Chapter 5 Reflection

There are many items that need to be considered before starting a project. First off, when starting a project you need gather your resources. You need to know what your school is going to provide and what you are willing to provide out of your own pocket. For example, if you want your students to make posters you have to take into consideration how much the supplies are going to cost. The schools do not fund every school lesson plan you come up with. It is well known that teachers spend a lot of money out of their own pocket to cover these costs. You also have to consider trying to incorporate technology. If you do decide to use technology you need to make sure your students know how to use the chosen software. If students in you class are unfamiliar with the software then bring in a professional to help teach the students how to use it. A small tutorial of how to use PowerPoint will benefit an entire class. Students also need to learn how to divide their responsibilities up when working with a group. Before students dive into a project these need to assess each other and find out the strengths of each group member. This preparation will benefit all the groups.

One of the goals of PBL is to teach students to become effective managers of their own time. Students that learn how to manage time become very successful at what they do. Students can connect these projects to real life scenarios. Once these students grow into adults they will be more prepared to face time deadlines. This will teach them how to better balance their time and help them become responsible. When introducing a new project it is just as important that the teacher manages the project as well. Teachers need to be good communicators with students during the project. They need to find different ways to communicate. A blog and email are both ways of effective communication. Teachers also need to know how to assess. Teachers need to find ways to gauge whether students are working productively and accomplishing project goals. It’s important that they provide feedback to their students so they can learn from their mistakes and build off them. Students need to learn how to self reflect. It is important as a learner that you can learn from your mistakes. You need to be able to critique yourself in order to become an effective learner.

It is the 21^st century and technology should be taken advantage of inside the classroom. Introducing technology to students at a young age is only going to better prepare them for the future. There are several web-based applications to choose from. You can link a set of tools together in a wiki, associate them with a blog, or use a web-based “desktop” application. Many classrooms are using blogs to communicate between the classmates and the instructor. A blog is a great place to share news, milestones, and resources with each other. These applications will help students deliver their projects and improve their effectiveness.

This chapter directly relates to our project. It talks about our responsibilities as a students and the teacher. We are using a lot of the web-based applications talked about in chapter 5. We currently use a blog everyday to share our thoughts and we respond to other classmate’s posts. This helps us self reflect on our posts and gives us a better understanding of PBL.