Reflection: Week 1

Project-based learning is a strategy where students collaborate to work on real-world projects.  Students pursue their own ideas using technology and outside resources while the teacher acts as a guide to help students when they need it.  This type of education is much different those used in the past because the teacher in no longer the content expert.  The students must investigate open-ended questions and use their knowledge to provide an authentic answer.  These projects are centered on the curriculum, while also engaging students in real-world activities.

                As you begin project-based learning, it is important for teachers to be prepared.  In this activity, you will be sending students off on their own to find information and work together.  This will cause the teacher to act as an aid instead of the main source of information.  You must have good open-ended questions to push students thinking, know resources that students can use, and be able to gain control if the project gets to be too out of hand.   This means you have to have a good classroom organization and good classroom management.  It is also important to keep an open relationship with the parents, students, and other people involved in the project.

                You may be wondering why to choose project-based learning if it takes so much extra work and change on the teacher’s part.  You must remember that you are doing project-based learning for the benefit of the students.  Project-based learning is a great way to get the students interested in projects and issues throughout the community or world, and it could be a great way to get the community involved in the education at your school.  Project-based learning pushes the educational thought process, and engages the teacher and student in a new way.  It pushes both the teacher and the students to grow in their roles as a learner. 

                The person who will benefit the most from project-based learning is the most important person in the school, the student.  The reason that most people begin teaching is to make an impact in students’ lives.  This is your chance!  Don’t let this opportunity pass you by.  Project-based learning will have such a positive benefit on the students in your class.  Students will develop better communication as they work together and they work with people in the community, students will develop better inquiry skills, students will learn to be flexible with working hours because people are counting on them meeting their deadlines, and students will gain a fuller understanding of the world.   The best benefit will be that students will feel like they are experts in the subject they are studying.

                Some issues you should think about when using project-based learning is the importance of monitoring your students as they work through these projects.  Planning is a very important thing to remember for the teacher when he or she is planning a project.  If the teacher is not organized, the whole project will fall apart.  The teacher also needs to plan open-ended to push the students when they come to a dead-end.

                The New Technology Model took years of research and data to finalize, and I guarantee that it will continue to change during the years as it is implemented into more schools.  New Technology High, a school in California, was founded after business people voiced their concerns about students not being able to meet the workforce needs.  These business leaders pushed the school to use critical thinking, collaboration, and technology as a means to better prepare the students for the workforce and needs of this new technological age. 

                I believe it is important for project-based learning to continue being implemented into school districts because it gives students a new way of learning that will better prepare them for problems they may face in the future.  Simply standing in front of students and feeding them information will never be as effective as students being placed in a real-world setting and having to use critical thinking and collaboration to solve the problems they are given.