Reading Reflection #11

1. Description of what occurs as a result of using the Project-based learning approach.
2. Discussion on ways to “bring your project home”.
3. Discussion on the importance of sharing your journey through PBL.
4. Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.

As a result of the PBL learning approach students have the feel of going through a learning journey together. This gives them an overall good experience to remember and to motivate them to set goals for future projects. The students truly go through the learning process with inquiry and end results. Ways to ''bring your project home" are to share your project with an existing network, publish your own project library, contribute photos of your project activity, publish your project, and submit a session.The importance of sharing your project is to be a resource for your colleagues and also to celebrate your students hard work. This relates to my project because I never thought of sharing the projects of my students and before reading this chapter would have never known where to do this but now I do.

Chapter 11 reflection

1. Description of what occurs as a result of using the Project-based learning approach.

• Creates connections that can lead into other projects. Enables students to set goals, work on teamwork, work on conversations and help fine tune their work. 

1. Discussion on ways to “bring your project home”.

• Through networks, a project library, contribution of photos, publishing, and submitting.

1. Discussion on the importance of sharing your journey through PBL.

• It allows to share your good thoughts and work to others. It helps other learn from them. 

1. Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.

• In my project we used lost of pictures to really bring home the project. It allows visuals to be shared with others so they have a better idea. 

Reading Reflection 10

• Discussion on the importance of setting aside time for reflection.

• Reflection helps students feel good about their accomplishments and will allow their learning to really stick. It gives them time to think about what they learned. If they liked what they learned and what they still want to learn. They can reflect and see how collaboration with their peers has helped their projects. This encourages students because they can look back and see what obstacles they have overcame
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• Discussion on the reason students need to reflect and elaborate.
• Students can feel a sense of pride when their hard work pays off, that is why reflection and elaboration is so important. Students find out what they are good at and how they have grown. They appreciate the journey of learning because they see the strides they have made through their projects. Elaboration helps the students want more from their words. It allows them to think what do I want to become of this project, what can i do next?

• Discussion on how schools build tradition and identity.
• Tradition and identity is tied together. It could be based on your schools tradition of earning metals or sucsess. Or it could be even smaller scale of the classroom. If your third grade classroom has a project every year dealing with live butterflies teaching their life cycle younger children may anxiously await being a student in your classroom. Community involvement plays a important role in the celebration of learning. The community has the ability to form relationships with the students making a fun learning environment. 
• Discussion on the importance celebrating a project.
• There are many reasons why celebrating a project is important. It allows students to have the opportunity to look back at their project, appreciate helpers, the resources you have used to make this project. This allows time for learners to talk about their process of their work and their growth. This also gives students opportunity to show off their works in the schools to feel a sense of pride of their hard work. 
• Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.
• I could see how the school identity could be created from my project through traditions. I think that any hands on group project is memorable. I think that students will go home and talk with younger siblings about the plant project that they got to do in Ms. Brown's class and be excited about this tradition. 

Reading Reflection #10

1. Discussion on the importance of setting aside time for reflection.
2. Discussion on the reason students need to reflect and elaborate.
3. Discussion on how schools build tradition and identity.
4. Discussion on the importance celebrating a project.
5. Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.  

The importance of setting aside time for reflection is to make students feel good about their accomplishments and make learning really stick. The reason students need to reflect and elaborate is because this is how they develop and maintain useful skills. Schools build up tradition and identity by first establishing the tradition of excellence and honoring students hard work. They will have a sense of pride and continue the work  and be excited about it in the future. For this very reason it is important to celebrate a project.  The more focus put on the project the more likely students will keep up the good work. This is important for my project because I will incorporate a way to tie in traditions and identity into it.

Reading Reflection #9

1. Discussion on ways to build connections and branch out beyond the classroom.
2. Description of the EAST Initiative Model.
3. Discussion on some reasons to let students “lead” their projects.
4. Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.

Ways to build connections and branch out of the classroom can be done easily through technology. Students and teachers can communicate with other students and teachers across the world. People in local communities and across the world can have access to read and take part in PBL together. The EAST Initiative Model is Environmental and Spatial Technologies Initiatives. It has been developed to demonstrate the benefits of using technology for a real purpose to solve problems and make improvements in communities.  Reasons to let students "lead" their projects is to give them a sense of responsibility of their own learning, engaging in real life problems, to collaborate with one another, and to access relevant technologies. These concepts can relate to the project because it will allow students to lead their own projects and work together to collaborate across the world.

Ch 9 reflection

1. Discussion on ways to build connections and branch out beyond the classroom.
1. The internet has an unlimited amount of opportunities for branching out beyond the classroom. Social media allows students to branch out to connect with other students. Blog discussions allow students to communicate on each others pages about an array of topics. Skype allows students to communicate to other students without being with those other students. These connections allow students to communicate their thoughts across the entire world.
2. Description of the EAST Initiative Model.
1. They found benefits of using technology to solve problems and use it as a tool. They have made their tools able to help in labs and studios. They have helped create maps and geographical findings. 200 schools have adapted to use EAST labs in their schools. 
3. Discussion on some reasons to let students “lead” their projects.
1. The students are able to find out what they are passionate about. Teachers don't have to micromanage each project. The students are allowed to take on their own learning. 
4. Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.
1. These concepts find their way into my project since they will use technology/webpage to build connections and to further learn their project. They could use the data in the graphs they have made and post them to a blog so that their peers can see their work.

Reading Reflection 9 (Week 9)

1. Discussion on ways to build connections and branch out beyond the classroom.
2. Description of the EAST Initiative Model.
3. Discussion on some reasons to let students “lead” their projects.
4. Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.

There are many ways to build connections and branch out beyond the classroom. You can ask experts that are willing to communicate online, reach out to family members and friends, seek help from community members, etc. By reaching out beyond the classroom, you lead your students to a more meaningful project. 

The EAST Initiative Model is all about using technology to solve real-world problems. Students are able to learn the necessary material while helping their communities. 

There are a lot of reasons to let students students "lead" their projects. The students will be able to feel responsible for their own learning, they will be more engaged, and it will often lead to other topics that need to be explored. In the book, it says that, "projects spiral in unanticipated directions and live on into the future to create extended benefits" (pg. 199). This is helpful especially because as teachers, we think we know the right time to end a project, but there could be other learning opportunities within the same project.

The concepts in this chapter relate to the lesson that I wrote for this topic because I had to understand the importance of letting the students take charge of their own learning. Sure, the teacher needs to be there to guide the instruction, but the students will feel more responsible for their learning and be more engaged if they have a more important role in their own learning. 

Ch 7 reflection

  Know what the students already know, let them explore more for themselves through this project. Inspire them to know more. Give them optimism with a topic that they already care about to make a pleasant and exciting learning environment.

Set up a technology playground can be helpful in student’s learning and exploration. It allows students to learn from play. Another way to prepare students for using technology in a project is by taping their expertise. Teachers can first demonstrate and show expectations then the students then can explore devises or technological tools.

Screencasting allows you to narrate your voice and emotion or caption through presentations that a person isn’t physically giving. Tutorials are great ways to teach through technology. It can be watched again in any location at any time. Presentations can be helped with screencasting by adding music or other additions.

 Plan out chapters think about efficiency, ineractivity, smooth voice, and clarity. Practice before recording. Record your voice. Edit out the bad parts keep it shorter. Publish and save it with the correct file size. Promote easy assess to the screencast.

Ask questions to the students to understand problems and then to propose a solution. It’s the teacher’s job to shape the students learning interest in real inquiry. Students should collect information to make informed decisions. Asking why questions help students understand cause and effect.

         Screencasting is interactive and helps the students add to their projects. The students will be able to make presentations using the voice in screencasts. Screencasts help the students add to their presentations and enables them to show their projects without being there.

Ch 6 Relfection

Quality communication, management of time budget and trouble shooting are all necessary skills to manage a project. These skills can later be applied to real world jobs. These skills are important to teach our students.

·      Online tools or social media devices such as twitter can be resourceful to communicate to others. Make use of community resources such as recycling centers. This is a good idea since it is cost efficient and teaches our students a good lesson of recycling. Look local for help when students are need of supplies, such as libraries.

The teacher will need to use tools to communicate with students and be able to show that students are hitting benchmarks to show their success. I will need to adapt a system to manage products. It is also important to assess which students are doing the most work and which aren’t doing as much and enable them to all be doing the same work load. Teachers should also look for ways to give feedback to students as the project goes on not just at the final project.

Students need to develop a system that they can use tools to help them manage their time and work flow. They need to be able to collaborate with peers to develop good communication. Students will be able to seek assistance from different resources at times of struggles.

·      Some of the technology applications that should be considered is using wikis, a blog or other web pages using forums or surveys. All these resources allows students to explore and use other variations of displaying their learning. For an example, skype is a resource to communicate with others to gain knowledge that other could help them with. Shared media allows students to learn more from others that cannot be near. 

·      My students will need a variety of plants. They will use youtube to watch informative videos of plants. The students will then also use programs like excel to record numerical data and use engines to create those numbers into visual representations.

reading reflection #8

1. Discussion on the teacher’s role in keeping the project moving.
2. Discussion on levels of classroom discussions.
3. Discussion on the type of questions needed in project-based learning.
4. Discussion on Expeditionary Learning (EL) and how it relates to project-based learning.
5. Discussion on what needs to be considered in order to maximize the potential of technology during a project.
6. Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.

The teacher's role in keeping the project moving is to be a person of support for the students on their learning journey. A teacher must be able to think on their feet when unexpected situations arise or when students veer from their learning goals. The levels of classroom discussions include teacher to teacher, student to student, and teacher to student. The types of questions needed in PBL are questions that allow for inquiry to occur. Questions should be higher-order and  reach new pieces of understanding. EL is a model of instruction that puts equal emphasis on rigorous academics, higher order thinking, and active citizenship. What needs to be considered in order to maximize the potential of technology during a project is introducing different technology and encouraging its use. As a teacher you must ask yourself if the technology is helping students reach their goals or if it is causing them to be side tracked. You must be sure that the technology is equitable, used to expand student horizons, and keeping students organized. Concepts from this chapter helped me realize when and when technology is not appropriate for PBL.

Ch 8 reading reflection

1. Discussion on the teacher’s role in keeping the project moving.
1. Teachers must support their students on their learning journey. The ending may not always end up as expected so its part of the teachers role to keep the project on task. It is our job to keep the project on task. We have to see where the project may be struggling and be able to tend to those needs. It is also our responsibility to stay open to possibilities. 
2. Discussion on levels of classroom discussions.
1. Teacher to teacher- helps create projects and sharing lessons to best teach our students. We can collaborate with other teachers to help with confusion or other teachers opinions. 
2. Student-student-talking in their teams teaches them good communication skills. By communication it helps the students stay on track and organized. It is important to allow student-student discussion to enable them to be able to work together in the future as well. 
3. teacher-student: limit lecturing to entire classroom and instead try to talk to the students in a smaller group setting. Sometimes it is more beneficial to talk to students in small group or class discussions to allow a different kind of communication/learning. 
3. Discussion on the type of questions needed in project-based learning.
1. high order questions: asks students to analyze, compare, evaluate, and elaborate. such as, what did you try next, why do you think that happened. Sometimes it is best to ask more questions when a students is struggling. 
2. Questions for inquiry: these questions allow for students to make themselves into experts such as a scientist, politicians, historians, and others. If this is a new learning experience for the children helping the students develop a list of questions could be helpful.
4. Discussion on Expeditionary Learning (EL) and how it relates to project-based learning.
1. EL allows students to take learning in a more rigorous, high-order and active manner. 
5. Discussion on what needs to be considered in order to maximize the potential of technology during a project.
1. Does the technology help the students or does is stray from the goal. Is the technology being used a helpful tool? Does is allow students to organize and collaborate with others. Is technology able to help the students communicate with others? Are they taking advantage of all the ways of reaching out to others. 
6. Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.
1. This chapter relates to my topic in many different ways. There are ways that i have learned in this chapter that i could integrate in my project. I really liked the  different types of communication. Learning should come from all kinds of communication not limited to just class lectures. Student-student communication is necessary for the project to be successful. my students will need their peers to be able to commucation skillfully to get to their goal aligned with communication with me(teacher). 

Reading Reflection 8 (Week 8)

To keep a project moving, teachers must constantly be thinking on their feet. Facilitating student learning requires a teacher to be flexible and anticipate/be observant about student struggles and unexpected directions that students may take.

Levels of classroom discussion throughout project implementation include teacher to teacher, student to student, and teacher to student. Teacher to teacher conversations include everything from procedural to formative assessments. It is important to collaborate with other teachers throughout project planning. Student to student conversations should be about their learning experiences as they occur. They can provide feedback, challenge each other, and become an organized team. Teacher to student conversations can be done in whole group, but PBL encourages teachers to meet with smaller groups of students to in order to push their students to a higher level of thinking.

The type of questions needed in PBL are those that push students to a higher level of thinking, set students up for inquiry based learning, and questions used to check in with students.

"The Expeditionary Learning (EL) model of instruction puts equal emphasis on rigorous academics, higher-order thinking, and active citizenship" (pg. 173). This should be at the core of every inquiry-based project to make it the most meaningful for students.

When using technology for a project, it is important to consider what impact it is having in your classroom. Making sure that technology is helping students stay organized, research what experts say, and helping them reach the learning goals is necessary to consider when deciding whether or not to include it in your project.

This reading relates to my project because I will need to make sure that the technology used in my lessons is pushing students to a higher level of thinking instead of holding them back. Sometimes people think that technology is always good for the classroom, but taking a step back to see what the true purpose of it is for each project could be helpful.