Friday, October 3, 2014

Reading Reflection #3

The first step in developing the "Big Idea" for a project is to get to know your students.  When a teacher knows the strengths and weaknesses of their students, they will then have a good idea of a project to develop and what kind of performance to expect from the students. Another important aspect is to choose a subject that is of importance to a student to hold their interest and maintain their interest until the end of the project. 
Allowing access for students to develop 21st century skills has endless opportunities after the students finish the course. Having 21st-century literacy skills is to understand the ideas behind having 21st-century skills. Students who are literate in the 21st-century skills are independent, aware, and productive. Students who are taught in a PBL classroom are more likely to outshine students who are taught in a traditional classroom when it comes to project organization and production of a team on a projects.
Ubiquity- I like the idea of ubiquity because it allows students to be studious while on the go. Having mobile devices makes it easy for them to stay engaged even when they are not in the classroom.
Deep Learning-Deep learning is extremely important in my opinion because it helps student grasp the ideas and concepts from certain lessons. Using databases to do additional research on a topic is extremely beneficial for the student and their learning. 
Making Things Visible and Discussable-This function is definitely helpful for the visual learners in the classroom such as myself. I like the idea of making things visible for students, because I feel that it helps them grasp the concept better when they can actually see it and discuss it. 
Expressing Ourselves, Sharing Ideas, Building Community-Using blogs, tagging, and other social interaction is a great way for students to bounce ideas off of one another and brainstorm as a community. 
Collaboration- I think collaboration is a huge part of PBL and is one of the reasons why it can be so successful. Collaboration is definitely beneficial for students because it allows them to work together and learn from each other.
Research- Research is great to help students learn more about a topic, but they need to know the right tools that will make researching beneficial for them. 
Project Management- This function is good for students because it will help them learn how to manage their time and keep them more organized in the future. 
Reflection and Iteration- Blogs make it easy for students to look back on their thinking and it is a good way to show how much a student has grown and learned from post to post. 


All of these learning functions listed above will be helpful to our project because students will be engaged with most of them throughout the project.   From the very start of the project, students will brainstorm ideas and collaborate with each other.  They will continue on to make visuals to help display what they have learned.  They will do research and develop deeper learning skills, as well as many more. As future teachers, we will be looking at the "Big Idea" for the project, and this chapter will help us understand what our big idea is. 

2 comments:

  1. I like how you mentioned that one aspect of PBL is to choose a subject that is important to the student. I feel like this will really help students to want to do the project and will keep their interest and focus into creating their product.

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  2. I think that it is very important to teach and incorporate 21st Century Skills so that children can, as you stated above, become independent, aware, and productive!!

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