This week our readings taught me a lot more about Project Based Learning. I love this approach to learning because it offers students the opportunity to collaborate, think critically, and hone important communication skills as they work together to find a solution to a problem and create a product to report their findings. I especially enjoyed reading the blog post entitled How to Get High-Quality Student Work in PBL. This reading really highlighted some solutions to some very real concerns I have had when considering an implementation of PBL inside my own classroom. For example, using rubrics has always been a part of my teaching, however, the importance of ensuring that I show them to my students before they set out to complete a project or learning task never fully occurred to me until recently. As humans, we all want to know what is expected of us in advance, respectfully. Seven year olds really are no different. Another concern I have had in the past is ensuring our project topics are authentic enough to motivate students. I have experienced, firsthand, the complete devastation that is felt when a project seems so authentic and interesting to me, but falls flat with my seven year olds. Learning the delicate craft of pulling an authentic topic straight from classroom discussions is one I am excited to practice and improve.
Over the summer, I discovered a new
tech tool that I think is going to help me improve project-based learning inside
my classroom. I am just beginning my third year teaching. As a new teacher, it
can get very overwhelming trying to plan, organize, and orchestrate the many
elements of quality PBL (i.e. constant and regular feedback, formative assessments,
time to revise, and authentic learning opportunities that cultivating a culture
of quality). Teaching 21st century learning skills to my students is
important and I like to give them regular opportunities to use their student
devices as tools for as many different applications as I can. I learned about
the web 2.0 tool Seesaw (app.seesaw.me). This website is a safe and secure
platform that allows students to create and maintain a digital learning journal
into which they place “artifacts” completely generated by them independently as
evidence of their learning. Students also create artifacts to share their
learning with others, and can choose to do so by simply sharing their artifact
with the rest of the class. Artifacts are multi-modal, giving students the
option of taking a picture, creating a drawing, typing a note, or creating a
video. They artifact can then be annotated in a variety of ways, including
typed text, voice recording, or drawing directly onto it. Artifacts can be
shared with parents and peers and an important opportunity to receive feedback
is obtained. I love the idea of using this tool to improve my own PBL
opportunities, especially in the areas of science and social studies. I am currently
designing instruction for implementing this tool inside my classroom using
Chromebook computers. I cannot wait to see how the students react to using the
platform.
I also enjoyed exploring the website Edutopia. I have bookmarked several articles and videos that I plan to use to help me improve my project-based instruction. Specifically, I found several resources for helping me with the process of selecting authentic topics for projects, resources for getting started, and articles on assessment inside of PBL. I can tell this website is going to be wonderful resource for me inside this course, as well as professionally as I constantly seek to increase learning and motivation for my students. For example, one article on Edutopia talked about the classroom teacher incorporating her own interests into the project topic selection process. Because the teacher enjoyed running races, the class decided to plan and host a 5K and fun run for charity. I loved this example, as I have been making a conscious effort to do the same inside of my own classroom. I really love cooking and teaching about nutrition, something all children can relate to. I am going to try this approach this year and see if I can tie my science and social studies standards a bit more to this general topic, hopefully encouraging my students to begin seeing themselves as competent home cooks who can help prepare meals for their families.
I also enjoyed exploring the website Edutopia. I have bookmarked several articles and videos that I plan to use to help me improve my project-based instruction. Specifically, I found several resources for helping me with the process of selecting authentic topics for projects, resources for getting started, and articles on assessment inside of PBL. I can tell this website is going to be wonderful resource for me inside this course, as well as professionally as I constantly seek to increase learning and motivation for my students. For example, one article on Edutopia talked about the classroom teacher incorporating her own interests into the project topic selection process. Because the teacher enjoyed running races, the class decided to plan and host a 5K and fun run for charity. I loved this example, as I have been making a conscious effort to do the same inside of my own classroom. I really love cooking and teaching about nutrition, something all children can relate to. I am going to try this approach this year and see if I can tie my science and social studies standards a bit more to this general topic, hopefully encouraging my students to begin seeing themselves as competent home cooks who can help prepare meals for their families.
