Friday, January 30, 2015
Chapter 1 Adam Fitzmaurice
Project Based Learning (PBL) gives students the keys in controlling their own education. PBL takes a real world problem, chosen by the students, and then the students use problem solving skills, real life experts, and their own research to come up with solutions or information. The project is applicable and the kids are in control of their own learning while the teacher serves more as a learning coach guiding the students through this process.
There are many challenges to Project Based Learning. First the students need to choose the right problem. It needs to be applicable to the real world, large enough for the students to work on for the entire class yet small enough so that progress is accomplished. There also needs to some sort of structured group work, while also their needs to be individual work so that each individual in the project takes away the same amount of learning. Also in the end the work is presented and collaborated on by the students peers. Parents, teachers, and school administrators look at the work and see how much the students have learned throughout the process.\
Project Based Learning teaches the students how to work together to solve problems in the real world, an essential skill that is needed in the world today. PBL helps the students establish content knowledge and it fortifies the knowledge by the student having to use it in order to create the project. The students learn how to use each other, teachers, and experts in the projects field to answer questions, and provide essential resources in solving real world problems
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All the challenges you pointed out seemed really accurate and important to think about. Finding the right kind of problem to create a whole project around is probably a lot harder than it sounds, especially because you would have to think about all the students. You mentioned how there is individual work and group work, and if you think about those factors along with the fact that classrooms are full of students with all different ability levels the challenge just keeps growing. The project would have to be one that could be differentiated based on if a student needs an extra challenge or needs something a little simpler. Definitely a lot to think about when it comes to project based learning!
ReplyDeleteHi Adam!
ReplyDeleteI really liked your analogy of the students getting the "keys to their success"! I completely agree that when students are in charge of their learning, they often see the real value in it!
Choosing the right question is an interesting concept and I bet will be challenging for students at first. Often, students want to answer a question that has a right and wrong answer, but sometimes in project-based learning, the answer they come out with does not even answer the question they posed but does not mean they have not learned! Project-based learning certainly contains more than one facet and I think you did a great job highlighting them! :)
-Sabrina
Hi Adam!
ReplyDeleteI really liked your analogy of the students getting the "keys to their success"! I completely agree that when students are in charge of their learning, they often see the real value in it!
Choosing the right question is an interesting concept and I bet will be challenging for students at first. Often, students want to answer a question that has a right and wrong answer, but sometimes in project-based learning, the answer they come out with does not even answer the question they posed but does not mean they have not learned! Project-based learning certainly contains more than one facet and I think you did a great job highlighting them! :)
-Sabrina