Reading Reflection 7

Chapter 7, A Guiding Hand -- Keeping a Project Moving

      Classroom discussions take place on several levels during project implementation.  Teacher to teacher involves discussing projects and brainstorming with colleagues.  Student to student involves students talking about their learning experiences to each other.  Explaining their thinking gives students an opportunity to learn from each other and to challenge each other.  Teacher to student discussions are good to introduce new concepts and to demonstrate skills that will be needed to complete a project.      

      Higher order questions need to be used when teachers are discussing projects with their students.  It is also important to give students time to think about an answer before calling on a student to answer.  This allows all students to have time to answer regardless of how long their thinking process is.  It is also important to incorporate student questions during projects.  When checking in with your students you need to frame your questions to get at the information you want to discover.  Based on they type of information you want to find out questions can be procedural, teamwork, understanding, of self assessment questions.  Procedural questions deal with the process of actually doing the project such as asking students if they are staying on schedule.  Teamwork questions refer to the inner group workings of a project such as if the group is getting along with each other.  You also want to be sure of your students understanding to be sure that they are on track for completing a project.  Students also should learn how to self assess their projects.  

      In order to maximize the use of technology you must first ask yourself as the teacher if the technology will help your students meet learning goals.  It is also important to consider if the technology is helping your students to stay organized.  Also when deciding on a type of technology to use, it is important to think about the accessibility of the technology.   If the technology is not easily accessible to all students then the technology should not be used. 

     It is inevitable that you never know exactly what will happen through the course of completing a project.  It is important to help your students learn from the setbacks and to learn how to get back on track when something goes differently than expected.  You must discuss a project as it is unfolding to ensure that everything stays on the right track.  

     These topics relate to our group project in several ways.  It is important as students to make sure that there is plenty of student to student discussions when completing our project.  It is also true that technology is never 100% reliable, so it is important to learn how to problem solve.