Blog Post #9

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In the article The Seven Essentials for Project-Based Learning, the author mentions 7 criteria that are essential to a more effective project for a classroom. At first the article touches on what students need to know to understand what their project entail. The criteria supports opening discussion with videos or other uses of media to instill a different attitude towards the project rather than that of busy work. It is imperative to being the project with an entry event to allow motivation as well as critical thinking. The critical thinking is then put to a greater use with the second driving question, which is the driving question. The driving question is an open ended and complex thesis that will cover the over all main idea of the project. It allows the students a main point to work off of and keep their own projects on course. Other than this driving question, student voice and choice is also a key element in the process and drives the students interest and creativity. By allowing the students more choice, the project becomes more meaningful and personal rather than just creating a product for the sake of a grade. The bar is also set even higher as students get to choose how their project is to be presented to the class. These varying presentations are strengthened by their individual knowledge of key 21st century skills. With the effectiveness of the students organizational and oral communication skills, students are able to make their product more professional using tools that they will be using daily in future careers. Another criteria stated would be inquiry, which is not the driving question but more questions that the students come up with themselves. The students are able to search for answers to their questions and find entertainment in actually learning what they want to know about a specific topic. Lastly the article touches on feed back and public assessment. Students are more prone to provide quality work after assessment from their individual classmates and if they are going to allow others to view their work. After reading this article and seeing how a project comes together piece by piece, I can see how important it is for students to have more choice in their work and provide a means to show the work to others.

 Project-Based Learning for Teachers

This video is a brilliant advertisement showing the benefits of Project-Based Learning in the classroom. It touches on the key elements including the 21st century skills such as communication and organization. I would definitely recommend this video to those who have questions to what Project-Based Learning actually entails.

Project Based Learning and Physical Education
In this article, the author presents a class project concerning subject matter in Physical education. I myself had never even considered the idea of the range of Project Based Learning. However, after seeing the author use the 7 essential criteria in the article above to show a step by step process of the project, I can see a much broader application of projects in all subject matter. Technology is definitely helping in all aspects of education in this day and age, and it seems that even physical education is not an exception.

Highschool Teachers Meet the Challenges of PBL Implementation

This video entails the process of completely reformatting a school wide curriculum into Problem Based Learning at the Summamish High School in Washington. It is a 5 year process which includes over 30 courses in the school. The teachers in the video begin by touching on subjects that are difficult to adapt such as Math, Literature, etc.For the case of Literature, teachers want to be able to explore important philosophical questions while also letting students produce their own questions. This lead to teachers having students read texts, and then applying the text using skills prevalent in the field's career. For example, after letting a student read a text, perhaps use a project that allows the students to create their own text using the same themes or subject matter. Being a future educator in Language Arts, I found this video to be quite beneficial in developing future projects.

Ten Sites Supporting Digital Classroom Collaboration In Project Based Learning
This page alone provides very useful resources when considering Project Based Learning in the classroom. It begins with the website Titanpad that is free to use and provides a more simplified version to that of the other free to use website Google Docs. Also sites such as Wall Wisher and Corkboardme allow teams as well as whole classrooms discuss their ideas and collaborate on their projects. However, Today's Meet I found to be very useful in its ability to produce a digital classroom that an be used inside and outside of class. I myself can think of many ways to use these tools for my future lesson plans.