Logan-Ch 6 RR

From the ideas listed in the book, “Reinventing Project-Based Learning”, I think using a Blog would best help and encourage students to reflect and evaluate their work.  Students will be able to see past post, what they learned, ideas that might have not been answered yet, or they can reflect and improve on a post after doing more research. I’m looking at the idea of a Blog like a running record, but also a place for your classmates can give advice or leave positive comments.

Building up excitement, recognizing prior knowledge, and relating your topic to the real world could all help the teacher get his/her students ready for a big project. From the book, I thought it was a good idea that the teacher in the example brought up the idea just for a few minutes each day before actually starting the project.  I think this method helped the students to start brainstorming ideas, even if it wasn’t necessarily on their minds, she planted the seed.

The fundamentals are a big key, we can’t assume that our students know technology and are familiar with it. Before starting their research it could be good idea to visit the library, refresh your students on how to properly their resources to get the information needed. This doesn’t have to be a boring step but could be worked into the unit as a fun activity, like an internet scavenger hunt.

This chapter will help my group and me with our unit plan because it has given us good suggestions to formulate the beginning of a project with our students.  This is information that will help us with our unit plan but also how we conduct ourselves as the facilitator of a project.

Grady: Chapter 5 RR

This chapter is about time management and how it is important for both teachers and students. In order for a project to be successful, time management needs to be evident. If you don't plan out what your students will be doing ahead of time, the project can end up being more complicated than it needs to be. Being organized and having good time management skills are something both teacher and learners should become good at. Before starting a project, materials should be collected as well as resources. Having experts in the field who know a lot about the topic your students are working on is very helpful and beneficial for the students. Interacting with people who know a lot about their topic gives them insight to how the project will fall into place. As a student, it is hard to manage your time especially when you are studying several different subjects. You can help your students become more organized and improve their time management skills by providing them with an outline or calendar of dates when things are due. When students have it all laid out in front of them, they can plan ahead and know when everything is due. They can plan around these deadlines. Assessing students is a huge part of PBL. Testing students before, during, and after the project helps you as a teacher get a sense of what they knew prior, what they found out through research during, and what they gained and learned at the end of the project. This all related to our project because in order to be a good teacher, you need to have good time management skills so that you can model for your students how they should be organized and manage their time. Planning ahead of time is key for a project to be successful.

Spangler: Chapter 5 RR

This chapter is about project management strategies for teachers and learners. Time management, teaming, and assessment are important strategies to learn to prepare a successful project, so that the best use of instructional time is present. Gathering the materials you need is very important before starting the project because without materials, it could cause delays in the process and unproductive instructional time. Other teachers, parents, and even recycling centers can be really good resources for materials. Another important thing prior to starting a project with your students is to get in touch with experts in the field, and find ways for students to communicate with them and ask questions. Whether these experts are in the community, or are accessed via Skype it provides the same type of communication, and it is important that these experts and who to ask questions to is set up before the project begins.
An important skill to be learned throughout any project is that the students are learning how to manage their own time. A way to do this is to plan a project calendar where students can easily see and follow along where the deadlines are and what is due on what day. This also provides students and teachers with the opportunity to organize all aspects of the project online. It is also important when making the groups that they are diverse in skill. Students need to “compliment” each other. For example, if one person is extremely organized and another person is great at using the Internet, they can feed off each other’s strengths.
Assessment is a very important aspect of project-based learning and should not only be done at the end of the project, but throughout. Technology is really important in these assessment activities. For example, students can take an online survey before they begin the project so you can test their prior knowledge. Technology is also used with developing a wiki. This way other collaborators can add to it at any time. This wiki can also be the center of where everything is about the project, and both students and the teacher have access.
Finally, this relates to our project because we need to know for our future in teaching, what to have planned out before a project, that doesn’t take the fun out of it. Also, creating a wiki is sort of like what we are doing with our website, so this will help us get the idea.

Grady: Ch 4 RR

This chapter focuses on selecting and designing projects. When doing this, you are going to encounter some pitfalls. One of those pitfalls is long on activity, short on learning outcomes. This means if the project is busy and long but reaches small or lower-order learning aims, it's not worth investing your students' time or yours. Looking at the outcome is very important. Technology layered over traditional practice is another potential pitfall. You don't want your students' to research something and just throw it all into a powerpoint presentation. You want them to make use of using technology and really decide if technology is something that is crucial to their project. Another potential pitfall is trivial thematic units. Some teachers' use this approach but you have to think about how it could be be repeated. The last pitfall is overly scripted with many steps. The best projects have students making critical decisions about their learning path. Look to the description of learning objectives and student outcomes as you evaluate a plan and if it seems too lengthy, you might run into difficulty. The best projects share important features. They are: loosely designed with the possibility of different learning paths, generative, causing students to construct meaning, center on a driving question or are otherwise structured for inquiry,capture student interest through complex and compelling real-life or simulated experiences, realistic and cross multiple disciplines, reach boyone school to involve others, tap rich data or primary sources, structured so students learn with and from each other, work as inquiring students might, get 21st century skills and literacies, including communication, project management, and technology use, get at important learning dispositions, including persistence, risk-taking, confidence, resilience, self-reflection, and cooperation, and have students learn by doing.

Spangler: Chapter 4 RR

This chapter discusses the many potential pitfalls in project design. The first is, “long on activity, short on outcomes.” This basically means if the project takes too long and the students aren’t challenged by it, then it’s not worth doing. Another potential pitfall I thought was interesting is, “technology layered over traditional practice.” This occurs when a regular research project is referred to as a project design project. The students researching a topic on the internet and making it a slideshow is not project design! The next pitfall chapter 4 lists is “trivial thematic units.” This was kind of hard to understand but it talks about doing a lot of activities with apples that are not beneficial in any way to the students. It comes down to what you do with apples. Adding pictures of apples versus learning about commerce, agriculture, and transportation. There is a big difference! The last potential pitfall is “overly scripted with many, many steps.” This is just how it sounds. If there is too much instruction, there won’t be any creativity. So it is important to look at the learning objectives to figure out how many steps of instruction you should have for your project.

Some features of a good project listed in this chapter are very helpful for teachers who are designing their projects. Some of these features include having a loose design so there can be a possibility of many learning paths, but also to make it structured so students can learn with and from each other. Another important component for a good project is to go beyond just school and get the community involved. In my opinion, one of the most important of these features is to let the children learn by doing. Isn’t that the whole point of project-based learning?
One of the hardest parts of project-based learning in my opinion is where to begin. Where can you get ideas for what you want your project to be about? This chapter provides many resources that teachers can access. It also discusses the idea that projects start other projects. In other words, a project the students are currently working on, will always lead to something more, a bigger idea or a continuation of the same subject.

Now it’s time to design the project. Chapter 4 gives steps to designing a project. Important things to remember are to consider the context, for example the school calendar, curriculum sequence, and student interest. First revisit the framework and reconsider the objectives. Then write a project sketch outlining your entire idea and how you are going to make it into a project.

The topics in this chapter relate to our project because it tells us very important features of a good project. That way we can be sure to implement these ideas into our project. It also includes ways that a project idea could become unsuccessful.

Logan-Chapter 4 RR

Technology layered over traditional practice is the pitfall that stood out to me most. I’m not the best at technology and I haven’t had good experiences with teachers incorporating technology into the class so as a new teacher I’m afraid of this happening to me. We become comfortable in what we already know so I have to be conscious and aware that the technologies pieces I choose to incorporate can benefit my students in a greater way, “to allow students to create unique and high quality learning products that will connect each student to rich data or primary sources”.

                What makes a project is if you can incorporate more than one content area, if the students are learning by doing. I’ve notice that when students actually do the work, meaning hands on activities, they’re more likely to know the material instead of the classic memorization technique. Other ways a project can be considered good is if it reaches the community, real-world situations, and of course a project that will capture the interest and attention of your students.

                Project ideas can come from anywhere, the interest of your students, conversations you’ve had with other teachers, or a new idea can come from an idea that you already had, just enhanced or modified to fit your students’ needs.  The steps needed to design a project are pretty much the same way I would write a lesson plan. To consider al routes that I can take with a particular subject, how can I make it interesting, and what can I incorporate to make it hands on. Although a project is on a grander scale I believe you need to work small to prevent feeling overwhelmed.

               This chapter directly relates to my unit topic because it’s a great resource to know the right and wrong ways of doing things when putting together a successful project for my students.  

Logan: Chapter 3 RR

One thing that I picked out of the reading regarding the big idea is to start off in steps and brainstorm ideas through one subject first and see how you can overlap it with a different content area. Looking at the picture can be very overwhelming and frustrating as a teacher because it’s hard to determine the starting line.  One thing that should be considered while trying to find the big idea is to think about the real world and how this project can benefit the students and possibly the community.  “Thinking about real-world contexts helps to reveal the interdisciplinary nature of a project” pg. 46.  

It’s interesting to see the comparison of a regular assignment and what a 21^st century assignment looks like, explained on page 48. We have all gotten assignments where we just write a report on a famous person and that’s it, we might have learned general information from that assignment but there was probably no “fun” behind it. Seeing how you can take that project one step further by using the skills of the 21^st century can enhance how effectively the students learn , how well the know the material and not memorize the material, and because they have more room to be creative they will also enjoy it. “Literacy boils down to learning to be independent, aware, and productive citizens”. Without sufficient literacy skills one will not succeed in life as they would have otherwise. In life we need to have the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, and communicate, these are all vital opponents on the 21^st-century literacy skills.

With PBL students have the opportunity to learn in and outside the classroom because of the real world content within the project. In order for projects to successful is have the ability to ask your students to dig deep. Asking higher order thinking questions will foster a well in-depth project that will push your students to think further. Making things visual and discussable will help your student to prioritize information, organize information, and foster group or classroom discussions. This also ties in to the function of Project Management: Planning and Organization, keeping their information together and well planned out to share with others. Sharing your ideas with the community only helps the involvement of your students, when they see that other people are interested in what they are doing that will create more enthusiasm and self-expression in the classroom. Reflection is a part of deep learning and thinking, it helps you to enhance what you already have or build new bridges to learn and discover more.

The concepts in this chapter will help me with my unit to create a well prepared 21^st century project for my students. This is what our own projects are about so it will be very beneficial to us.

Spangler: Chapter 3 RR

Chapter 3 talks about the framework for setting up a project. The first step towards creating a project involves identifying the core concepts and processes. These are essentially the big ideas that students should take away from the project. So teachers should start by asking themselves what knowledge they want their students to gain from the project. Once you as a teacher identify your broad concepts it is important to consider why these concepts are important and why other people would care about them. When you can apply this to the real world that is when it can be a successful “big idea.”

It is also important that the project help improve your student’s 21st Century skills. What can this project do that traditional lessons cannot? This chapter also discusses the Bloom categories of learning objectives. You can incorporate these into your lesson structure and the objectives highlighted in this chapter are analyze, evaluate, and create.

21st Century literacies are also important in taking what a child learns from a project, beyond the project and used in the real world. For students to develop information literacy it is important to review the ISTE but it basically knowing when and what information is needed, and how to locate it using technology.

There are seven essential learning functions discussed in chapter 3. #1 is ubiquity, which means learning everywhere, in and out of the classroom. #2 is deep learning. This means when students have to use higher-order thinking to navigate and create representations to learn. #3 is making things visible and discussable means using visual representations like Google Earth as a source. #4 is expressing ourselves, sharing ideas, building community is about using things like facebook and myspace to create a social network on the web. #5 is collaboration and working with others. #6 is research and is using search engines to do research for projects. #7 is planning and organization, which is all about managing time.

This chapter relates to our project because it is all about how to set up a project for your students. This is what we are doing for our assignment so this chapter helps a lot.

Assignment IV Part B Nutritionistas

Grady: Chapter 3 RR

This chapter focused on establishing the conceptual framework of a project. The more complex an idea, the better suited it is for the 21st-century project treatment. When students and teachers form a complex idea in which they want to investigate, it makes the project more interesting. Good projects connect directly to the students' frames of reference, interest, and experiences. This chapter revolved a lot around developing 21st-century skills for students. To do this, teachers need to push their students beyond their comfort zone in terms of thinking by using the Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. The lsat three levels are particularly relevant to project-based learning: analyze, evaluate, and create. The verbs that fall under these three categories come in handy as you design questions that drive student actions. Overall, this chapter conveys to us how to deepen our students thinking in order to start a project that will be beneficial to them. Interacting with our students and pushing them to think outside the box is what helps formulate topics and ideas for project-based learning.

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Lesson Plan Topic

Staying hydrated.

Grady: Lesson Plan Topic

Healthy Living: Exercise

Spangler: Lesson Plan Topic

Healthy Eating

Grady: RR #2

I think that learning communities are important in a school environment because it benefits both the teachers and the students. When teachers are able to bounce ideas off of each other, it makes the their teaching more effective and well rounded. The chapter also talks about all teachers having the same vision for teaching. They need to work together to plan and decide what they are going to teach and how they are going to teach it. When teachers have the same vision it helps them to work collaboratively. Learning communities also provide some comfort for new teachers in a way which makes them feel comfortable and welcome. Being able to learn from more experienced teachers in a learning community is beneficial to both teachers and students.

Ch.2 Reflection

Kristen Logan

EDT3470,

Peterson/Woodard Monday

Reflection #2

     I see the focus of Learning Communities is to evolve from the traditional style of teaching into a more collaborative effort with other teachers and students. I think this is a valuable thing to have within your school or school district because as a new teacher it’s important to have feedback and collaboration with veteran teachers to improve our teaching. The benefits of having a learning community positively effects both the student and the teachers in such a way that it develops skills needed for the real world; communication, problem solving and project management skills, as well as building relationships with your professional peers. In order for this innovative way of teaching to be successful all teachers must share the same vision, they should all agree on the same goals and projected outcomes, and they must commit themselves to continuous improvement. Constant self-evaluation and evaluation of your community is needed to improve the future.

Spangler: Chapter 2 RR

According to Peter Senge’s book, The Fifth Discipline, he defines a learning organization as, “Any business work team, big or small, that engages in ongoing, collaborative problem solving focused on making the business better.” For educational purposes, this “learning organization” is referred to as a professional learning community. This consists of teachers working together to better their curriculum's and schools, and at the same time, making the effort to make time to work collaboratively.

The benefits of learning communities are enormous. According to chapter 2, they include decreased teacher isolation, increased commitment to the mission, shared responsibility, more powerful learning, and a higher likelihood of fundamental, systematic change.

I also thought it was important to see how much teachers get out of learning communities. In the example about Carmel Crane, a teacher in California, she describes the immense support and feedback she got from other teachers whom she presented her project to. She said that she had never experienced anything like that in her previous school and it was really helpful to get feedback and see the things she may have overlooked in her planning of the project. She also included that it was the panel of colleagues that encouraged her to take the project into the community as well. I think this shows how greatly learning communities affect teachers in a positive way.

These learning communities are not only beneficial to teachers. Professional learning communities focus on three important goals, which are all centered around the students. They include making sure the students are learning, creating a collaborative culture in the school, and focusing on results. It makes sense that these learning communities affect students, because ultimately they are the reason teachers do everything they do; to help students learn.

As for the vision these teachers must share to work as a team is very important in professional learning communities. The book lists a lot of important reasons teachers must share the same vision. Having a clear sense of mission, sharing a vision of the conditions needed to achieve that mission, working collaboratively to figure out the best ways to achieve the mission are just a few important components of shared vision in learning communities. I think this is an obvious point. How are teachers going to work together in a positive way if they are not on the same page? Of course they need to agree on a mission and how they are going to achieve it.

This chapter relates to our project because we are all teachers working together to create this project for our students. We need to work collaboratively and have the same vision for our websites.

Overall, I am very supportive of the learning communities discussed in this chapter. I think working together as teachers is just as important as this book makes it seem. Especially with project-based learning, which may be new to a lot of teachers trying to implement 21^st century technology for their students. To be successful in this change it is very important for teachers to work collaboratively with their colleagues.