have if they end up enjoying/being interested in further exploring the subject matter.

Reading Reflection 8

The first important thing that I found in Chapter 8 was the point that the author made about Google. I can definitely connect with the idea of not wanting to do any further research when we can just type our question into Google and the answer comes up immediately. I was also amazed by how they went around that problem that they were having with the students. Teaching students about credible/reliable sources is incredibly important and I loved how they used that as a way to get students interested in conducting their own research. They taught the students that it is better to conduct their own research and to compare their findings to what they discover online than to click on the first "result" on Google and to take that as the end-all-be-all. Another important aspect of Chapter 8 was about classroom discussion. Teacher to teacher discussion is important because it is a way for teachers to connect and talk about what worked well and what didn't work so well in their classrooms. Teachers can then take the best parts of both of their experiences to make the project the most beneficial for the students. Also, student to student discussion, students can only learn so much from the teachers but if they're able to communicate with their classmates about what is working well for them in their projects, what can be improved upon, and their overall experiences, they'll be able to learn from one another as well.

Reading Reflection 9

The Environmental and Spatial Technologies Initiative (EAST) network of schools have been demonstrating the benefits of using technology to solve problems and make improvements in their communities. Projects make use of geospatial technologies and multimedia tools that are more commonly found in professional laboratories or design studio. EAST students will be able to use these sophisticated tools/applications in context while solving interesting community problems. Matt Dozier, the program director for EAST explains that “Technology is the hook we use to get kids into significant projects, and to get communities into significantly wanting to support those projects.” The EAST model is built on four essential ideas, all of which were originally part of the idea. Those four ideas are based on student-driven learning, authentic project-based learning, technology as tools, and collaboration. As teachers become more confident with the project approach, they sometimes find that students are quite capable of leading their own projects, starting with forming an idea that they care about and are interested in. Once the project comes to an end, you may think that it’s “lifespan” is over and you will be done with all of the information and work completed. That is not always the case. A good amount of projects will live on and continue to be a teaching tool in the future and create extended benefits. 

Reading Reflection 8

Keeping a project moving requires teachers to support students on their learning journey and know that it might not always unfold the way you expect it to. Classroom discussions are a good way to keep things moving and help your students stay productive. There are three levels that take place during project implementation and those are teacher to teacher, student to student and teacher to student. In the middle a project student teams are likely going to be moving at many different paces and in different directions, which is why creating questions for “checking in” will help monitor progress and make necessary adjustments to your project plan. Procedural questions such as “Are we staying on schedule?” or “Do we have the proper materials to continue our project?” will help track progress towards milestones and remind students of the project calendar. Teamwork questions like “Are students able to manage conflict themselves, or do they need my help?” will help you to assess each team’s dynamic. Understanding questions that may consist of “Have you thought about...?” or “Have you considered going about it this way?” will help restrict teams from using faulty information or suggest resources to redirect them. And lastly, Self-Assessment questions will help to find our what students are thinking about the project and encourage reflection. Through use of these questions, it may help you to understand and uncover information you did not expect!

Reading Reflection 7

1. Preparing students for projects (147) -Know-Wonder-Learn (KWL) activity -Let students know of an upcoming project ahead of time -Post clues about it on a classroom website/twitter -Let them explore the idea of the project before its beginning -Tell them before just to "sleep on it" -"Silk Road" (149) -If the project is about a place, "fly" your students through the area so that they get to see what it looks like through something more interactive (Google Earth) than just looking at a map in their textbook. 2. Preparing students for technology used during the project -"Set up a technology playground" (153) -Allows students to self-teach how to use the technology and for tech-savvy students to teach others who can't quite grasp how they are supposed to use it. -"Introduce Project-Management Tools" (154) -Project log or journal- "...to help students track their progress toward goals" -Demonstrate (155) -"You... can always demonstrate new tools, but it might be more efficient and enduring for one of you to create a screencast that your students can watch-and watch again"

Reading Reflection 6

The first thing that I learned while reading chapter 6 is all of the resources that teachers have to get discounted stuff for projects such as SCRAP, Craigslist, Freecyle, DonorsChoose, and InticED (128-129). A lot of times in classes we only hear about how teachers struggle to get the materials that they need since it's mainly out of pocket, so it's awesome that the book presented us with resources to help take the financial burden off of trying to teach our students. In "Creating Opportunities" I learned that it's possible to get the children into real-world experiences, even if the odds are against you, if you work hard enough. It was very inspiring reading about June Teisan from Detroit and how she wrote grants and eventually raised $20,000 to get her students real-world research experience. It was even more amazing that they got to go to a global forum for it and that her students were so inspired that many became first generation college students.