The Project
My portion of this project was to support the content-area teachers as they attempt to have students write from various historical perspectives. An important aspect of this is the ability to create a voice for the writing. As a result, I created a PowerPoint presentation that can be easily implemented in the classroom by any teacher. Click here to view it. After viewing the PowerPoint, students will then work through a VoiceThread activity to practice using voice in writing. Click here to view it.
Reflection
Project-based learning is a vital component to a child's learning. Many valuable skills are taught beyond just curriculum. Through the creation of this project, and all the others my group has put together, I have learned the importance of working together for a common goal. Of all the projects we have created this semester, I found this to be the easiest to complete. I'm not sure it was so much that the assignment itself was simplistic but more that my group had reached a very comfortable rhythm of working together well. I enjoyed working with this group of people to reach a common goal for a common set of students.
Article
Diffily, D. “Real-World Reading and Writing through Project-Based Learning.”
ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education, May 2001. ERIC. Web. 2 Nov. 2009.
This article focuses on reading and writing production through PBL. The author suggests that teachers in all content areas more active learning in the classroom, more diverse roles for teachers including coaching, demonstrating, and modeling, more emphasis on higher-order thinking, more deep study of a small number of topics, more reading of real texts, more choice for students, more cooperative, collaborative activity, and more heterogeneously grouped classrooms. Diffily (p.5) also found that in PBL, “students went far beyond textbook reading and writing answers to questions. They investigated topics by reading information from real-world sources. . . and created real-world types of writing . . . . More than a collection of skills to be practiced, reading and writing became tools for learning and sharing what they had learned.” Diffily also states (p. 9), “Teachers promote learning [during PBL] in many ways. They guide students in selecting a project that is doable. Teachers gather children at the beginning of project time to survey the group as to what they will be doing that day. Teachers raise questions, help children think through problems, support children’s decisions, guide their work, and teach specific lessons to enhance what children are learning."
Blog Reflection 3
16 years ago
I really enjoyed your project example. Students really have a hard time getting past boring statement after statement writing. The PowerPoint that you created will help them understand that for their writing to be more effective, it must help the reader understand the speaker.
ReplyDeleteI read an article that described PBL as teaching gifted education to all students. It made sense to me. I think too often the "cool" or "fun" projects are left for the gifted classes, because most of the time it is less work for the teacher because the student's do have more support at home and a stronger understanding of technology. My school is always pushing relevance and rigor; I can't think of a better way to instill both.
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