Project Launch - Implementation Strategies Chapter 6

                Technology provides students with many different ways to be reflective of their work and evaluate their progress. One way that students can do this is through the use of a blog. The students can talk about what they are learning, what’s troubling them, things they find interesting, and so much more. Teachers can also use online surveys, such as ProfilerPRO, to find out students learning styles and needs. When the students know how they best learn, they can be proactive towards their success. Other online surveys include SurveyMonkey and Zoomerang.

                To get the students minds ready for a project, it is important to tap prior knowledge and generate student’s interest. Get the students to think, wonder, talk about, and ask questions about the subject you will be diving into. One way to do this is through the introduction of something related to the topic, using pictures, old posters, movie clips, anything that will cause the students to wonder. Encourage students to talk about these things with their family and friends.

                When beginning a project, it is important to remember to teach the basics/fundamentals so that students have the knowledge and background information necessary to reach their fullest potential of learning. One key ingredient in a successful project is setting the stage for inquiry. Students need to be aware of what they know and don’t know about a project. To help students think about this, you can have them fill out a KWL chart, but it’s important not to introduce a KWL chart too soon. Teachers should also share the assessment rubric. Expectations for students should not be kept in the dark. When students know what is expected of them, they can better produce a quality project worth being proud of.

                There are several important steps for preparing students for technology use. One way to familiarize students with technology is setting up a technology playground. Students can play around with the technology they will be using with the project. It’s also important to use your resources. Your students! A lot of students are very tech savvy. Use that to your advantage. The students can help each other learn. Another step is introducing project-management tools. These can be as simple as checklists, project logs, or journals. It is also helpful to demonstrate how to use the tools, if you don’t feel comfortable demonstrating, see if the media specialist can help out.

                There are several ways to promote inquiry and deep learning. It’s important to guide students to ask deep, meaningful questions that will result in powerful learning opportunities. Encourage the students to ask questions that are not limiting.

                This chapter relates to our project because we need to be sure that we are setting our students up for success. Preparing our students for the tasks ahead will be crucial. Students need to have the proper knowledge to complete projects, such as knowing their fractions so that they can use measuring cups.  

Reading Reflection 6

      Technology tools can encourage students to be reflective and evaluate their own strengths.  Blogs offer students a space where they can reflect over time about what they are learning.  Blogs are very easy to use, and students will feel more involved with what they are learning.  Online surveys are also a great way to get students to reflect on what they have learned.  As a teacher you can use the results to track trends and to help students see how other students in the class surveyed.  

      A good way to get students minds ready for a project is to tap your students prior knowledge.  KWL activities are great for this.  This will get students to write down what they already know, and you can find out what they want to learn.  Express optimism about the learning that is coming ahead of them.  

      The elements of teaching fundamentals first include setting the stage for independent inquiry.  Students need to have an idea of their starting point and have an idea of what their finished project will look like.  It is also important to share the assessment rubric that you will be using with your students.  There is no way for them to know what you expect if you do not openly let them know.  

      It is important to set up a technology playground for your students to play around with and explore before beginning a project.  This will allow students to understand how to use the technology before beginning the project so that no extra time is wasted.  Taping students expertise is also useful for preparing students for using technology.  Let technically able students teach others.  Introducing project management tools will help for your students to be organized.  It is very important to demonstrate the tool that your students will be using so that they are not going into a project blindly.  If you want your students to do something, then you should also know how to use the technology.  Relying on your technology specialist will come in handy!  

      Promote inquiry and deep learning by getting the students to ask themselves a series of questions.  Which one, how, what if, should, and why are all good questions that students should be thinking about while completing a project.  

      Setting up a technology playground is important for students to do for our project.  It is important for each student to know how to navigate the internet to do research, and for students to know how to create a power point.  It is also important for us to get our students involved and to activate their prior knowledge.  Every student has eaten food before, so it should not be hard to do.  It would be good to ask students if they have ever eaten food that is typically made in other countries.  This will get the students thinking right off the bat!

      

    

Reading Reflection #6

Technological tools encourage students to be reflective and evaluate their strengths. Tool such as, blogs where students have space to reflect on learning are useful, along with online survey tools like profilerPRO, SurveyMonkey, and Zoomerang. To get students minds' ready you can use discrepant events like the glass and ice cube example the author gave or do role-playing predictions and act out characters, record students, and play it back. This is a great entree to a KWL chart. It's important to teach the fundamentals first. You need to think about knowledge or skills that your students will need to work independent and set the stage for independent inquiry using KWL charts(know, wonder, learn) You can also help students transform questions into factual questions. Also, share your assessment rubric with students, this will give them an idea of what is expected and goals to reach for while working on their project. It's also important to prepare students for technology. To prepare them make sure to,
-Identify learning functions that are important to your project:use a mix of approaches/tools
-Set up technology playground: let students explore and encourage them to teach one another
-Tap into students expertise: they could possibly know more than you when it comes to certain technologies.
-Introduce project-management tools: show them how to use a log or journal to track their progress and accomplish goals they've set for themselves.
-Demonstrate: teach them how to use the technology yourself or ask a technology specialist.
-1 size fits all-or not: make sure everyone knows how to use the technology that will help them to be able to learn best.
Lastly, we need to promote inquiry and deep learning. We can do this by guiding students toward skilled questions- think of questions a historian or scientist would ask. Also, use question starters like Which one? How? What if? Should? Why? which help start discussion better than yes or no questions.
This chapter related to the topic of classroom kitchen/catering because our group is using a blog to discuss our topic and the things we are learning. Besides blogs, we will also use other technologies with our students, such as, pod casts and hot lists. It's important that our group takes the time to understand how these work so that we can demonstrate proper use for our students when the time comes. We could also use an online survey tool as a group to see how we think we did overall or we could make one for students to see how much they have learned.

Revised Concept Map

This is our revised concept map for classroom kitchen/catering!

Chapter 5 Reflection

Discussion on the items that should be considered before starting a project with students.

Before starting a project with students, it is important to consider what you will need for the project.  You need to know what items and resources you already have, and what you will need to purchase.  This is also important because you do not want to plan a project that you can not afford to complete.  You will also need to determine deadlines and due dates for the project.  You also need to plan how you will assess your students. 

Discussion on teachers’ and students’ management needs.

Teachers need tools for communicating with students about the project.  Teachers also need to be sure they have appropriate and reliable methods for getting resources to students.  It is also important to have a system for managing work products.  For students to take control of management, students need collaboration tools, methods for seeking assistance, and ways to get and use feedback for their work.  It is important for students to know how to get help in case they need it.  

Discuss some of the technology applications that should be considered for use in a project.

Teachers should select from an assortment of web-based applications when designing and carrying out a project in their classroom.  A blog is a very good way to ensure that all of your students are participating and are staying on track.  A Wiki page is also a good idea.  A Wiki page would allow for students to all collaborate on one single page.  It is also possible to have students build web pages that deal with the project they are completing.  

Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.

For our topic, we had to think about how we were going to teach, and what we were going to teach.  When building our lesson plans it was important to consider how we would evaluate the students.  Our group has a blog that we use to communicate with one another about our project.  Other people can view the blog and comment on it as well.  From looking at our blog you can tell what our topic is, and how we are going about teaching about our topic.    

Chapter 5 reflection

Before starting a project with students it's important to consider the resources you'll need, deadlines, team planning and the type of assessment you'll use.
-Resources-Talk with parents, staff, the community, tech coordinators, media specialists, and find ways to expand students access to technology and gain access to experts who can answer questions. -Deadlines- We need to teach our students to self-manage and be effective with their time. Plan projects with milestones along the way instead of one thing due at the very end. Also, share your project calendar with parents so they can be involved and know what's going on!
-Team planning- Any project takes time and effort but it's worth it. As a teacher you need to figure out how your students will be organized when working on their projects. In the chapter one teacher said, "A good team needs a mix of skills. I make sure to switch the groups around for the next project." I agree, it's good for kids to work with people that are not at the same level as them or have different skills that way everyone brings something different to the group. The last thing to consider is assessment.
-Assessment doesn't have to be done only at the end of a project, it can be throughout the project. This is known as formative assessment, which helps you create more opportunities to know what your students are understanding so you can facilitate successful learning. Monitor, observe, interact, analyze, and report are other ways that a teacher can assess student's projects.
Monitor-create a checklist to assess students' progress
Observe-watch and listen to what students have to say
Interact-ask questions to coax students into deeper thinking
Analyze-collect/analyze artifacts of student learning
Report-organize performance data to share with students, parents, and others
Teacher management needs to remember when starting a project with students include
-tools for communicating with students and others on projects
-tools for making milestones and events visible and for notifying changes
-methods for getting resources to students
-systems for managing work products
-structures that support a productive learning environment in which teams/individuals are engaged in a variety of learning tasks at the same time.
-assessment tools/strategies including, ways to gauge if students work productively and accomplish goals, ways to assess the load balance with in a team so everyone does an equal amount of work, and ways to give just in time feedback on student work as it develops, not just when its finished.
Student management needs to remember when starting a project include
-systems/tools that help them manage their time and flow of work
-system that help them 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
-ways to work iteratively and see how parts add up to the whole
Technology applications to consider in use during a project include
-linking a set of tools together in a wiki: wikis can easily be edited, collaboration can be done through a wiki, its great for developing info, and it contains shareable content.
-associating them with a blog: this is "a one to many delivery system"
-use a web-based "desktop" application:  examples- Textpattern or Drupal
The concepts discussed in this chapter apply to the topic of classroom kitchen/catering because we need to know the resources that will be available to use as teachers and what's available to our students, we need to set deadlines(just like the deadlines we have in this class), we need to collaborate, and figure out how we can best assess our students' work. We need to remember the teacher management needs when planning our classroom kitchen/catering project as well as the students management needs. 

I did my lesson plan on researching different countries, and the foods that are grown and eaten there.  The pre-activity that i chose to do to get the students excited was tasting different foods, and then guessing what country the foods were from.

Chapter 5 Project Management Strategies for Teachers and Learners

                Before starting a project, teachers need to be considering several things. One important thing to consider are the resources that you will need to help the project go as far as possible. Who can help make this project more meaningful? Do you know any parents, teachers, friends of friends that can bring their real-life knowledge and skills to the classroom? Are there web sources that can help make this project run smoothly? Are there places that the class can visit to make the project more personal and relatable? Another thing that teachers should consider is the timeline. How long will the project as a whole take? How long should parts of the project take? Teachers should also consider if students will be working together in groups or individually. Teachers should consider how they are going to assess student work.
                Any project provides teachers with opportunities to help students develop time management skills. It’s very important for students to develop these skills because they will need them in virtually everything they do in life. Teachers can help students manage their time through the use of calendars with markers on important dates when things are due. These calendars can be sent home to parents as well. Teachers can also break big projects down into more manageable parts for the students. Teachers can use online sources for students to post their work. This will allow teachers to provide feedback as the project is being developed rather than after the “final” product has been turned in.
                There are tons of technology applications that a teacher can use to make projects more meaningful and affective. Google Docs can be used for students to post their projects on, which allows teachers to provide students with instant feedback, clearing up any confusion or misconceptions. Classes can use blogs to post student work. If teachers wish to collaborate with other classrooms across the United State and around the world, they can use Skype, or video posting sites to communicate with the other students and introduce themselves to one another. Teachers can also use virtual office providers such as Netvibes, Protopage, Pageflakes, iGoogle, and My Yahoo!.
                Concepts in this chapter relate to our project in several different ways. It will be important for us to break the project down into little pieces. We’re not going to have students just start making a recipe without chances to work with measuring cups, learning about different ingredients, exploring the importance of following directions, etc.  Students will also need to be able to work as a team and have effective team management skills to make our “Taste the World” night a success. 

Lesson Plan

I did my lesson plan on measuring ingredients using fractions. I had the students research substitute ingredients.

Hey guys! I'm working on a lesson plan for writing recipes! I will talk about sequential text patterns, how to write step by step directions, and the importance of following directions.

Chapter 4 Reading Reflection

In chapter 4, the author discusses the potential pitfalls in project design. The pitfalls mentioned are...
-Long on activity, short on learning outcomes: Make sure the project is worth investing yours and students time and make sure students are learning more from the project then they would in a lecture.
-Technology layered over traditional practice: "If learning aims are lofty and technology helps your students reach them, then the integration of technology is essential to the project."
-Trivial thematic units: You need to think about how a theme will unify a year's worth of projects and help students make connections. Quality themes to consider- survival, justice, designed/natural worlds, and chaos/order.
-Overly scripted with many, many steps: Look at the learning objectives and student outcomes as you evaluate a plan, the project could have a lot of steps and limited/predictable results.
Features of a good project are loosely designed with the possibility of different learning paths, generative, causing students to construct meaning, center on a driving question or are otherwise structured for inquiry, capture student interest through complex and compelling real-life or simulated experiences, are realistic, and therefore cross multiple disciplines, reach beyond school to involve others, tap rich data or primary sources, are structured so students learn with and from each other, have students working as inquiring experts might get 21st century skills and literacies, including communication, project management, and technology use, get at important learning dispositions, including persistance, risk-taking, confidence, resilience, self-reflection, and cooperation, and have students learn by doing.
Good projects come from more meaningful, expressive learning, project plans developed by and for other teachers, news stories, contemporary issues, student questions or interests, a classroom irritant put to educational use, and a "mashup" of a great idea and a new tool.
Steps to design a project include...
-Remembering your project exists within a context: factor in your school calendar, student readiness, and student's interests.
-Revisit framework: list of objectives, decide on 21st century skills to be used, and identify learning dispositions.
-Establish evidence of understanding: imagine what students would know or be able to do after learning.
-Plan the "vehicle"(theme or challenge): have both structure and flexibility to save the needs of the project.
-Plan entree into the project experience: what will captivate student's attention and build excitement?
 The information discussed in this chapter relates to the topic of classroom kitchen/catering because when planning our lessons/projects we need to structure our lessons on inquiry and remember the learning objectives and student outcomes to make sure we get results desired as students learn by doing. We also need to remember student's interests and figure out what students will know or be able to do after they complete the project.

Chapter 4 Reading Reflection

1. Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.

     The potential pitfalls in project design include projects being long on activity, and short on learning outcomes.  A project should be the right size for what it accomplishes.  If the project is too long and little is learned, then the project is wasting both your time and your students time.  Another potential pitfall to consider is that thematic teaching is not project based teaching.  For example if you are teaching about an ocean, there are many projects that can be incorporated instead of just painting ocean themed pictures or visiting an aquarium.  You can have the students do projects such as researching where certain types of fish are found, and creating a map or a graph.  

     There are many qualities for good projects.  Good projects are loosely designed with the possibility of different learning paths, are generative causing students to construct meaning, and should center on a driving question or are otherwise structured for inquiry.  Projects should also capture students interest through complex and compelling real-life stimulated experiences.  

     One important thing to remember about where project ideas come from is that one successful project will often lead you to another.  Project ideas also come from student questions or interests, new stories, contemporary issues, and also ideas from other teachers.  It is good to get students involved in decisions in the classroom to make the kids feel self worth and like their opinions matter.  

     As you design a project it is important to keep in mind the school calendar, curriculum sequence, student readiness, and student interests.  You should make a list of learning objectives that you want your students to come away knowing.  Next you need to decide on the specific 21st century skills you want to address.  You need to also identify learning dispositions that you want to foster.  Next, you will want to establish evidence of understanding.  The following step includes planning the "vehicle".  Lastly, you will want to think of a way to introduce the topic that will get your students excited. 

     All of the content in this chapter relates to planning our project about classroom kitchens and catering.  We need to consider how to get students involved in a project that they will take a lot away from.  It is important that our project is planned properly for students to benefit from by participating in the project.  

Reflection on Chapter 4

            While engaging in the quest to find a project-based learning project, there are several pitfalls that a teacher should be aware of and avoid. One potential pitfall is that the activity could be too long and drawn out in relation to the learning outcomes. If the activity takes a long time and involves a lot of steps, but the learning that takes place is very small, the project is ineffective and a waste of valuable time. Another pitfall is thinking that adding technology to a traditional learning activity makes the activity project based. For example, having students create a PowerPoint of their research report does not make the activity project-based, the students were just taking their information and presenting it in a different way. Using thematic units that do not incorporate collaboration and are not interdisciplinary is another pitfall. Having a theme just to have a theme is ineffective. Another potential pitfall is using an activity that has the students redo another person’s work. If students are recreating another person’s experiments, they are not pursuing their own learning, they are following a watered down, ‘cookie-cutter’ routine.
            There are several features of a good project that teachers should be aware of when designing or searching for a project. It is important to remember to be flexible with the activity. Sometimes student’s interests may veer off onto a path that was not necessarily planned. It’s important to cater to the student’s interests and curiosity. Activities that make students question and desire to explore answers are a very beneficial to their learning. Good projects are also realistic. They incorporate many different subjects and skills because that is how the real world is. In the real world subjects are not just compartmentalized, they are woven together. Good projects incorporate collaboration and communication skills. Students need to be able to work together and express themselves to one another, even when they disagree, in a respectful manner. They should be able to learn from and with one another. In project-based learning, students should be learning by doing.
            Project ideas can come from anywhere. They could spring from something the students have expressed definite interest in. Project ideas could come from old projects that just need to be revamped and refocused. Project ideas can come from other teachers projects. Project ideas can come from all forms of media, such as new reports, blogs, as well as, pressing issues to the general public. They can come from a mix of new tools or resources that are available and projects that already exist.
            There are several steps for designing a project. The first step is to revisit the framework. Revisiting the framework involves making a finalized list of learning objectives for the project. It also involves choosing the 21^st century skills that the students should develop and implement into their lives, as well as, learning dispositions you would like for your students to develop. The second step in designing a project is to imagine what students would be able to do and apply once the project is over. The third step is to plan out what the students would actually do to accomplish the goals and objectives. Try to find ways to make the activities and projects real-life connected. The fourth step is to plan the introduction to the project. How will you capture the students interests and get them questioning about the project? How will you spike their interests?
            These concepts relate to our topic because we need to find ways start our projects and get our students excited and interested in the project. Having the knowledge of pitfalls to avoid will help us to turn our project into powerful project-based learning, rather than bland, give the students the answers and have them spit them back, kind of learning.  Since our project revolves around classroom kitchen and catering, we can use failed attempts at making recipes to explore what might have gone wrong and how doing different things to different ingredients can result in different recipes turning out differently. We just have to be able to be flexible and work with what really interests the students and make the learning as meaningful for them as possible.

View Larger Map

This is a map of farms in the southwest Michigan area. Students will be studying what foods are grown locally and what types of foods are grown in the country of their choice.  

Imagine the Possibilities Ch 3

1. Finding the “Big Idea” in a project involves focusing on what core concepts and processes you want your students to know and be able to apply. It is important to find out what the curriculum standards add up to. What is it that the students are supposed to gain from the curriculum and then find a project that really spikes the student’s interests, relates to their lives, and puts an emphasis on the big ideas?

2. 21^st century skills are skills, attitudes, and habits necessary for students to be successful in the ever growing and changing world. Students should be asked to analyze, evaluate, and create during project-based learning activities.

3. 21^st century literacy focuses on helping the students to become independent citizens, productive, and aware things happening in the world, how things could change or improve, and how to go about making those changes happen. It’s not about teaching students information, it’s about helping students develop the skills to learn wherever they are, and whenever they would like.

4. There are several functions that are essential for learning. It is important to give student the skills, access, and knowledge to learn anytime, anywhere. Students should also experience deep learning. Deep learning involves students being able to analyze and interpret raw data, rather than information being spoon-fed to them in one specific way. Another learning function is making data visible and discussable. This involves incorporating pictures, multimedia, and graphical representation to get students thinking and learning about what they are learning.  It is important for students to be able express themselves through blogs, social software and virtual meetings. Students should be able to collaborate with one another, and learn to respectfully agree and disagree with one another. Students need to develop skills in order to research and determine what information is legit. Students need to develop project management skills and be able to plan and organize. Students must be able to reflect on their own work and determine how they could improve.

5. Concepts in this chapter relate to our project because we need to teach our students the necessary skills to think on their feet and adapt to changes. Students need to be able to decide what went wrong if a recipe doesn’t turn out and how they can improve or make it better. 

Virtual Penpals

Classroom Kitchen and Catering
Virtual Penpals

Chapter 3 "Imagining the Possibilities"

When planning projects for your students, you need to think about the "Big Idea"! When looking for the "Big Idea" in a project you can scan the table of contents of the teaching guides you are considering using, review the curriculum standards for your subjects, ask colleagues, and identify overarching concepts and processes you want students to understand. In the chapter, the author states,"Don't worry if your project ideas veer into unfamiliar territory or require you to learn new skills or master unfamiliar content." I like this quote and agree with the author. We expect our students to learn something new and try something they may not have done before but are we ourselves willing to do the same so that they can learn more? It's okay for teachers not to know everything and have all the answers. It's good for students to see that we, as teachers, have to look things up sometimes or learn something new.
In the 21st century, we need to try to use different skills than those that have always been done in the past. These skills can include remembering[knowledge], understanding[comprehension], applying, analyzing, and evaluating[explain, judge, illustrate, compare], and creating[synthesis]. In the book, the author gave an example of doing research and presenting it to the class. If you redo the project using 21st century skills the students will learn a lot more because they can comprehend by explaining what they read, illustrating something in the text, comparing it to something else they might have read and summarizing it.
Literacy in the chapter is defined as, "the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts." The book also discusses how NETS.S standards are changing to focus more on behaviors of people in the 21st century and not just on their writing and reading.
Students sometimes learn more through experience than through direct teaching. Teachers can use eight essentials learning functions to help students. 1.] Ubiquity:Learning Inside and Outside the Classroom, and All the Time-help students find ways to learn outside school and using technology. [mp3 players, Google Docs, cell phones.] 2.] Deep Learning- help students find primary sources and real-time data sets which are personal accounts of stories instead of from textbooks. 3.] Making Things Visible and Discussable-try using a Visual Thesaurus or Google Earth, some kids are visual learners and this could increase their learning. 4.] Expressing Ourselves, Sharing Ideas, Building Community-using blogs, social software-Webinars, Skype. 5.] Collaboration-Teaching and Learning With Others- computer phone calls and survey tools to discuss projects. 6.] Research-Quality directories, Citation machine-these can help students when looking up topics and research for projects. 7.] Project Management: Planning and Organization- Desire2Learn and Moodle, we use these at Western Michigan University to keep track of our grades, announcements, or turning in homework. 8.] Reflection and Iteration- writing, sharing, and editing can be done on sites like Blogger or Edublogs.
This chapter relates to the project my group is working on now because not everyone has done pen pal assignments before and may not be sure how they work but we can't be afraid to research and try them out because we could be missing out on an opportunity for our students. Also, as discussed in this chapter, we use sites like Blogger to share our ideas for our project and discuss what can be changed or added.