Reading Reflection 6

1. Discuss how technology tools can encourage students to be reflective and evaluate their own strengths.

During projects students will inquire, study, plan, evaluate, compare, collaborate, manage, create, and present. Technology tools encourage students to be reflective and evaluate their strengths in many ways. One tool that allows reflection are blogs that offer students space to reflect on their progress. ProfilerPRO is also available, it is an online survey to identify learning characteristics. ProfilerPRO allows you to identify interests, strengths, and weaknesses, and to guide your learning. Other online surveys are SurveyMonkey and Zoomerang which allows students to see their assessment in comparison to the whole class.

2. Describe several ways in which you can get students’ minds ready for a project.

Good project’s stat by tapping into student’s prior knowledge and a good way to do this is to do a KWL chart when introducing the project. Before beginning a project it’s all about the possibilities so you want to instill passion for the project into the children so they want to explore the topic further. To get the students minds ready for a project means getting them excited and interested in the topic so they will begin discussing it further with their friends, family and even their teacher. To do this teachers shouldn’t throw the project at the students all at once, they should begin talking about it for a few minutes every day and ease them into the project.

3. Discuss the elements of teaching fundamentals first.

Before launching a project teachers should think about teaching the prerequisite knowledge or skills students need to be independent and successful in their project. By teaching the fundamentals you ensure that your students will be pointed in the right direction when they start the project. It is easier to give the students the basics so they can branch out on their own and start the investigation and discovery into their project. As well teachers should give the students the assessment rubric for the project before they begin because it gives the students a road-map for achievement.

4. Describe the important steps in preparing students for using technology in project.

Technology is not the project, it is how the project gets done. The teacher needs to decide what tools are needed for the project, their availability, what the students know about the technology and what needs to be introduced and explained to the students about the technology. One of the beginning steps is to setup a technology playground where the students get introduced to the technology and get a chance to explore the technology. Here the students can try new things on their own, ask for assistance from the teacher or the media specialists and it allows the students to teach each other.

5. Discuss ways to promote inquiry and deep learning.

Teachers should guide students as they choose questions, plan investigations, and begin to put their plan into action. As well teachers should try to incorporate many subject areas into the project so it gives students the opportunity to build connections and to establish deeper learning.  When students ask questions about the project teachers should not only give them the answer but transform the question to promote deeper inquiry. When teachers ask questions they should also promote deeper learning, these types of questions are “which one”, “how”, “what if”, “should”, and “why”.

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

When planning our project based learning assignment we need to keep in mind many of the key ideas presented in this chapter. In the planning stages we need to decide what types of technology we need, where we can find them, and what experience our students have with the type of technology required. When starting the project I should introduce the topic of food and culture to my students slowly and build up their interests. As well before I start I could use a KWL chart to see what the children know and what they hope to learn as a result of this project.