Reading Reflection #7

1. Description of the levels of classroom discussions.    Throughout implementation, several levels of discussion take place.  Teacher to teacher discussion could touch on many different areas including the procedural method, who’s leading, who’s working together, to formative assessment.  This could cover the problems the students are having understanding certain areas.  If teachers are not able to have face to face connection, they could communicate through a blog, wiki or any different collaborative technology tool to keep in touch.  Student to Student discussion can take place from members in one team communicating with teammates, or members of one team collaborating with another team.  Teacher to student discussion takes place in traditional classrooms through lecture format where the teacher dominates the conversation.  However, this approach to teacher to student discussion is modified for PBL.  During PBL, the teacher to student discussion is likely to take place as the teacher travels around the classroom assisting, providing guidance, or keeping the students on task as opposed to the lecture format. 

2. Discussion on the questions for “checking in” on students during a project. With PBL, students are encouraged to take different routes with the project.  With all this variation in the classroom taking place, it is important for the teacher to check in and touch base with the students.  Checking in is used to monitor the student’s progress by making sure that the members of the team have good time management, team work as well as understanding of the PBL topic. Checking in is an essential part to project progress.

3. Discussion on the benefits to students when optimizing the use of technology. When optimizing the use of technology for a project it is important to make sure that the technology being used is the most preferred technology tool of the student.  This is a way that the students will stay interested in the project if they are using technology they are comfortable with. The technology chosen should help students reach their learning goals, keep them organized, expand their horizons, stretch their creativity and gain new insights for communication.

4. Discussion on the 21st-century skills that can make or break a project. Distinguishing troubleshooting is a key 21^st century skill that could make or break a project.  Helping students realize that all the projects are like everything in life. They will more than likely come with some sort of problem.  This is important in PBL because it develops exposure to real life in a way that a person can mess up, but lessons can be learned from the mistakes and can be corrected or modified.

5. Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project. The concepts in this chapter relate to our topic/project because student to student discussion takes place through the children’s pen pal communication with students in South Korea.  Also, Student to student discussion also will take place in our project when students share their Venn Diagrams with others.  This is an interesting take on student to student discussion with students playing both roles of student to teacher discussion when the students are sharing and teaching each other about the health benefits of kickball.