1. Some things I found important to keep
in mind while considering Project Based Learning are first to keep parents and
the school updated on what their children/ students are doing in the project so
no rules are broken and no parents are offended about the project. Also, as a future teacher I would really like
the parents to be interested about what their children are doing at school and
possibly be involved in it. Another thing
that should be considered is that with PBL, the role of a teacher changes. Instead of the attention normally being
focused on the teacher, the students tend to be the main focus and the teacher
sets everything up for them to learn by taking an idea or problem and working
with the students to create whatever the project is for step by step. It also probably makes it difficult for the
teacher to set up lesson plans months in advance since the students` ideas
inspire the lesson plan for each day.
Also, I had never thought about the fact that the classroom would
probably have a different layout than most of my childhood classrooms since a
PBL class would be much more group oriented.
2. There are quite a few benefits the
book was hinting at that I love about Project Based Learning. In the PBL examples the book gives, the
teachers like Adam Kinory saw their students find a purpose in what they were
learning. I used to wonder why I needed
to learn math but with a PBL assignment to measure pollution in a pond or
something more hands on like that, I imagine I would have stopped asking a
question like that. I would have been able to directly see where math comes in
handy. This is a question that many
students seem to ask so with teachers using PBL in their classroom it will most
likely give students a way to use what they are learning as they learn even
more. I also love how many PBL
assignments tend to use more than one subject instead of just teaching one
subject at a time. This is great because
the real world wants students to incorporate many subjects in one project, but
most teachers that I`ve come across teach one subject at a time except for the
occasional out of the ordinary assignment.
3. As for the students who are involved
in PBL environments, these assignments can have many benefits. I think the biggest is the students find a
purpose in not just what they`re doing in school, but also in themselves. I think that part of the reason some students
find school so boring is because they don`t think it amounts to anything on the
big scheme of things. If a student feels
like they are doing something that matters, or affects the society they live
in, they tend to show much more interest in school. Usually, school is treated as a preliminary
phase for one`s “purpose”. If a student
can get that feeling of having a purpose at school, they will be much more apt
to try at school than if the time is treated as a time of only learning.
4. In a PBL approach some issues are
that for a teacher it is more work to set up the lessons and such maybe a week
or two in advance instead of the usual months in advance. Because of this, a teacher that uses PBL will
have to be very flexible about their teaching since the lesson plans depend on
the students` research and directions they want to take. Also, I imagine finding a concept that all
students will be interested in will be quite hard to find. One of the bigger issues would be an
unsupportive school district that prefers the older ways of teaching.
5. As far as the New Technology High
goes it seems like the teachers and administrators are really in tune to what
the business world wants of its workforce since they worked together with the business
leaders in creating the program. I think
the few textbooks are great because it can be quite difficult to memorize and
understand the information in a text book, especially as an elementary
student. Also, the idea of students of
all ages putting on presentations about their ideas and research for a project
is great because it shows that they are learning it better than on a test. The students would have to present and explain
their information and opinion to their classmates which would show more
understanding than a multiple choice test.
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