Blog Post #9

I would first like to start off by saying that all of these videos pretty much touched on the same ideas when it came to Project Based Learning (PBL). Project Based Learning is all about actively engaging your students in each lesson, encouraging critical thinking, involving the community, and self reflection. As future educators, we can learn so much from current teachers and students when dealing with Project Based Learning.

The first assignment is a web article called the "Seven Essentials for Project Based." In this article, they discussed the importance of incorporating Project Based learning into the classroom. This article teaches us that Project Based Learning is all about student engagement and cognitive development. It also covers two criteria that should be focused on when using PBL in the classroom. These two criteria are to make sure that lesson is meaningful to the students (make sure it is personal), and to make sure the lesson has an educational purpose. This article also covers many elements that makes up a Project Based Learning lesson. It first covers the importance of providing the "need to know content" by providing an entry event that engages the students' interest (Motivation). It is important that we give our students a reason why it is important to know that certain information. The article then discusses the importance of "providing a driving question." A driving question gives the students a sense of purpose, and it also challenges the students. Another element that is important in PBL is to make sure to give the students "a voice and a choice." This is a way to make the project more meaningful to the student, and the more "voice and choice" provided by the students the better. It also covers the importance of incorporating 21st century skills, and that is the use of technology to introduce to the students the benefits of collaboration and communication. This article also covers the importance of allowing students to conduct real inquiry to produce new innovation, the importance of always including a process of feedback and revision, and the importance allowing the students to publicly present their project to an audience to make it more meaningful.

The second assignment was a video called Project Based Learning for Teachers. This video also covered the components of PBL. This video defined project based learning as students working over an extended period of time to answer a driving question. It covered the fact that deep questions are a way to allow students to share their results with others. This video also covered certain topics that I have listed below:

Project Based Learning is:

• Inquiry based
• Open-ended
• Problem-solving
• Personalized

During Project Based Learning students learn:

• Communication skills
• Critical thinking skills
• Career and life skills

In Project Based Learning:

• Technology takes a role
• Students take charge of learning

This video also introduces to us a quote from Albert Einstein that the producer thought was the best way to sum up a means for Project Based learning. (Quote as seen below)

In the third assignment we were allowed to choose between seven other sources and I chose a video called What Motivates Students? This was personally my favorite video because it gave a variety of students' views on what motivates them in school, and what rewards they receive in school. The video started off with an older student (maybe high school student), and he stated that "the teacher acknowledging good work and good behavior motivates him to do good in school." It was interesting to see things shift though when the producer of video interviewed younger students (maybe elementary and/or Pre-teen students). Their were three particular students that said that the future and focusing on achieving their dreams motivates them to be a good student. The fifth student's interview took a different approach to the question and stated that disciplinary consequences from his parent(s) motivated him to do better in school. Project Based Learning can be tied to each of these motivations. For the first student, there is a sense of accomplishment when dealing with PBL. PBL lessons are more personal and more likely to make you feel that "sense of accomplishment" when completing a task. For the second,third, and fourth student, Project Based Learning is geared toward real life strategies. It provides the students to not only complete activities in the classroom, but to actively be involved with the community and the real world. For the fifth student, their is a way to incorporate parents into the lesson when dealing with the PBL method of teaching. This way the student's parent(s) can see their child actively engaging in the lesson, and this gives the parent(s) the opportunity to tell their child how proud they are of him or her. I have also provided a list of rewards that the students found were their favorite below:

List of Rewards:

• First student (High school student)
• Would be Food
• Second, Third, and Fourth Student
• Candy and doing work outside
• Brownie points
• Different things each day of the week
• Music monday
• Wacky fact wednesday
• Fifth Student:
• Classroom money with collaboration of a behavior chart: money is used in the store at the end of the week

The next assignment that I chose is an article called" Ten Sites Supporting Digital Classroom Collaboration in Project Based Learning." This article touched on some of the components of the PBL method of teaching but covered more on the different tools that can be used for collaboration. These tools are as listed below:

• Collaboration tools:
• Titan Pad
• Wall Wisher
• Coarkboardme
• Google Docs
• Microsoft Live
• Today's Meet
• Linoit
• Skype in Education
• Quick Screen Share

The last and final assignment that I chose was a video called PBL-High School Math. This video discusses the many different challenges faced when incorporating the Project Based Learning method of teaching when in the entire school system. This video gave detailed examples of challenges faced, especially in the subjects of math and language arts. It also gave the viewers insight on that certain school's improvement scores since incorporating PBL. This video mainly served as a way to encourage schools to adopt the Project Based Learning method of teaching. 

Project Based Learning WORLD: