Paper airplane project
- Nov 6, 2017
- 2 min read
Project Based Learning (PBL) and Service Learning (SL) have been the topics of today’s class. As John Dewey would say “You cannot teach today the same way you did yesterday to prepare students for tomorrow” so he developed a new teaching method: Project Based Learning. In this method, students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to a question, problem, or challenge. Focused on student learning goals, PBL projects include some essential elements:
Key Knowledge, Understanding, and Success Skills – The project is focused on teaching student’s key knowledge and understanding derived from standards, and success skills including critical thinking/problem-solving collaboration, and self-management.
Challenging Problem or Question - The project is based on a meaningful problem to solve or a question to answer, at the appropriate level of challenge.
Sustained Inquiry - Students engage in a rigorous, extended process of asking questions, finding resources, and applying information.
Authenticity – The project has a real-world context.
Student Voice & Choice - Students make some choices about the products they create.
Reflection - Students and teachers reflect on learning, and on the project’s design and implementation.
Critique & Revision - Students give, receive feedback on their work in order to improve their process and products.
Public Product - Students present their project in the classroom.
On the other hand, Service Learning is a method that combines learning goals and community service in ways that can enhance both student growth and the common good. This new strategy integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility and strengthen communities.
After discussing these two methodologies, we made a paper airplane and we started to talk about “What do you think a project is?”. Then, our teachers showed “The launch cycle” by John Spencer and Aj Juliani. With this process, students try to achieve their goals through a PBL. If you want to know more about the launch cycle, please click on the video below!
Finally, Michael and Marcos presented us a new tool named Trello. It is a web-based project management application which helps you to manage the time and things in a project. In a couple of weeks, you will discover in my Task 5 a project-based learning using a topic from a didactic unit.
Thank you for reading!
See you next week!
Isabel
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