Blog Post #9

What can teachers and students teach us about project based learning?


Seven Essentials For Project Based Learning, Gives the reader the two most important things that every project needs. The first being that teachers provide students with a meaningful task (One that drives the student to do his or her best) .The second is making sure that the task has an educational purpose. Then the site goes on to give the seven essential elements of PBL. 1. A Need To Know- This ultimately means that the teacher should activate the students minds into wanting to know more about the project. The teacher should initiate some questioning through a video, article, newsletter, or even a field trip. Any way that the teacher can grab the attention of the students, he or she should do for an introduction. 2. A Driving Question- After the introduction, the students should be left with an open-ended driving question for he or she to ponder over while doing the project. The source looks at the driving question as a thesis statement, which I like a lot. It gave me a better understanding of how important the driving question is. 3. Student Voice and Choice- This basically means that the students should have a certain free range of tools and sources to work with when doing their project. 4. 21st Century Skills- The skills here are reffering to collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and the use of technology. With these things, the students have endless opportunities of the way their projects can turn out. 5. Inquiry and Innovation- This means a great deal of steps and lessons are turned into one lesson. It is sort of a way for generating new questions for answering in the classroom through their projects. 6. Feedback and Revision- This could be done by using rubrics or criteria for peer review. This step is meaningful for the students to understand what is expected of them during the project. 7. A Publicly Presented Product- This step is meaningful because it drives the students to do their best. When the students present their final project to people other than their peers and teacher, they want it to look better and more creative. This source has helped me a lot in recognizing keep steps for PBL.

Project Based Learning For Teachers Says Common Core Standards are the WHAT to the projects. The HOW to the projects, are the projects ideas and understand. We can learn from this video that technology plays a big role in the classroom and in PBL. Technology can leave the students with many possibilities for the projects. Many different websites can contribute for communication in PBL. Also, the different websites shown can give the students access to create things with countless possibilities. Another key for PBL that this source shows is that we, as teachers, shouldn’t spoon-feed our students. We should give them the tools and guidance to learn and answer things for themselves. I like this approach a lot. If you have a question look for the answer as hard as you can before giving up. Every project should have a purpose, a rubric, groups, deadlines, a process, and a product.

Project Based Learning in PE I find this source very interesting. Usually in PE class students just do physical activity. Through this project the students actually learn important information about the body that could be useful to them as we all the other students. What a great idea! The lesson also meets the NASPE. This truly goes to show you that PBL can be done in any subject. The students question, analyze, and create in PE class. This is a very fun and interesting PBL activity. This meets all of the criteria from the first source. I really like this source and what it has to show students and teachers. It proves that PBL can be used for anything.

What motivates students today is a video that consists of many different videos from different kids. The students actually give their own word about what motivates them. All of the students say things along the lines of what they want to do when they grow up. The students also give the viewer of the rewards they get for doing well in school. This ranges from money to spend on stores or pizza at school. One student is rewarded by having extra time outside to themselves or candy. If students are rewarded for their good efforts in class they are more apt to do well on project and achieve their goals in class. I have seen this approach first hand and it works.

The Ketchup Bottle Case is a really interesting and cool story to read. These students came up with a problem or question that they wanted to solve. Through vigorous and hard work, they achieved their goals and are now two very well known students that invented something useful through PBL. The students have proved to teachers and students everywhere that PBL is very important and can take you in many directions.

Project #9

Blog Post #8

Randy Pausch's lecture The Last Lecture,is uplifting. He teaches people to reach for their dreams at any cost no matter what you go through or what you don't think you can do, you can do anything. The "head fake", he talks about is a really cool approach. The head fake is when students think they are learning one thing but they are really learning multiple things through the project and or lesson. He says that your critics are your motivators and when your critics stop trying to critique you, that means you're doing something wrong. He also talks about trials and struggles that he goes through in life. Through his struggles, he never gave up. He kept pushing for his dreams.The dream fulfillment factory is a really neat thing made by him and his team. The way that he put technology into learning and schooling made more opportunities for people. We can conclude that Randy is an advocate of Project Based Learning. He is truly and inspiration for teachers and learners all over the world.

C4T Summary #2

C4T #2 Vicki Davis
Blog
Mrs. Davis’s most recent blog post was a post about her switching from Blogger to Wordpress. I thought this was a really cool post because I got to read the pro’s and con’s of each blogging system. This was also appropriate for the class and myself because of the fact that our class is based on blogging and new technology.
This is my first response. Hey Ms. Davis, my name is Alexandria Grow and I am a student at the University of South Alabama in class EDM310. I really enjoyed reading your post. As a new blogger, I am just now beginning to get in the swing of using Blog Spot and I really enjoy it. We are required to use Blogger in class but I am interested in exploring Wordpress in the future. Great post and cute cat! 

You can check out my blog at Here as well as our class blog Here I would love to hear back from you. Thanks!
The second post I read was about, different tools that include technology that you can use in the classroom for research. It gives the students tools to learn with.
My response to this was, Hey Mrs. Davis! I am a student at the University of South Alabama in class EDM310. This is a great post. Going thorough my resent class, I am learning about technology and about all of the different ways I can use it in the classroom. The links at the end really enable the reader to visit the site. Thanks for posting!

Project #13

In our project, we decided to make a lesson plan in the Drama field for the 9th grade. The lesson is on Hamlet and Lion King. In this lesson the students, in groups, will conduct research to compare the two pieces of work and present what they have learned to the class. The students will start off with a pre-quiz to test their previous knowledge about the two. After, they will conduct research and compare Hamlet to Lion King. The students will then write a screenplay of a scene in each movie that the group thinks is like the other. They will create the plays in iMovie and then present the final product to the class. After the presentations are finished, the students will take a post-quiz to recognize what they have learned. I think this is a fun and interesting lesson for group work in the 9th grade.

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Project #7 Part B (Post 1)

Blog Post #7

Strengths: Note Taking ,Directions ,Attentiveness

Weakness: Technology ,Busy Schedule ,Creativeness

What I need to do In order to give myself more time to learn I need to motivate myself to be the best I can be when learning to do something new. I also need to explore the web and become more technology savvy so that I am up to date on my learning.

How To Make A QR Code is a Youtube video that teaches you how to make a QR code on a computer like you would use in an MP3 player. This is very helpful when reading books in a classroom where a student needs the book read to him/her. The teacher can pre-record the reading of the book. Classroom Learning is a Youtube video that shows the students recording themselves read. The students record themselves reading books and then go back and watch themselves to see if he or she has made and mistakes. They are doing it on an ipad. This seems very useful in the classrooms for this purpose. Ipads could be used in every classroom for these kinds of activities. Alabama Virtual Library is about Alabama Virtual Library. The students have learned how to log in AVL on an ipad. They know how to use search engines. They chose topics to search and a bunch of things come up about the topic. Such as pictures, and introduction, and a video or audio recording. The students can listen or watch the clip and fill out a worksheet assigned for that activity. The students research, watch, and record everything by themselves from this center. Discovery Education is a video on Discovery Education in the classroom. The students log in using a password and their own information. They know how to create boards on this site. They are able to add images and videos. This video actually has a student in the video that teaches me how to use Discovery Education for making a board. After this activity the students wrote narratives. This wraps in a bunch of different activities for one lesson. I find this very useful for a classroom. The student is being a teacher in the video and I am the learner. Board Builder is about two students that used Board Builder. This video shows me that students are using more technology in classrooms than we are in college. The students have used great images and did well on research. What a fun project! Gulf Shores Board Builder Project is also about students using Board Builder. This is by far my favorite source used in the whole semester. The students use many great resources and images. I think the students passion for helping the community is amazing. I am very impressed by the girls abilities to search, build, and work the camera. I would like to sit in on one of these types of lessons soon. Imovie and AVL is a Youtube video with Elizabeth and Daphne. They are the media specialists in Daphne and Gulf Shores. Michelle talks about iMovie. The kindergarten students write scripts and use images on Trailers in iMovie at ages 5 and 6. Teachers are teaching things in more technology in today’s classrooms. Elizabeth talks about AVL. She explains that you can log on and teach students basic research. It will pull up many things the students can learn from. It is FREE. Everyone is a Learner is a Youtube video with Elizabeth and Michelle from the last video. This video is talking about learning. Michelle says that everyone becomes a learner and a teacher in the classroom, which I agree to. Michelle also mentions Padlet, which we use in class. A student teaching the teacher is encouraged.