Chapter 5: Project Management Strategies for Teachers and Learners

This chapter hit very close to home for me in many of my experiences as a student. I have been in countless classrooms where it was clear that the teacher did not challenge them-self to work efficiently or keep up to date with the technology available. Even here at Western, I am shocked at how many professors use outdated software and resources. I once was in a math class that taught teachers how to teach math using a technology program that the professor them-self admitted was out of date and would probably not be used in schools by the time we were in the work field. Why did he not advocate for a change in the curriculum/syllabus then? Seeing his uncaring and inefficiency certainly impacted the way that I viewed the class and his intentions. This is exactly the position that I will strive daily to make sure that I never put my future students in, because it's true, as the text states, "...your students learn from your example" (74). 

I also really connected with the part of the text that talked about keeping your standards high and organization in check "regardless of the scale of the project you are planning" (75). I have witnessed small ideas turning into bigger ones and eventually even project because of the great conversations and intentions possible because of the organization behind them. 

This idea of keeping all lessons organized, managed and properly equipped reminded me of what the speaker was talking about this week. She reminded us that as beneficial as technology can be, if it not managed and set up for the students' success, it can serve as a disadvantage and take away from learning conversely.Thus, as noted in the text, figuring out your resources is extremely vital when beginning to prepare for a lesson. The students need to be able to access the materials needed for optimum growth and learning, but this means that the teacher must search high and low to get these in order prior to the start of the lesson. 

After figuring out what the teacher wants the students to ultimately achieve and equipping them with the right tools in order to make it happen, they must then decide how they want to get students to start thinking about their own organization, preparation and work. This is something that looking back in my schooling was enforced, I would say, only about half of the time among teachers. Sure, there were due dates in every classroom, but the guidance for planning and preparation did not come until after many failures to do so myself. I had to teach myself along the way how to manage my time and as useful as this struggle was, I do believe that if teachers in early elementary had begun instilling in some strategies for managing time, this eventual success would have come a lot sooner and with a lot more understanding. As an early childhood/elementary educator, I will certainly use this experience to help students begin managing their time and becoming more accountable for it as soon as I feel they can. Of course, this practice should not look stern, mean, or like, "You failed." I mean, embedding the practice of organizing and working efficiently and positively reinforcing the students' good time management and planning. :)

Overall, I think the most important way to help students become efficient, well-managed and caring students is to model these practices for them on a daily basis. Showing students that organization and preparation are key to success by doing it yourself consistently, gives them a great model to learn from. If we want our students to be all of these wonderful things, we must be them ourselves! 

Blog post 5, Project Management Strategies for Teachers and Learners

Before starting any project with your students, you need to consider the resources you will need and plan strategies to support effective time management, teaming, and assessment. As we have heard before in Project Based Learning, we invest most of our time upfront. I think taking the time upfront to iron out any possible kinks before presenting it to our students is a crucial indicator of the success of your project. Being well prepared will allow for more learning time and model to students good time management and organizational skills so they can begin developing their own strategies.

                One of the teacher and student management ideas that I really liked was the development of an on-line calendar and the personal briefcase online. When students are given a big project, I think it is only fair that we break the milestones down into smaller manageable steps for them. If they can see exactly when things are due, and where they should be, it will not feel so overwhelming and they will be less likely to wait for the last second to do it. I think having a secure online website containing the student’s private briefcase is a great idea. The student can do work at other locations and teacher can see their progress. I also think it is a wonderful idea to have a class podcast or website to keep parents informed. I honestly think they would listen to a podcast before reading a long newsletter and if we set up links, we could include homework helpers for parents and students.

                Some of the other technology applications we should consider for students are collaboration tools, methods for seeking assistance, and ways to get feedback from peers and their teacher. Many of the tools we are using in this this class today will benefit our future students. I know that I find it helpful that Sabrina and I can work on the same document in real-time so we never have to guess what the other partner has done. I also like that we have a class website that gives us links to what we need and tells us the due dates.  

                Although I think technology is amazing in that it allows us to experience things in places we wouldn’t otherwise be able to go. I think the real time operation room is excessively graphic for high school students. Now if they are in the medical field it would be one thing but we are talking high school, I would have passed out. In using this type of technology for our project, I think a time-lapse video of a butterfly’s life cycle would be great and then have students participate in a video conference with a specialist at Fredrick Meijer Gardens.

Combined Butterfly Garden Concept Map

Combined Butterfly Garden Concept Map

Butterfly Life Cycle Taskstream Lesson Plan

Butterfly Life Cycle Taskstream Lesson Plan

Chapter 4: Strategies for Discovery

It's hard to believe, but I was not introduced to inquiry based learning until my second to last semester of my undergrad. With this being such a powerful tool for student learning, I still marvel at how this could have been left out of my preparation and education for so long! Using inquiry based learning is an excellent way to connect students to the content they are exploring and making it meaningful for them! We know that, like ourselves, when learning is meaningful to us, we tend to explore, learn and discover way more than if we do not see the relevancy behind the content.

I love how the teachers from Finland, used as an example in Chapter 4, utilized the mobile phones that they knew statistically, their students would be carrying to access and record information readily. Using this meaningful technology to the students in a way that helped connect them to making learning important was an excellent way to infuse their learning into their everyday life. Inquiry based learning derives so much from what the students want to accomplish and how they plan to accomplish.

Additionally, I loved how the chapter cautioned teachers against arbitrarily selecting other peoples' project plans because they were easy to access and required less work. As teachers, we have to constantly check to ensure that our objectives, methods and strategies are aligned appropriately to make sure that students have a direct line to follow to their success. We really have to dig into the guts of what a lesson plan/unit is trying to get at and decide if it is relevant to our own goals and how it will connect with the students. If we do not think that there will be a strong connection for the students, modifications must be made.

It is most important that the students derive meaning from their work, because without establishing this meaning, their intentions and work only goes skin deep. Within our project, we ultimately want our students to become invested so that they can use this knowledge to further connect to other things in the future and grow their learning beyond what we can see. This inspiration starts with us, and framing this goal is vital to their success.  

Chapter 4, Strategies for Discovery

When we are designing our projects and incorporating other peoples work, we must try to look past the “window dressing” of the project that appeals to us and pay attention to the quality of the student experience (Boss and Kross, 2007). We should be aware of four potential pitfalls in project design.  One pitfall is if a project is busy and long but reaches lower order of thinking. The second pitfalls are having students research a topic and then present an electronic project.  The third is falling into thematic units that do not elevate or connect the learning. The fourth potential pitfall is a project that is overly scripted with too many steps attached. I think the bottom line to avoid all these pitfalls is to be reflective practitioner. This flows directly into the features of a good project. We can all create a fun project but if there is not room for inquiry and ways that they make a deeper connection to the content then really what is the point. The features of a good project center on a driving question, capture students interest, loosely deigned, constructs meaning, crosses multiple disciplines, student centered and hands-on. I think what’s scary to me is that we know inquiry is the best approach for students yet most of the classroom teacher manuals are generic and don’t use this approach. Creating inquiry lessons takes a great deal of time not only for the teacher but also for the students. I think it is so important for the teachers to collaborate on lessons and be there for support.

This chapter talks about where the inspiration for project ideas can come from. This ranges from irritants in a classroom to websites of other project plans. They mentioned that one project could lead to another project and that is the connection I am making with our butterfly garden. It made me think of all the material we could cover relating to plants. Are seeds alive? Do stems only carry water? What does road salt do to our plants? Now my issue is how to incorporate technology with these ideas?  I get the hands on part but still scared over technology.

The steps to design a project include revisiting your framework to finalize the learning objectives, decide on specific 21^st century skills we want to address, identify learning dispositions we want to foster, establish how students will provide evidence of their earning, think about the inquiry question, and plan the entrée (67-68). I think once I take the time to go over the steps suggested to design my project, I will have will have a better understanding of what I should do.

Chapter 3: Imagining the Possibilities

In the chapter, we learn that before delving into a plan for PBL, teachers must develop a conceptual framework to isolate what it is that they want to accomplish. I really liked the analogy that the text gave in reference to considering this process like the scientific process; 1) posing the question, 2) designing the investigation, 3) gathering materials, 4) determining step by step application, etc. Although I certainly think that they teacher should be aware of what will work and what will not work, I feel like involving the students in the construction of this process is very vital. The speaker from last week told us how her class had to work together to form the policies of her classroom, and how by involving them in this discussion, it became more important and interesting for them. Further, I think that guiding the students to come up with their own ideas on how PBL should be carried out helps them to identify what is efficient and accurate in a safe environment for learning with their peers.

First though, the teacher must understand what the goal of their PBL activity will be and clearly understand and reflect on why it is important. If the teacher cannot classify it as being important, how can we expect the students to?

This need for relevancy should be prevalent in the classroom in more than just PBL. I loved Robert Griffin's example of having the students write to the Minister of Fisheries as it was a popular topic in their community (45). Keeping students involved in these real world contexts are what so much of what especially makes PBL so important and beneficial. Additionally, we see that in real life contexts, more than just one content area are being explored, which make endless cross-curricular connections that will benefit students greatly in their current and future studies. 

It is vital to add the progression of technology in the classroom as well. This means the way in which students communicate with each other, the way teachers communicate with each other and perhaps, the way that students and teachers communicate. Additionally, teachers must plan for how their students are going to go about their research in their projects and plan accordingly for that.

Within this aspect of the PBL, or emergent in others, it is important to consider learning dispositions. The book defines learning dispositions as, "important traits, attitudes, habits and feelings we encourage but usually cannot teach directly, such as confidence, curiosity, resourcefulness, cooperation, motivation, persistence and courage" (51). It is vital that students recognize how they learn and communicate with others when they are working toward success in their groups. Students need to be cognoscente of how they work best and how they do not work well in order to make the necessary adjustments within their group. This may look like asking for help where it is needed, or taking initiative to practice independence.  

This chapter also hit on the Essential Learning Functions (54). I felt that all of these were especially important to consider when building the framework for PBL. I especially liked the first, "Ubiquity: Learning Inside and Outside the Classroom, and All the Time" (54). This may have been the most profound one to me, because once students become inspired, empowered and are given the tools they need, they will naturally do this all of the time. As a future educator, this is something I greatly look forward to!

Chapter 3, Imagining the Possibilities

When finding the big idea for a project you must first identify the overarching concepts, you want your students to understand. From there reflect on why these concepts are important. (Boss and Kross, 2007) I think taking the time to reflect on all the aspects of your lesson is an essential component to the success of it. When we take the time to reflect, we walk through what our students will be doing and this uncovers problem areas and other parts of the topic that you would not have otherwise thought of. You can then think of how to help your students unveil the answers on their own. Doing this practice will help your students gain a deeper understanding of the material. Another important piece is that your projects should be authentic to the student and relate to the real world. 

Boss and Kross suggest that our projects involve the use of 21^st century skills and 21^st century literacies. Your project should “stretch their intellectual muscles in ways traditional learning activities may not” (47). Just like it has been drilled in our other education classes, they suggest we plan for learning actions that associated with the higher order categories of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives; particularly analyze, evaluate, and create.  Creating questions with these verbs will drive the student’s actions. Along with this, our students should be collaborating with each other to build 21^st century literacy skills. This set of skills is much more than just reading and writing, it goes beyond the classroom. It is a model that highlights digital age literacy, inventive thinking, effective communication, high productivity.  They will learn how to live in our increasingly digital world and acquire important life skills. 

There are eight essential learning functions and almost all of them pertain to our project. The first is ubiquity: learning inside and outside the classroom at all times. To utilize this, Sabrina and I communicate our ideas back and forth on Google Doc and with our mobile phones. The second is Deep Learning, where we have to navigate and sort through information. Some example is videos on demand, primary source archives, and real time data sets. The third is making things visible and discussable. We used this with our mind maps so we could look at the big picture of the butterfly project and the little components we were thinking we needed to do. This makes it so much easier to get your ideas out and build on each others. The fourth is expressing ourselves, sharing ideas, and building a community. As a class, we do this with our blogs   but other tools are virtual meeting, social software, tagging, and Webinars. The fifth is collaboration where we teach and learn from each other using a shared application. Some of the tools are wikis, web-based offices, and webinar tools.  I think this falls under the category of our google docs. I like that we can have a real time collaboration and we don’t have to send and download a bunch of different documents to each other. I just have to get used to using the tools. The six is research which involves using quality directories, search engines with filtering, bookmarks, and citation generators. The seventh is project management; it helps students manage time, work, sources, feedback from others, drafts and products during the project. The eighth is reflection where you examine your ideas from all sides and other points of view.