Chapter 9

There are several methods of understanding prior-knowledge of students. One method is the        K-W-L activity. K stands for what you/we know about the topic, W stands for what you/we want to know about the topic, and L stand for what have you/we learned about the topic. This is a great activity to understand the prior knowledge of students because you can see where they are at and what they already know. Next, you can begin to start your lesson based off of what they already know.

It is important to establish anchors for a project. By establishing anchors you can gain a sense of where students are starting and far they will go as they start to meet their learning goals. When you are using project based learning the opportunities are expanded to differentiate instruction. This helps all students be successful.

 There are several ways to assess what students learned during the project. You can:

·         Use an assessment tool that gives students feedback on their assignments

·         Testing

·         Film based on a novel

·         Interview your students (this helps students be reflective about what they have learned

Concepts in this chapter relate to my teams project because I think that every students know what their strengths and weaknesses are. Therefore, an anchor has been established in our technology classroom. The teacher knows who struggles more with using technology then other students. Therefore, some students (such as myself) travel a greater distance as a learner in this particular class.

Chapter 8

There are teachers that teach their lessons, assign their homework, and the students swallow endless amounts of information, hold it in there mouth and then on test day they spit it out on paper, turn it in, and wash their mouths out and forget about everything they just "learned". I know this because I am one of those students. So how does a teacher teach students things that they will remember and use? They have to branch out the learning outside the classroom. It is crucial for teachers to branch out student learning and connect things in the classroom with problems in the real world. This keeps the students interested in the learning in the classroom, and gives it a personal aspect that the student can relate to and remember. It is important for the human brain to connect learning for it to remember it also it provides interest for the students so they remain engaged.


Branching teaching out and connecting lessons to the real world is one of the major benefits of Project Based Learning. It allows students to see how the work they do in school will be used in real life and allows them to explore subjects that they are interested in. They get to experience real professionals, in actual fields that the students could join when they graduate. It encourages learning beyond public schools and helps students go to college. It also encourages a desire to learn about subjects that students will be attracted to. In our project we get to branch out all sorts of different things into fitness. We can show students different events such as charity runs, and community fitness events. Also we can show the students different medical doctors who can come into the classroom and talk about the medical field.

And if students see my YouTube video, they will want to exercise to get big muscles and be awesome all the time like me

Chapter 8

There are several ways to build connections and branch our beyond the classroom. Integrating technology helps students to teach an audience. Knowing that other students will be commenting an s listening can be a good motivation for students.  Students can also contact experts in the course of researching a particular topic. A teacher might decide to design a project where students can communicate with fellow learners (learners who can be from halfway around the globe).

EAST Initiative Model:

·         Students in the Environmental and Spatial Technologies (EAST) Initiative network of schools have demonstrating the benefits of using technology. Although, the real purpose is to solve problems and improvement in communities. These students master tolls and applications while solving problems. For examples, GPS, GIS, AND CAD.

Reasons to let students “lead” their projects:

·         A teacher was reminded of student’s potential to chart their own learning path by a student who has dyslexia. She realized that blogging can be helpful. Therefore, an international conversation about strategies for dealing with dyslexia happened. Therefore, there was open collaboration. Although, the learning for the student did not end here. She decided to create a wiki page about the topic of dyslexia.

Concepts in this chapter relate to my teams project because branching out beyond the classroom is being done. For examples, our blogs. Every week we post a reflection to our group’s blog and comments are made on it by other students in the classroom. Therefore, this is a great way of collaborating between other students in the classroom. 

Chapter 7 Teamwork in the classroom

Teamwork is an important concept not only in the classroom, but also in the work world. When students start looking for jobs, even at the very beginning of their careers as a high school kid looking for some extra cash, bosses are going to be looking for them to be able to work as a team. One of the benefits of extra curricular activities are that they build the skills that it takes to effectively communicate and work as a team.But not everybody is athletic and not everyone has the opportunity to participate in extra curricular activities. So how does a teacher encourage teamwork in the classwork?

First teamwork does come with some challenges:

1. First we want the students ideas to still be individual ideas and when working with others those ideas can get mashed with others, or one student will control all the ideas and some students can be thrown under the bus

2. Also some students might have to do all the work on the project. The teacher must regulate who does the work and how much work each individual has to do

3, There must be enough work for a team to do, the work can be harder but it has to be something the team can accomplish

In project based learning teamwork plays a huge role. In the project students have to work in a whole class team, small group teams, and also have to do their own work in order to bring to the team and enhance the learning. It is important that as a teacher you have to manage the teams so that each team remains productive and the work and learning is enhanced by the teamwork and not inhibited by it. One way to do this is for the teacher to ask questions to check in on the groups. The teacher should do verbal check ins often while monitoring group work. Also they should provide deadlines for teams to turn in work to show the progress that they are making.

Chapter 6 Adam Fitzmaurice is Awesome

Technology can be a great and terrible thing in the classroom. While it allows students to be creative, use an infinite expanse of information, and present information and learning through a variety of means, it also brings many challenges. The internet can easily be abused, web sites can be created by anybody and therefore the information found can be unreliable. While programs such as power point, movie maker, and other tools are convenient and productive they also require the student to have access to such programs and the knowledge to properly use them. Some things a teacher needs to keep in mind when using technology in the classroom is:

1. What resources are needed for the teacher/student to use the technologies
2. Does the student know how to use the technology
3. Have you provided clear and concise instructions on how you use the technology
4. Does the student know what the end product should look like when using a tool
5. If using web pages for sources have you provided good sources for the students to access, or does the students know how to access reliable information
6. Can the students provide proper credit to who they took information from

And there are many more things to consider when using technology in the classroom. Fortunately in the new day and age,s students are becoming very adapt at using technologies, and many things that us teachers struggle on, the students will already be proficient. This in itself can provide its own challenges because we will need to be able to control what the students can do so that the information they present will be beneficial to their education

Chapter 7

There are several levels of classroom discussions:

·         Teacher to teacher: Face to face collaboration with colleagues

·         Student to student: Good communication skills with team members.

·         Teacher to student: This method practices your listening skills and asking questions that push students toward higher-order thinking.

There are also several questions for “checking in” on students during a project:

·         Procedural: Are we staying on schedule?

·         Teamwork: How are team members getting along?

·         Understanding: Have you considered this research?

·         Self-assessment: Questions that encourage self-assessment and reflection

Benefits to students when optimizing the use of technology:

·         Learning how to use MP3 players, digital cameras, and a project blog

·         Responses are positive to the learning experience

·         Gaining new insights into how to communicate with a culturally diverse audience

·         Learning how to critique other members work

Teamwork is a 21^st century skill that can make or break a project. There might be problems that arise in a group setting. Therefore, if a teacher realizes that there is trouble he/she should help the team to resolve their conflicts. Teamwork is an important 21^st century skill that students need to be able to learn because they will need to be able to use it in the workforce.

Concepts in this chapter relate to my teams project because the levels of classroom discussion (students to student and teacher to student) are being used. Student to student is being used when my team member and I collaborate on our project. Teacher to student is being used when we have questions that we need to ask our instructor and our instructor gives us feedback.

Chapter 6

Technology tools can encourage students to be reflective and evaluate their own strengths. For example, blogs offer students space so they can reflect what they have done over time. Online survey tools can also be used to identify learning characteristics, interests, strength, weaknesses, etc. There are specific tools such as SurveyMonkey and Zoomerang which allows you to setup these online surveys. Therefore, students can see their self-assessment.

There are several ways in which you can get students minds ready for a project:

·         Assessing students prior knowledge

·         Give students time for imagination and letting the ideas settle

·         Encourage students to explore

·         A guest speaker

·         Bring up the topic each day over the course of time

Teaching the fundamentals first is important. You want your students to understand the basic before moving onto something that is more complex. According to Graham, “by teaching the fundamentals, I was sure my students would be pointed in the right direction when they started the project.” She explained that she didn’t want time wasted on learning and researching the basic s on their own when she could do in a few lessons. It is also important for students to build their skills gradually before moving on to something that is more complicated.

Preparing students to use technology for a project is important. It is important to:

·         Set up a technology playground-where students can explore

·         Tap student expertise-set up stations, have students that are confident help other students

·         Introduce project-management tools-log or journal to track progress

·         Demonstrate-discuss tools and show students how to use the specified technology

Ways to promote inquiry and deep learning:

·         Guide students as they begin to put their plan into action

·         Help guide students to ask questions that someone else would ask (for example: nurse, historian, researcher, etc.)

·         Guide students into skilled questioning

·         Good questions (Which one, how, what if, should, and why)

Concepts in this chapter relates to my teams project because when creating our project we want to make sure that the fundamentals are taught first. We also want to make sure that deep learning occurs as one of the outcomes.

Collaborative Concept Map

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