The Seven Essentials for Project Based Learning are a need to know, a driving question, studnet voice and choice, 21st century skills, inquiry and innotation, feedback and revision, and a pubicly presented project. Without the essential componets the project will fail. Every project needs to make the project matter to the students and to be educational as required by the state's standards. Teachers can grab students attention by starting out with an attention grabber. The attention grabber can be anything like: a video, a lively discussion, a guest speaker, a field trip, or a combination of them. You really do not want to start off a project by handing the students a pack of papers and just read off the instructions. "A project with out a driving question is like an essay with out a thesis." There needs to be a purpose behind the project that the student can understand and follow. To make a project meaningful to the students they need to be able to have a voice within the project. Something that helps them make it their own. A good project lets students make use of all the wonderful technology we have in the 21st century. Letting students branch off of the subject of the project lets them make them feel like they have control on their learning. When students know that they will be presenting their work they will care more about the outcome of their project.
In the video Project based learning for teachers it said that we need to stop having teacher based classrooms and have student centered classrooms. When students use project based learning it has students working over an extended period of time answering a driving question. The question must be deep and have the students to complete and end a project and to also share the project. Project based learning is the big HOW in problem solving.
When finding a project to do with our students we need to make sure that they will want to do the project. In the video What motivates students? they gave some suggestions to motivate our future students. Acknolowledging students work, do well in school, making good grades, parents, and extracuricular activites are all good motivatavers. One of the biggest motivators are REWARDS! Studetns espically younger students love getting rewards like candy or extra time at recess or snack.
I found an intresting article called How to get high quality student work in PBL. In the article it said that the use of rubrics with PBL is a good tool to show srudents how to work on the project. Getting profesionals to come in or online communication can really motivate students into really getting into the project. A teacher needs to give feed back to the students so that the student can correct the problem. Making sure there is enough time allowed to do a good job on the project is key when wanting students to do good on the project. Having students care about the project is important because if they do not care they will not want to do the project let alone do a good job.
I also found a video The Building Blocks of Project Based Learning. I found it on the teaching channel. It said that deeper learning comes from a list of things. Master core academic content, thinking critically and solve complex problems, working collaboratively, communicating effetely, learning how to learn, and developing academic mindsets are key to having PBL successful. The hole reason to have project based learning in school is because project based learning supports deeper learning. When doing the project and discussing the project the students retain and truly learn what they are taught.
Hey Lauren! This is a really good post. Besides a few typos, I think you did well addressing all the questions. The last two sources that you found are really helpful as well. I especially liked the one about getting high quality work from students. This is important because I can imagine how easy it is for students to only turn in the bare minimum, but obviously that's not what we want as teachers. Thanks for posting that!!
ReplyDeleteVery good post and resources :)
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