Reading Reflection #3

Discussion on what should be considered in finding “the Big Idea” for a project.

In this chapter the book talks about the “Big Idea” for a project to do in the classroom.  Finding the big idea for a project is very important.  If you do not know or understand the big idea for a project then how do you expect your students to understand?  You want your students to be excited and engaged with the projects that you do in your classroom.  I liked the example in the book where a teacher wanted her students to get the “big idea” about the number 1,000 and what it means.  She knew she did not have much room in the classroom for her students to collect things, so she decided to collect names on a web program called “wiki.”  She started by showing her students how to use the program with editing and adding their own names.  Then she asked the students in her classroom to help their parents add their names to make the list larger.  She invited three other classrooms to participate and found out that the word spread like wild fire.  Every week she would show her students using wiki, allowed her to reinforce the meaning of 1,000.  They watched together as the number grew and grew till they hit 1,000.  I think this is a great idea to have in the classroom.   

Discussion on the 2lst Century skills.

When you think of doing a project in the classroom you have to think of how this project will help them develop 21^st-century skills.  A well-designed project causes students to stretch their “intellectual muscles” in ways traditional learning activities may not.  When you are planning a project you have to make sure that the objectives for your project are associated with the categories of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives.  I am just starting to lean about Blooms in my other ED classrooms.  These objective categories move from a lower-order to a higher-order.  These verbs will come in handy when you are trying to design questions to drive your students.   

Discussion on the 21st Century literacies.

This part of the chapter I was really confused on what I was reading.  I didn’t understand what the organizations were and what the significance of knowing all of these.  I can understand that if we are going to be teaching in PBL School, but I am still confused on what all of the organizations were.

Discussion on each of the essential learning functions.

This part of the chapter it discusses what each of the essential learning functions are and how they relate to PBL.  The eight different learning functions contribute differently to the idea of PBL and explain why they are important.  There were some functions that I have never heard before and learned a lot about and there were some that I have heard of.  I liked the idea of the Collaboration- Teaching and learning with others.  Having projects collaborate will help everyone learn together.

Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.

This chapter relates to our topic by the strategies of Blooms Taxonomy and the “Big Idea”.  We need to make sure that our students, and as a teacher, understand the “Big Idea” of our project on weather monitoring.  We want our students to be excited and interested in our project.  We have to make sure that we have the right objectives to help explain our project and challenge our students.