Reading Reflection #3

1.) Before deciding what "the Big Idea" for your project is going to be, you should take some things into consideration. The first thing to consider is whether or not "the Big Idea" will match up with at least one of the curriculum standards for the subject you're teaching. It's very important that the topic be something that's pertinent to the learning goals your students need to achieve. Another thing you should consider before choosing "the Big Idea" is whether or not the topic will be interesting to your students. It's great if you're able to match "the Big Idea" of your project with a curriculum standard, but if it's not going to spark your students' interest, then the project won't work like you want it to. 2.) When planning a project, you want to make sure that it won't be a simple walk in the park for your students; you want to ensure that it's somewhat rigorous. In order to make it so that your students have to work hard, you should think outside of the box when planning your unit. Traditional assignments are good, but reinvented methods will help stretch the students' minds. When planning a lesson, you should try to include activities that will provide the students with opportunities to ANALYZE, EVALUATE, and CREATE. If you include activities that allow your students to use these higher-order thinking skills, your students' learning will benefit and you will be happy with the results of your lesson. 3.) "Literacy boils down to learning to be independent, aware, and productive citizens." A very important part of education is informing students about how the real world works and how they will be able to effectively function in the real world after they finish school. There are many different types of literacies: Digital-Age Literacy, Inventive Thinking, Effective Communication, and High Productivity. Each and every one of these literacies are extremely useful tools in the real world. If you want to get a job, you'll more than likely need to know how to use technology, think inventively, communicate effectively, and be highly productive. These are all traits that a boss looks for when hiring employees. 4.) An interesting point that was touched on in the book was that when planning a project, we as teachers should "imagine the emerging project idea from our students' point of view." We should think of Project-Based Learning as "Passion-Based Learning!" There are eight essential learning functions that should be considered. 1. Ubiquity - It's very important that the students be learning inside AND outside of the classroom; you want them to be learning ALL the time. 2. Deep Learning - It's crucial that you challenge your students to develop a deep learning of the content in the project. Basic learning of the material won't benefit them in the long run quite like deep learning will. 3. Making Things Visual and Discussable - Showing things rather than talking about them will help enhance your students' learning. Also, many students are able to learn more about things when discussing them openly with others. So, make sure to include some discussion time in your lessons. 4. Expressing Ourselves, Sharing Ideas, Building Community - When your students work on the project, you want them to feel free to share ideas at any time. By developing a positive learning community, you create an atmosphere that's ripe for learning. 5. Collaboration - By teaching and learning with others, the students are able to develop better social skills. 6. Research - A key part of any project is research. By researching their topic, students will be able to understand more about their topic than they did before. 7. Project Management: Planning and Organization - A vital element of every project is proper planning and organization. If you don't properly plan and organize your lessons, they'll probably end up in disaster. 8. Reflection and Iteration - As teachers and students, it's ALWAYS important for us to reflect. As teachers, we need to reflect on our teaching of the lessons. As students, they need to reflect on the material that they learned over the course of the project to help cement it into their memories. 5.) As a group, we spent some time considering what "the Big Idea" of our unit should be. We thought that a weekly weather forecast would be an excellent choice because it will help the students learn about many different aspects of weather, as well as spark the interest of our students. The students will be able to use technology (ePals) to communicate with a 5th grade class in Sochi, Russia. Before doing this, the students will collaborate with their groups and collect data about the current weather conditions. Once our students have received the weather data from the students in Sochi, they will ANALYZE and EVALUATE the data. After they've done this, they will CREATE some sort of presentation to show to the class. Overall, I think that our project does a great job of relating to several different concepts from the book!