Reflection #2

My initial thoughts on Project-based learning were actually “confused”. I really didn’t know what I was reading. I feel like this assignment jumped on me and I never really saw it coming! I started to understand what was going on when we had the PBL collaborate conference call on blackboard. At that meeting, Mr. McGilvery asked questions like, “Would you rather work with a team or by yourself?” From these questions I started to understand project-based learning and then it came together, duh! I now know what project-based learning is and I am for it all the way.

I could use the project-based learning method in my future classroom by the normal, easy ways. I would pair up students and make it a project that you compare things with other groups or the other student in your group. I enjoyed working together in high school (mainly because it was chemistry labs and I didn’t know what I was doing), but being in the group helped me understand what was happening. I could ask questions if I didn’t understand and I could compare my answers without “cheating”.  I would use project-based learning in this same way – to help students understand what is going on.

Let’s say I am teaching a reading class, these are the stages I would use. (5^th Grade)

Stage 1: The class gets to pick the group they’re in - students would then choose a book they find interesting and read it together.

Stage 2: Students would pick another teacher in the school to join their reading club and read the same book. During the reading of the book, students would do some annotations over anything they find that relates to them or excites them in the book. (The teacher doesn’t do the annotations, just reads the book).

Stage 3: Students will pick a date to have their “talk-show” where teacher must be present.

Stage 4: Students will have their meeting and the invited teacher they chose to read the book with them will be there. At this meeting, they can make t-shirts that relate to the book, cook food that was in the book, etc. They will talk about their favorite and least favorite parts of the book and anything else they want to say, (whether they liked it or not, was the book better than the movie?) etc.

Another way I could use project-based learning in my classroom, could be with a kindergarten science project.

Stage 1: I would split the classroom into groups of 3 I find would work well together.

Stage 2: We would do a pre-questionnaire on how many bites it takes for us to eat an ice-cream cone. We would have questions like how many bites, will it melt?, would you get a brain freeze?, how fast could you eat it?

Stage 3: We would walk to the science lab and sit at the tables. From there I would hand out (school appropriate) ice-cream bars and students would calculate how many bites it took them to eat their ice-cream bar.

Stage 4: We would walk back to the classroom and do a post-questionnaire. This would serve as an assessment for the project.