Reflection #4

                                                                                            Ricki Feuereisen 

This chapter has a lot of good information about creating projects for your classroom. Teachers have the opportunity to collaborate and get feedback on a project they are thinking about having their students do. It also talks about getting ideas from other colleagues that they may have used in their classroom and has been successful and engaging.

There are four different potential pitfalls in project design the first being long on activity, short on learning outcomes, the second one being technology layered over traditional practice, the third one is trivial thematic units and the last one is overly scripted with many, many steps. What does each one mean? The first potential pitfall, long on activity, short on learning outcomes means; that you as a teacher need to make sure that what you are teaching your students is worthwhile and interesting. You don’t want your students to just read a book and listen to a lecture because they probably aren’t taking in any information and aren’t listening. If you have an idea for a project, think off all the components of research that can take place. The second potential pitfall, technology layered over traditional practice; when students are doing a project, given students choice on how they can present the information, make it fun. Provide a reason of why they are doing this project and what you want them to take away from this. Also providing choices of research will improve engagement. Do you need technology for this project; will it help improve learning?

The third potential pitfall, trivial thematic units, with this one, it’s okay for teachers to think of theme for the whole year or even half of the year. When you introduce a theme make sure that there is enough to research and learn about throughout that amount of time you are using that theme. Make sure there is a connection between the theme and a project that you are having students complete. What do you want them to learn from that particular theme? The last potential pitfall overly scripted with many, many steps. You want students to have the chance to choose what they want to research within a topic. Make sure there is enough information to research that is solid but not overloading that they get overwhelmed. Students should be able to answer all the questions that they need too. If they can’t find all the answers then the topic may not work. Teachers need to remember to think from a student’s point of view when thinking of projects.

There are many different features that makes a good project, I chose to talk about four; the first is having students learn by doing, students in your classroom can be visual or auditory learners. Students also like to do hands on assignments. Students learn by doing it themselves or in groups, for some students it’s hard to learn only by watching. The second one is a good project is loosely designed with the possibility of different learning paths. To me this means, you may think a student will learn about point A but when they complete the research they find a whole different path. A good project should be flexible. The third one is good projects are realistic, and therefore cross multiple discipline. When having students complete a project there should be reason why you choose that topic for the class. It’s better when you relate it to your student’s lives, and so that they can use it outside of school. The last one I chose to talk about it, center on a driving question or are otherwise structure for inquiry. A good project should have room for inquiry, letting students have some say in their research.

When thinking of where project ideas come from, they can come from anywhere, you could be at a restaurant and see something interesting and that can create a project idea for your class to do. It also helps when you know what your students are interested in and what they like, because then when you think about an idea you’ll know your class will be excited about it.

There are five different steps to design a project, first is revisit the framework, meaning think about what the learning objectives for this project, what do you want your students to address while doing research, what’s the point of the project and also identify learning dispositions. The second on is, establish evidence of understanding, meaning why should your student learn this, what do you want your class to take away with? The third one is, plan the theme or challenge, when creating a project make a connection for your students. Have the topic have to do with something they like or are going to learn about in class. The third one is plan entrée into the project experience, with this, how can you get students excited about this project? The last one is write a project sketch, with this, you want to look at the plan you have set up, how does it look? Would you want to complete this project if you were a student?

The concepts in this chapter relate to my project that we are doing in class, because we were able to decide what we wanted to research and when we got the broad topic we were able to choose what we wanted to research within that topic. We have the flexibility of what we research and it makes the project more interesting. My group is researching Local History, so it relates to us because we live here and we are learning about the different events and places around Kalamazoo.