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.