Reading Reflection 5

Before beginning a project with your students, the teacher must consider many things. First, you must consider how you will gather resources and who you can use as a resource. You should consider what materials you will need for your project, and if you can acquire them from your own inventory, from the school, or if you need to ask parents or community resources for supplies. You should also consider if you need any technology to do your project, and whether that technology would be frequent and equitable to all your students. Engaging with experts is an excellent tool because they have the knowledge and are usually willing to share. Whether that means experts in the area or long distance, there are many ways to access experts' knowledge. Videoconferences and virtual field trips are excellent ways to connect students to experts in the field without having to waste time physically moving or traveling. Teachers should also utilize the technology coordinators, media specialists, and other specialists in their districts- they are there to be a helpful resource to you!
Another thing to consider are deadlines. "Teaching students to become effective managers of their own time should be an overarching goal of any project". Time management should be emphasized early on because it will be used for the rest of their lives. Teachers should make all deadlines clear and set ahead of time, as well as placing them somewhere students have access to. That way students can be prepared because they have physically seen when the milestone is due. This makes students both aware and accountable. Teachers can chunk big tasks into smaller, more manageable pieces to help students not feel overwhelmed by larger projects. A great tip the text gave was to share the planning calender with parents. Then, if students aren't sure or have any questions, their parents are more informed and better connected to both the class and their student. One way to facilitate organizational project learning is through online environments. Either by creating a personal briefcase for each student, or having a class Website, blog or e-mail, students are able to reference what is going on in class and can continue to work on the project outside of class if needed.
Teachers also need to focus on team planning and assessments even before beginning the project. When determining how to create student teams, the teacher needs to be aware that student teams are mixed up regularly, so they have a mix of skills available. Students will also be doing different things at different times. By having student groups with variety, it creates a cohesive group that is working separately but collaboratively towards an end result. Creating a team contract is an excellent way to have all the students accountable for their section of the project. Planning for assessment is also important to consider before beginning the project. Assessments are in integral part of PBL. Formative assessments "create more opportunities to know what your students are thinking and understanding, so that you can better facilitate successful learning". The only way to determine if your students have learned the material through the PBL is by assessing them. Tests are not the only mode of assessments. It can also include monitoring, observing, interacting, analyzing, and reporting.
Teachers' management needs are different from students management needs. Teachers' project management needs include tools for communicating with students and others about the project; tools for making milestones and events visible and for notifying students if changes occur; methods for getting resources to students; systems for managing work products; structures that support a productive learning environment in which teams and individuals are engaged in a variety of learning tasks at the the same time; and assessment tools and strategies. Teachers' management needs focus on the front-loading section of the project- preparing and filling in all the "blanks" before the project even begins. By having everything planned out, teachers can take any adjustments or questions with ease.
Students' management needs for projects include systems and tools that help them manage their time and flow of work; systems that help students manage materials and control work drafts; collaboration tools; methods for seeking assistance; ways to get and use feedback on their work, through self reflection, team input, and teacher advice; and ways to work iteratively to see how parts add up to the whole. Students needs focus on working through the project independently while learning valuable life lessons.
In a project, many technology tools can be accessed and used. Some web based applications that are helpful are wikis, blogs, and web spaces. A wiki is an easily edited web page. Teachers and students can create pages of sharable content using a browser and basic language to format. Wikis can be used to develop information that flows from many to many (like students to students). A blog is also an easily edited web page, but it has more of a one-to-many delivery system. Students can create separate blogs to keep track of their progress, and teachers can create blogs to publish announcements, news, or milestones. A web space "desktop" application is a web space that combines content management framework and blogging engine. Web spaces can have many configurations and add-ons such as plugins to facilitate information distribution. Two examples are Drupal and Textpattern.
This chapter on project management can be connected to our PBL of food preservation through our application of preparing for everything ahead of time. We as the teachers need to consider all of our resources, our go-to-people, our assessments, our team planning, and our milestones/deadlines BEFORE we set the project in motion. Another thing to consider with our project is using the technology for facilitation during the project. We can learn to use our blog to communicate with each other collaboratively, as well as designing tools to communicate with students and parents about our projects. By using our podcast, we can let our parents know what is going on in our classroom and what the students are accomplishing.