Sunday, February 19, 2012

Brown - Reading Reflection #4


1.       1. Project design can have several potential pitfalls. One such pitfall of project design is that it can be overly scripted, thus giving students a long list of explicit directions to follow with nowhere for the students to get creative. Another potential pitfall of project design is that there could be no learning outcome. The project could be extremely long and full of activities, and that’s great, but if there is no learning outcome the entire project is a waste. 2. A good project has many features. First of all, it needs to capture the students’ interests. When students are interested in what they are learning they retain more of the information that is being taught to them. Using real world experiences in projects will help students gain skills that will be needed later in life. Having a loosely designed project will give students more freedom to be creative and independent. Including several modes of learning, such as visual art, theater, music or technology are also features that will make a good project. 3. Project ideas come from many different people and places. They can be plans developed by teachers, plans developed for teachers by different teachers, or even come from students themselves (based on questions and interests). Project ideas could also come from contemporary issues or news stories. 4. There are many steps in designing a project. First, start a wiki page and call it “Project Sketch”. Then finalize your list of objectives. After that, you need a project theme. You also need a way to get your students excited and interested. Finally, write a paragraph summary describing your project, otherwise known as a project sketch. 5. All of the concepts in this chapter can be related to my topic. Project kitchen/catering has been done countless times in too many schools to count, so there are many resources out there for us to tap into. I think that the most important thing to remember is to make sure that the students are allowed to be creative and independent, while making sure that there are strong learning outcomes at the end of the project.

2 comments:

  1. I thought your reflection was a very concise way to summarize the chapter. It is important to recognize all the potential pitfalls of a project. What I took from your reflection was when you talked about creating a wiki for planning. I was wondering how you would go about this as a teacher? Is this like creating a website? Or like an organizer? Again, great points!

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  2. I too thought your reflection was summarized nicely. One thing tat jumped out at me about this chapter was the fact of having a project design that is too scripted. Yes, you want to relay information to your students but if there is an overload of information and too much going on, they will be confused and won't learn anything from it. It is important to be detailed in an organized manner. I agree with your last sentence that the most important thing to remember is to make sure that the students are allowed to be creative and independent, while making sure that there are strong learning outcomes at the end.

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