Reading Reflection 6

1.) Before starting a project with your class you need to come up with a plan and how you want to get them excited and prepared for the learning ahead. It's important that you teach your students any of the additional skills that they need to complete the project, but it is also important that you teach your students how to monitor their own progress. When students learn how to articulate their own metacognitive strategies it helps them understand how to attack problems in the future. Technology tools can be used to encourage students to be reflective and value their own strengths.

• Students can use blogs to record what they are learning, and go back at any time to review what they already know.
• ProfilerPro is an online survey tool that the students can use to determine their strengths and weaknesses that allows them to watch their results change over time.
• Survey Monkey and Zoomerang are also an online survey tool that helps track trends in student learning.

2.) Preparing your students for projects is important because we want to get them excited about their next big project, we don't want to weigh them down negativity before the project even begins. To avoid the dreaded looks of unhappy students the teacher needs to get the students minds prepared and ready to start the next project. The best way to avoid problems with your projects is to make sure it is tapping into your students prior knowledge, as well as what they are interested in learning about. Some teachers like to make K-W-L charts to get the class thinking about their subject and so that he/she can determine what the students already know about the subject and what should become  more or less of a focus. Make sure that you give your students plenty of time to think about your main idea so they have the opportunity to think about how they want to go about handling it, also allow to them to talk with their friends about what they like and don't like about the idea. If your having difficulties building excitement about the project you can spend more time slowing integrating ideas about the project into your classroom by talking about it briefly each day until you see some excitement. It might also be helpful to have a guest speaker come in and talk to the class about all the cool things about your next topic.

3.) We want our students to feel confident going into their new project so it is very important that they have all the necessary skills needed to give them independence and freedom within their project so they don't feel weighted down by not having the proper skills to get the project done effectively. The only way to truly avoid this problem is to introduce these concepts to your students minds before they need to utilize them. By planning a series of mini-lessons you can attack all the problems early on, and leave your students feeling knowledgable and prepared for the next section. Teaching fundamentals first gets your students heading in the direction and also helps to invoke some excitement in them for whats to come later. You also want to remember to keep your students informed of their goals and what they are being graded on (share the assessment rubric).

4.) If the students do not know how to navigate the technology used in the project then they are more than likely going to do the project incorrectly. As teachers we need to ensure that our students are up to date on their technological skills before we ask them to complete a project that they may not be prepared to handle. Sometimes advance planning for the whole class is necessary and sometimes you may just need to sit down with a few students. Make sure to only included resources that are available to students all the time, and nothing too crazy that they can't get their hands on. Also remember not to forget that technology does not always mean a computer, it can be any electronic device. Set up time for students to build on their technological skills and think about why using technology is essential to the project at hand. Remember that each school should have a technology specialists that is prepared to help. Do not move on until your are positive that every students has a grasp on what the technology is demanding of them.

5.) If you want to promote inquiry in the classroom environment it is crucial that the teacher is viewed as more of a guide than a dictator. The teachers job is to help push the students to the answers they are looking for without directly giving the answers away or telling them where to look. Teachers need to supply their students with complex and engaging projects that can be spun a million different ways so the students feel challenged. We want our students to feel connected and interested in the project so we allow them the freedom to pick and chose what they feel important, occasionally the teacher may need to step in and rearrange their thoughts but they are still given their independence to move on to a more in depth question. Despite the students freedom to search openly, the teacher needs to ensure that the students are making informed decisions that promote deeper thinking. Asking "what", "how","why", and "what if" questions is a good place to begin.

6.) The information in this chapter is related to what we are doing in class right now because as we work on building our individual and group lessons we need to consider some of these elements, such as building excitement for the project. We also want to ensure that our students are prepared and ready to handle the technology that is required of them as well as information that they will be seeking. We nee to remember to keep our lessons designed around the interests of what we think the children in our "class" might have by keeping the information relevant and interesting.