1. Discuss the potential pitfalls of project design.
Some of the pitfalls the book mentions are a project that has a long activity but is short on learning outcomes. so if the project takes a good amount of time, you want your students to get the right amount of learning from however long the project is. Another pitfall is just laying technology over traditional practices. Like having students research a topic on the Internet then having them present it in a slide show. Its just a fancier way of doing a research report and that's not sufficient learning.
2. Discuss the features of a good project.
Some features of a good project are realistic, so there will be many attributes to it. They are structured so students learn with and from one another. This is important because you want to promote peer teaching and learning. Center on a certain question or are inquiry structured. Good projects also reach beyond school to involve others and simply have students learn by doing.
3.Discuss where project ideas come from.
Project ideas can come from just about anywhere. They can come from new stories, contemporary issues, or even student questions or interests. There are lots of ideas for a project, your job is to sort out the good from the not so good ideas.
4. Discuss the steps to a design project.
When starting a project you want to first revisit the framework, fix and finalize your list of objectives. Second you want to establish evidence of understanding, so what will the students be able to do or what will they know after the project. Plan the project theme or challenge, remember you want both enough structure and flexibility to serve the needs of the project. Lastly plan entree into the project experience, what will you do to captivate your students?
5. Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.
The concepts in this chapter are very helpful for our project. They give us guidelines to work with as we move along. We have to keep in mind that our project is for kids and we want them to have fun, while they learn. That means keeping away from the pitfalls and really engaging them.
When beginning a new project it is always a good idea to have your students come up with a project idea that have a purpose or that relate to them. If the students don't make up their project, it is a good idea to sort out the good and bad ideas. I agree that this chapter gives us good guidelines to work with while we start and move through the process of our project.
ReplyDelete