Blog Post 9

Seven Essentials for Project Based Learning

• A very good project needs

           1. A Need to know (tutorial of beach)
                 A.Ex. Asking students about an experience they might of
                     had with contaminated waters.
                    Then let them share with the class to engage them into the project.
           2. A Driving Question
                 A. Captures heart of project
                 B. provocative, open-ended, complex, and linked to the core of what
                     you want the students to learn
            3. Student Voice and Choice
                 A. letting them choose how they want to do the project lets the
                      project feel meaningful to the students
                 B. The more voice and choice, the better
             4. 21st Century Skills
                 A. evaluate how the group is working together with a rubric
                      created by the group
                 B. Boost Collaboration Skills
                     - team building skills
                     - practice oral presentation skills and learn to produce videos and podcast
                     - etc.
              5. Inquiry and Innovation
                  A. As a class they came up with more driving questions to investigate and answer
                  B. Students seem more interested if they conduct a real inquiry
                      -Inquiry- follow trail that begins with their driving question .
                             Leads to search and discovery of answers
              6. Feedback and Revision
                  A. critiques from teacher and peers
                  B. feedback makes the students want to create a better project to present
              7. A Publicly Presented Project
                  A. invite parents, peers, and community members to a exhibition night
                  B. schoolwork is more meaningful when presented to a "real" audience

Project Based Learning for Teachers

• Has students working over an extended period of time on a driving question
• The question is deep and requires a finished product to be shared with others
• Students learn all kind of collaboration skills
• Students take charge of their learning in PBL

Project Based learning and Physical Education
This shows that PBL can be in presented in any subject. You can always find a way to engage students. Project based learning seems to be more of the efficient way to engage students in a activity in classrooms now days. Step outside of the box and create a project where students can have a voice and a choice and let them run with it(while under not so strict guidelines). As in this particular subject they got another part of the school involved. Make the kids feel like what they are doing has a meaning behind it and they will give efforts that we might have never seen before.



Two Students Solve the Problem of Watery Ketchup By Designing a New Cap
BRAINSTORM!! Come up with all kind of ideas (not just one) for a project. Things are not always going to work the first time but keep trying, you will succeed. This video was another example of voice and choice. The guys chose to do research on a ketchup bottle, how much more of a random idea can you get? But they answered their driving question and were very pleased with their final product.


10 Sites Supporting Digital Classroom Collaboration in Project Based Learning
Times are changing and things and people are evolving. We do not really use books for a means of research like we did 10 years ago. Having multiple ways for finding information in a great use for project based learning. Collaboration seems to be a key essence of how you need to be as a teacher and a learner in a classroom in the 21st century.