Chapter six discusses the appropriate way to launch a project. Students should do a self evaluation before and after a project that focus on the learning dispositions that the teacher expects the to develop during the project. Self assessment is a major factor in how students view themselves as capable and how they direct their own learning. Students can use ProfilerPro to evaluate themselves or they can use a blog to help track their reflective thoughts over a period of time.
Students should collect their thoughts about a project topic before they actually dive into the project. A way that some teachers have their students practice this is by using a Know-Wonder-Learn (KWL) chart. This chart helps excite the students by establishing interest before the project even starts. A teacher can spark a students interest in the project even more when they start the project off with a simple inquiry based demonstration that allows the students to guess what is going to happen, such as the ice cube example in the book on page 98.
Teachers should be teaching the fundamentals of what their project topic is about in order to allow the students to work more independently during their investigations. Students need to be helped and nudged before getting to the point of being able to work on a project independently. Working with 21st century technology based projects can be compared to learning how to drive for the first time. You start out learning the small things and work your way up to finally driving on your own, alone, in your car. Students should always be given a good rubric with room for brilliance to follow while creating their project.
Teachers should allow students to have 21st century technology available at their students fingertips in order to help them create their project more thoroughly. Even when they don't know how to use a piece of technology, students will turn it on and start playing with it in order to figure it out. Students can use a journal or project log to help them keep track of their progress toward their goals while working over several days or weeks. Teachers should be demonstrating this technology and the project log to their students if they are comfortable using it.
Teachers should guide their students through the inquiry process of a project. They should be their to guide the students as they choose questions, plan investigations, and begin to put their plan into action. The questions students should be asking are those of which the experts in the field of the topic would want to know more about.
When students are exposed to new technology that allows them to create their own webpages and comment on their classmates webpages they will gain more knowledge of how to utilize the technology and take on new roles and responsibilities. The opportunity for teaching about information literacy comes from the possibilities for working on the Web today.
This information will help us with our food preservation project because it will allow us to think about the steps we are having our students follow when researching the information to complete the project.
I like how you said that a teacher can 'spark' a students interest even more when they star the project off with a simple inquiry. We don't want to overwhelm students with too much information or instruction. We need to have a good balance between explicit instruction and too little instruction to maximize the learning processes for our students. When our instructions are simple and straightforward.
ReplyDeleteCommenting off of Taylor, I agree that students should not be given too many tasks at once. It is very overwhelming as students and adults to find a way to balance it all. As teachers we also need to set a good example to our students on our to balance everything. If we seemed overwhelmed in the classroom, our students can feel and notice our stress!
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