Showing posts with label Teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Teaching. Show all posts

Project Based Learning

Like flipping the classroom, education technology, videoconferencing and building personal learning networks via Twitter, project-based learning has become a popular topic.
"Standards tell what students should know and be able to do, but do they tell how to use this power, change the world and make a difference?"
In an ideal world, we'd all love our students to ace quizzes and tests, get their homework in on time, and generally demonstrate good student skills. Every year I have wave after wave of students that are so keen on that coveted A+ but they don't really ask themselves what they'll do with this knowledge and skill set that they have learned. I like to think that learning should have applications and I'm not denouncing the need for good assessment habits, but if they're learning merely to pass a test, how can they enjoy a love of learning after they leave that educational system? How can we develop curiosity?

The emphasis on standardized testing as the bottom line in education is proving this point. Although these are good indicators of student learning, they omit the applications of this learning and don't allow students to show why they are learning it in this first place. This is the allure of having "projects" but these are often "add ons" rather than an authentic learning experience.

The Difference between Projects and Project Based Learning

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Resources to Facilitate Project-Based Learning in your Classroom

The Effect of Student Engagement

“Imagine a 20 minute lecture where all your students back channel about what you're saying. Outside guests or experts are invited in. Someone acts as a "rudder" to keep the conversation on track. The discussion is displayed on a SMARTboard or with a projector. The chatcast is immediately dumped into a wiki. The rest of the class is devoted to reorganizing the wiki clarifying what was said, answering questions (student to student as well as teacher to student; and don't forget the people, students, teachers, mentors or parents beyond the glass walls of the room) summarizing the big ideas, reframing the discussion in terms of what needs to be explained again and where we're going next. Imagine the possibilities …” -- Terry Friedman, 2008 Talking about bringing Twitter into the classroom. 

In “Pleased to Tweet You,” middle school teacher Kate Messner used a TweetChat with an author and publisher to go along with a book her students had been reading in class. Her students happily chimed in with questions, answered on the screen before their eyes as the teacher tweeted them at the author. The English language teacher followed the children’s favorite authors and students tweeted questions such as “What are your favorite strategies for developing characters’ personalities?” which garnered responses from several published authors.

Twitter has also been used by some teachers to encourage collaboration across countries. For example, one American class had a conversation on Twitter with a Japanese class while they were studying Japanese world history. Many teachers have also used Twitter to talk to fellow teachers and improve their craft, organizing conversations by subject level such as #musedchat for music teachers and #langchat for foreign language teachers.

Sources and additional resources:
What do you think? Does Twitter have a place in the classroom? How about other new media technology?

mostly by Lindsey Cook

Lindsey Rogers Cook

Senior journalism and computer science student at The University of Georgia Honors Program.

lindzcook@gmail.com; 678-464-7351; @lindzcookwww.digitize-me-captain.com 

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