Blog Assignment #11

What can we learn about teaching and learning from these teachers?

As teachers, what do we want from our students? This is simple - we want children to learn. We want them to grow and be able to function correctly in society. We want them to learn to solve problems, tackle tasks, and make a brighter future for themselves.

Children need to feel connected to what they are learning in school, they need the drive to complete tasks and they need to feel pride in everything they do. It is our job to connect students and learning. We can do so by using project based learning in our classrooms. As I've previously stated in one of my blog post, students and teachers will continue to learn how to effectively use project based learning as it is used daily.

Using project based learning in the classroom gets students excited and involved in their own learning. It gives them a sense of power, and it creates pride in all the work they do. Often there will be areas of the curriculum where students are struggling. It is not our job to simply meet the standards, it is our job to help students understand. We need to find ways students can actively and enthusiastically meet standards. We can do this by getting students involved in projects that relate to "real-world" problems.

In the video, Back to the Future, Mr. Crosby's students are struggling in general social science knowledge and language arts.  To help solve this problem, they are given a balloon science project, where they are provided the opportunity to interact with people from all over the world through blogging, comments, wiki's and flickr. This enabling them to learn about geography, communication and grammar. Through the use of these technology tools, they were able to meet their science standards as well as improve their writing and language skills. The students took pride in this project and were thrilled with the results. The teacher was also excited with how he took their learning process to a whole new level.

Paul Anderson gives us an acronym he uses in his science classroom to promote learning. This acronym QUIVERS, as seen in the video, The Blended Learning Cycle, stands for:

• QUestion - What is the question?
• Investigate - Let's try and investigate it.
• Video - Maybe we can find videos that relate.
• Elaborate - Explore it in further detail.
• Review - Let's check our understanding.
• Summary - Take a quiz!

He uses these steps to boost learning and to be certain all students have understood the content being delivered.

Safety is key, as explained in Sam Pane's video Super Digital Citizens. Mr. Pane takes us on a journey into his fourth grade classroom. He explains how he merges technology, safety, and writing standards in a fun and interesting way. His students are eager to learn and use the technology to build their super digital citizen characters. They also get the chance to show off their writing and creativity, by taking a gallery walk around the room. Showing work to others encourages students to take pride in their work and create a better quality product. "Doing work this way gives the children a greater sense of ownership and makes learning meaningful" (Pane).

It is so important that we use and understand the use of project based learning. Using it will keep our students engaged, more knowledgeable, learn communication, collaboration, and cooperation. It will apply life long skills and give students a choice. It also motivates our students to continue their learning.

Other resources:
Project Based Learning by Dean Shareski
Roosevelt Elementary's PBL Program