Blog Post #9

PBL
What can Teachers and Students teach us about Project Based Learning?

Seven Essentials for Project Based Learning is describing a scenario in which a project is assigned to students by their teacher Mrs. McIntyre. To introduce the project she "plops down" a packet of information about the project onto the students desk detailing the requirements. This piece is written about how Mrs. McIntyre could have handled the project differently to influence a more positive effect on her students. It gives a list of seven tips on how to effectively use Project Based Learning in the classroom. It talks about a scenario that was based off of a real life project. What I found important in this article is the idea to make the projects more appealing to students. If it is something that students care about then they are going to want to try harder. At the end of the Project they present them to an audience outside of the classroom. This audience contained parents, teachers, govornment organizations, etc., and since the students knew they were presenting in front of a larger audience it inspired them to produce a higher quality of work. I think ultimately the goal for Project Based Learning is to have students more excited about the work, actually learning something from the project, and producing their best work. These tips can be helpful to accomplishing this goal.

Project Based Learning for Teachers by Tony Vincent gave an exciting overview of Project Based Learning. It showed what students will be doing in PBL like: addressing an audience, crafting a driving question, identifying learning standards, creating a rubric, brainstorming questions, meeting deadlines, etc. All of which are important for students to learn how to do not just for school but in the real world as well. Things like meeting deadlines and brainstorming questions are things that students will have to do throughout the rest of their schooling careers and well into their future. Teaching these types of skills to students at an early age will not only be beneficial to them in the classroom but outside of it as well. I think that something important to students is learning relevant things that they can use outside of the classroom, and skills such as these are all examples of that.

What Motivates Students Today? This video was interviews of students about what motivates them to do well in school. These students appeared to be different ages, but they all had something that motivated them whether it was food, stickers, pencils, brownie points, anything that shed a positive reflection on the work that they had submitted. Applying this to Project Based Learning is very important so that each student will work harder to put in their best efforts. It is not only beneficial for the students, but can also be benefical to the teacher. In giving rewards to students it allows you to give encouragement to your students and deciding which rewards to give them also will allow you to get to know your students better based on what they like and dislike. So I believe rewarding them will not only be beneficial for the students but for the teachers as well.

Project Based Learning in PE is an article written about a group of High School studetns who created a physical fitness program for Middle School students. This project was beneficial for the students of both age groups, and was something that many students could relate to. It allowed for collaboration, relevant material, and creativity among the students. It was exciting for the High School students to get to see their plans actually put into action which is a great way to engage them, but also exciting for the younger to students to get to interact with older kids. Having a role model in school can be very beneficial to younger students. I think this is a great way to engage students of all age levels, and actually learn something from this type of proect.

Students solve old problem with new ketchup cap is a video of high school students who were partnered up in their software design class. They both discovered their love for ketchup, and decided they were tired of having watery ketchup squirt out of the bottles. So they designed a piece to place inside the cap that will help block the water from coming out. This project was ocne again beneficial because it allowed these students to work on something that interested them and was useful in real life. They were proud of the work that they had completed, and were even able to discover a common interest with their partner. This possibly could have built a new friendship, or even discovered more similarities with an already established friendship. Either way this project allowed students to create something meaningful to them and take away much more than just a good grade from a project. I can only hope that the projects I assign in my future classroom will have impacts such as these on my students.

Watching or reading videos such as these can allow for different ideas on how to use Project Based Learning, and can show different ways that it has actually worked in classrooms. Using PBL is beneficial for the students and teachers because we are all constantly learning together.