Reading Reflection 5

1. Discussion on the items that should be considered before starting a project with students.  There are so many different items you should consider before starting a project with students.  You have to make sure that you have the proper resources to use in your project.  Knowing what tools and materials is crucial to make a project good or bad.  Next, you have to make sure what kind of technology you are going to be using.  When you use technology you have to make sure that your students know how to use it.  Another item you could consider is having real life experts come into the classroom and talk about the project and what they do.  This will help the students gain an idea of what this professional does and how they can use it in their project.  One more thing you should consider is if you are team teaching with another teacher, you should get in touch and talk to each about your strengths and weaknesses and plan accordingly. 
2. Discussion on teachers’ and students’ management needs.  When we have such a short amount of time with our students, we have to make sure that we have everything planned for each day, week, and month.  If we want to teach our students about time management we need to show them what that looks like by out actions and and the things in our classroom.  In the book it mentions to have a project calender to show the students what we expect of them and when things are due.
3. Discuss some of the technology applications that should be considered for use in a project. Technology is a big part of Project based learning.  If you want to use technology in your project, you have to make sure your students know the proper ways to use that technology correctly.  For many students now, learning how to use technology is something they have already learned at home and has become a second language to them.  But we should teach them anyways because some students in their classroom may not have that luxury at home. It won't hurt to learn more about technology.  Knowing about technology can help their projects grow and make them more efficient.  
4. Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project. For our project we will take the students to a news station where the students will be able to meet and talk with an actual meteorologist.  They will be able to ask questions, walk around, take a look at the equipment that the meteorologists use. The will have a chance to watch an actual weather report.  In order to make this trip happen we have to manage our time and get done what we need to get done before we make this trip.  We have to manage our time as well as the students time to get where we want to be.  We also plan on using technology in our project as well.  We will want the students to Skype with students that live in New Zealand to talk about weather conditions in each country.