Reflection #1
Some thoughts on Reflection #1, “How People Learn: Mind Brain, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition (HPL I).” One, learning is different for everyone, and it is heavily influenced based on cultural factors and continues throughout life. For example, you can have two people with the same ethnicity, but because they grew up in a different part of the world, their cultural, social, and cognitive ideas can be completely different. Two, your brain develops throughout the course of your lifetime and is influenced by your cultural and physical environment. This goes back to my first thought, that where you live plays an important role in brain development. Three, as an educator I believe it is so important to go over previously learned knowledge at the beginning of every class to review the “big ideas” that you want students to remember. This helps reinforce wanted learned ideas. Fourth, motivating students to learn comes down to the student's self-belief that they belong and feel safe at the school or learning environment. Motivation is very important in all walks of life, such as your job, sports or relationships, just to name a few areas. Lastly, I agree with the statement that “The effectiveness of technology depends on the characteristics of the learner, the types of learning being targeted, sociocultural context, and support from instructors in the use of the technologies.” I think that you must match what you are teaching with the learning style of each student.
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Reflection Number 4
I found it interesting that the people at PBLWorks were so concerned about the popularity of Project Based Learning (PBL), and how it would lead to wide variation in the quality of project design and classroom implementation, that they created their own “gold standard” to help teachers improve their practice.
PBLWorks Gold Standard is a template or road map that will guide you through the intricacies of PBL and keep you on track. It even has a rubric to help educators understand the difference between a simple "project" and rigorous Gold Standards.
The Gold Standard and 7 essential design elements are important as it helps teachers create comprehensive and research-informed PBL that focus on understanding, success skills and knowledge that will help students in their post high school careers.
I do use some of the 7 essential design elements in my lessons. For example, for my unit final in Aerobics, give my students the choice of either taping a 2-minute dance video, taking an oral final-exam, or performing a dance recital in front of the class. Also, I have what I call “Free-Pick-Friday”, where I let my students pick the music and/or type of dance aerobics that we will be performing. It seems like such a small thing, but the students always have a great time and enjoy the opportunity to have a choice in the lesson.
This is my first time doing a “real” PBL, but I think the hardest elements to implement will be, A Challenging Problem or Question and Sustained Inquiry. On a project that is weeks or a semester long, you really want to feel like you picked the right subject to work on that has a meaningful problem to be solved or a question to answer, at the appropriate level of challenge. To help with the implementation with the driving question, I will have students get with their partners to make a list of 10 possible PBL ideas. After they have their list, I would then have them condense this list to five, and three, until they have picked their PBL topic.
The next toughest element to implement is keeping my students engaged in a rigorous, extended process of posing questions, finding resources, and applying information. This is an area where if things could stall, the students might lose focus and get frustrated with the process. To help facilitate student engagement, I need to continue to include scaffolds, guidance and feedback to each group daily to keep them forced and on the right track.
I found it interesting that the people at PBLWorks were so concerned about the popularity of Project Based Learning (PBL), and how it would lead to wide variation in the quality of project design and classroom implementation, that they created their own “gold standard” to help teachers improve their practice.
PBLWorks Gold Standard is a template or road map that will guide you through the intricacies of PBL and keep you on track. It even has a rubric to help educators understand the difference between a simple "project" and rigorous Gold Standards.
The Gold Standard and 7 essential design elements are important as it helps teachers create comprehensive and research-informed PBL that focus on understanding, success skills and knowledge that will help students in their post high school careers.
I do use some of the 7 essential design elements in my lessons. For example, for my unit final in Aerobics, give my students the choice of either taping a 2-minute dance video, taking an oral final-exam, or performing a dance recital in front of the class. Also, I have what I call “Free-Pick-Friday”, where I let my students pick the music and/or type of dance aerobics that we will be performing. It seems like such a small thing, but the students always have a great time and enjoy the opportunity to have a choice in the lesson.
This is my first time doing a “real” PBL, but I think the hardest elements to implement will be, A Challenging Problem or Question and Sustained Inquiry. On a project that is weeks or a semester long, you really want to feel like you picked the right subject to work on that has a meaningful problem to be solved or a question to answer, at the appropriate level of challenge. To help with the implementation with the driving question, I will have students get with their partners to make a list of 10 possible PBL ideas. After they have their list, I would then have them condense this list to five, and three, until they have picked their PBL topic.
The next toughest element to implement is keeping my students engaged in a rigorous, extended process of posing questions, finding resources, and applying information. This is an area where if things could stall, the students might lose focus and get frustrated with the process. To help facilitate student engagement, I need to continue to include scaffolds, guidance and feedback to each group daily to keep them forced and on the right track.
Final Course Reflection
Since I have never done a “real” Project Based Learning (PBL) assignment, everything I did for this assignment was new and insightful. I learned PBL is a student-centered instruction that involves a classroom approach in which students acquire a deeper knowledge through active exploration of real-world challenges and problems. It is definitely different from paper-based, rote memorization, or teacher-led instruction that I have been accustomed to. Another insight that I learned is that it has UDL features of collaboration and student voice and choice. I also found the seven essential designed elements provided a framework and template for keeping on track and focused. I did know that students demonstrated their knowledge and skills by creating a public product or presentation for a real audience as the culminating event. I shortened my PBL assignment to two weeks because that is how often we switch units. Right now, I would not be able to implement project based learning as our school is going through renovations (MHS is 100 years old!) and there is going to be a shortage of classrooms. As I write this reflection, the physical education department chair cant tell me where all of our classes will be on November 2nd, when junior and seniors are coming back to school. One of our gym’s was torn down and the other gym is without power. (2020 has been interesting so far). In the future, this would be something that I would be interested in doing as I am fortunate to have the flexibility to tweek the activity calendar. Aside from the above mentioned facility obstacles, there is nothing that couldn't be overcome. All students are issued laptops so internet access wouldn’t be a problem. The only reason that not having an indoor space could be problematic, is if there is inclement weather. Also, teaching outside can be distracting for students. Some questions I have are: 1. How many times during the course of a school year would you recommend doing PBL? 2. What do you think is the optimum length of time (3 weeks, 4 weeks, etc.), that PBL works best? Or, does it depend on the grade of the students? 3. In your opinion, is there a subject matter that works best for PBL? |