reflection 11

1.    As a result of using the Project-based learning approach, Students develop a deeper understanding of the lesson. Because of this deeper understanding, students are likely to remember and put use to the knowledge gained within the lesson. Using the PBL approach, students also learn to better express themselves, and collaborate with others.

2.    There are many to bring your project home. One way is to create a major collaborative project with/for the students which will allow them to use the skills gained during the lessons. Another is to have a parents night, where the students will be able to demonstrate to the parents what they have learned during the lesson.

3.    These concepts are relevant  to my topic because they are both great to incorporate into my lessons. After researching healthy foods, from home and around the world, the students could have a parents night to present their findings. As a teacher I could also create a major collaborative project about healthy food and nutrition for the students.

Final Inspiration

Reading Reflection 11

Brittney Cox

Reading Reflection 11

            As a result of using a project based approach to teaching, we will be able to build new lessons off of our old ones.  Our students will ask questions and continue seeking answers.  The questions the class forms after a project is complete can be the driving force for the following lesson.  The students will be engaged and excited to continue learning because their curiosity is driving the curriculum instead of the other way around. 

            We can bring our project home by allowing for an abundance of reflection time once the project was completed.  This will allow students to think about their memories, experiences, artifacts, and souvenirs they have gathered during the project.  We can capitalize on our investment during this reflection time by critiquing our work, share our insights, enter a contest, be resources for our peers, and by enjoying our journey. 

            There are only four different cultures we have available for our students to study in our project.  The students will be left excited about celebrating the different cultures.  I hope they will have questions about other cultures.  While we are celebrating our hard work with a feast of multicultural food, we will also be able to ask more questions and form a second projects based on those questions. 

Reading Reflection 11

1. Description of what occurs as a result of using the Project-based learning approach.

By the time the project comes to an end students feel like they have gone on a journey and leave with vivid memories, souvenirs and artifacts from the project, and ideas for future learning. As well good projects don’t have an end because they always open the door for new projects or learning experiences. While the students leave with a sense of accomplishment and ideas for future learning, the teachers also benefit from doing the project. Teachers are able to see the progress the students make throughout the learning experience, what tools worked well, what they may need to change in the future, as well as how the information impacted the student’s beliefs about education. The most important tool at the end of the project is to reflect so that both the students and the teachers can gain insight into future learning adventures and as a result they are able to share their experiences.

2. Discussion on ways to “bring your project home”.

To bring the project home the book talked about capitalizing on your investment, critique your work, share your insights, become a resource for your colleagues, and most importantly enjoy the journey you go on with your students. To help bring the project home you should reflect on the process to see what activities engaged the students, what major themes emerged, and what could you have done differently. Once you reflect on the process share your insights with your colleagues and others in the school to help them get insight into project-based learning so they can begin to implement it in their classroom as well which will help in building a school tradition.

3. Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.

All of these topics apply to our project-based learning assignment. The text discussed how when the project is over it isn’t really the end because the stuff you learn in one project will open the doors for other opportunities. In our project the students will be looking at the food choices of other countries and by doing so it is opening the door for the students to also research about the culture, history, and geography of the country in future projects. As well it is important for us as teachers to have expectations set so that we know at the end of the project if the students have successfully met them or if we need to change the activities the next time we do the project. Overall the chapter showed us that when doing project-based learning in our classroom we need to prepare what the students will do and their outcomes but we also need to plan what we will being doing throughout the project because it is a learning experience for both parties.

Reading Reflection 10

Brittney Cox

Reading Reflection10

            It is important to set aside time to reflect on the projects.  This will allow students to celebrate their work as well as make more connections, so that the new information can become their prior knowledge.  This will also help the teacher decided if the learning objectives were met, what they could have done better, and what they’ll do next time.  The students can be asked questions such as “what satisfied you most? What parts of the work really matched your style? And what will you always remember (p 148)?”  Once these questions are answers the students can then elaborate by asking new questions that they would like to seek out.

            Schools build traditions and identities by building awareness in younger students, other schools, and the community.  We want students to enjoy school.  We also want them to feel proud of their accomplishments and the school they attend.  As teachers, we need to be positive and work hard to bring excellence into our classrooms.

            We need to celebrate our students’ work.  We can do this by displaying their work, throw a party, or invite other people into the classroom.  Our students will be empowered and excited about their work.  A great idea is a “year-in-review” event that will celebrate the entire years learning.  We can see what students remember and the new questions they might have. 

            Our project has the community coming into the classroom to celebrate the students’ work.  This celebration will allow our students to reflect and elaborate new ideas for the future.  This project helps our school to build identity and tradition because it gets other students, family, friends, and the rest of the community involved. 

Reading Reflection 10

1. Discussion on the importance of setting aside time for reflection.

Taking time to reflect helps students feel good about their accomplishments while allowing the information time to stick with the students. Setting aside time for reflection helps the students reveal things they may not think about in other situations such as what they learned, how they grew as a result of the project, and what type of information are they are interested in learning in the future.  As well reflection gives the students a chance to reflect on the obstacles they overcame in the project and what they learned about themselves as a result.

2. Discussion on the reason students need to reflect and elaborate.

Reflecting allows the students to look back on the project to see what they learned, what they enjoyed, and how they evolved as students. The reflection anchors the learning while prompting, probing, and encouraging the students to elaborate about their experiences during the project. Good reflections should get the students to elaborate and get them thinking about future projects and where they want to go as learners.

3. Discussion on how schools build tradition and identity.

Schools can begin to establish tradition and identity by building awareness in others. When families and the community become involved you begin to set up a foundation for tradition. As the members of the community begin to notice and value the accomplishments of the students they will bring support to the class making the traditions stronger and giving the school an identity. Once the tradition has been established students will feel like it is a privilege to honor the tradition and will want to showcase their work establishing their identity as a community of learners.

4. Discussion on the importance celebrating a project.

It is important to celebrate learning and build the schools identity as a place where the kids get to learn through the use of projects. One way to celebrate the students work is by displaying it throughout the classroom to give the students a sense of pride in their work. Another way to celebrate is to document the projects you do throughout the year through photos, artifacts, and more. Make these available to the students so that the memories can anchor in the students mind while the teacher gets to also learn about what the students remember and value.

5. Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.

These ideas apply to our project and how we will need to get our students to reflect, elaborate, and celebrate throughout the project. At the end of the project the students will present the information they learned about their country and their food choices to their family and friends. Doing so will give the students an opportunity to reflect on their process as well as celebrate the information they learned. As well we plan on combining all of the recipes they discovered into a classroom cookbook so that the students have a collection of their discoveries that they can look back on and be proud of.

Reading Reflection 9

1. Describe a method of understanding prior-knowledge of students.

Projects open the door for learning experiences and students benefit because they are active throughout the project and have input in the assessment. During projects the students learn new skills as well as how to apply what they already know. Teachers can assess students before the project begins to get an idea of what the students know and what they need to work on so that they know in what direction they should take the lessons. Another good way to understand the prior-knowledge of the students is through KWL charts where the teachers gets to see what the children already know, what they what to know, and what they learned.

2. Discuss the importance of establishing anchors for a project.

By establishing anchors teachers get a sense of where the students are starting and how far they go as they work toward their educational goal. Establishing anchors in a classroom gives you the opportunity to help all the students by differentiating instruction.

3. Describe several ways to assess what students learned during the project.

There are several ways for teachers to assess students, at the beginning you may develop rubrics to assess how much progress the students have made towards their goal. As well online grading books allow the teacher to give the students feedback and assess them based upon the actual work and collaboration they do, it is important to show what you graded them on so they can make improvements in the future. Another type of assessment is a traditional test.  When giving traditional tests they may not show all that the children have learned so it is important to also check in with the student throughout the project to make sure they are picking up on the important elements. There are many more ways to assess the students like interviewing them, having them do podcasts about what they have learned , other projects that synthesize what they have learned, have the students apply what they learned in a discipline related to their project, and having the students enter their findings in a competition to get their work published.

4. Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.

These key ideas relate to our project because as teachers we need to know how to get the children to apply their prior-knowledge to the project, how we will gain information about where to begin our lesson, and how to assess the information the children have learned. Our project is to have the children learn about the culture of another area through their food choices. At the end of the project we are going to have the students cook a meal from their area and serve it to their friends and family at a gathering we will have. The students will need to present the meal to the people at family night and also tell some information they learned throughout the project. This gives the students a way to apply the information they learned and a way for us to assess them.