In all 7 of these videos:
1. Project Based Learning Part 1: Experiences of a 3rd Grade Teacher
2. Project Based Learning Part 2: Experiences of a 3rd Grade Teacher
3. iCurio
4. Discovery Education
5. The Anthony - Strange list of Tips for Teachers Part 1
6. Don't Teach Tech - Use It
7. Additional Thought About Lessons
I learned a valuable amount of information about Project based learning. With Project based learning the kids in the classroom need to be consistently evolve more. I thought this was pretty interesting about what Anthony said about Projects are for the end of a lesson so it can show what the kids have learned that day. The goal for giving a project at the end of a lesson is "Its not only the mean that the students achieved something, It means to get them to learn something Authentic Audience- the kids are rewarded for what they have done."
One thing that is a given when teaching is give something that the kids show interest in, do something that is relevant to the kids lives. An example of a project based learning that Anthony talked about is the kids wrote letters to Congressman Joe Bonner which involves writing, reading and social studies standards. The kids send the letters and they do get responses from the congressman but
Anthony chooses only 8 letters based off of these three things:
-Peer editing
-Peer revise
-Peer select
A key thing that video #2 was talking about was Never limit your students with learning. What project based learning teaches you most is that almost everything in the classroom has some kind of meaning.
Another key aspect to project based learning is the students choose which gives them more ownership and pride in themselves. Project based learning is teaching someone so they don't have to learn, project based learning is fun but also is hard work.
The program that they are using in Baldwin County Alabama is Icurio, Icurio is an online tool that serves a few purposes.
1. It allows students to search websites that have been pulled and filtered for educational purposes
2. Kids can use it themselves
3. Storage Capacity for students and teachers
-Store content is valuable
4. Helps keep the kids organized better online
- Its more convenient when you have to stop at a moments notice. For example for lunch, fire drill or dismissal.
Also Icurio works with people with disabilities because it will read aloud to you.
In the video Discovery Education, there is a saying a picture is worth a thousand words so a video must worth a million. The key to education with kids is have a lot of Visual things when teaching. Anthony uses Discovery to bring texts to life.
Discovery is also a good program for the kids, its used for the student searches so that students can enrich there research experience. The teacher tips that were provided in the video called "Strange tips for teachers part 1" the 5 key things that any new teacher needs to know are:
1. Be interested in learning yourself
2. Teaching is hard work (Work is not separate from play)
3. Be flexible and creative
- Not every plan you make is going to work out when and how you want to teach it.
4. Get kids engaged (100%)
5. Start with a goal
6. Reflect, Revise, Share, Work with Audience
The video called "Don't teach tech use it", when you let the kids use technology let them use one tool at a time.
Then the next week add another tool for them to use on top of the tool they used the week before that. Never ever expect perfection from the kids no one is perfect. Never teach technology just introduce it a smart way.
When making a lesson there is at least 4 layers as discussed in the video "Additional thoughts about lessons". The 4 layers are:
1. How it fits in with your year
- Cover all of your standards
2. Unit size
-Have you devised unit projects
3. Week
- Devising your week? How?
4. Daily lessons
- How do you deliver to your students
I have learned a lot watching these 7 videos I hope one day it makes me a better teacher.
I realy liked how you talked about projects being a kind of reward at the end of the day. I remeber I always hated when teachers used to give projects, thid was mainly because they used it as a kind of punishment. It is refreshing to hear that projects could be something more than that. I alos liked how you said, "Not every plan you make is going to work out when and how you want to teach it." That statement is definitly true.
ReplyDeleteI really liked your point about making projects relevant to the students lives so they enjoy doing them and find them useful. I also agree with adding technology to your lessons bit by bit, one step at a time. Especially if students are unfamiliar with the technological tools they will be using, it can be very overwhelming to be expected to learn everything at once. I like the idea of coaching students to use technology to help them learn about different subjects as opposed to just teaching them ho to use it.
ReplyDeleteCould you organize this content into paragraphs? You could do a paragraph for each video then include links and images.
ReplyDelete