Blog Post #11

What can we learn about teaching and learning from these teachers?

In his video, TEDxDenverEd-Brian Crosby- Back to the Future, Brian Crosby talks about different projects he used for project based learning in his class. One of the projects that I really liked is when his students sent off balloons. They connected a GPS to the balloon and kept up with the balloon on Google Maps. They are able to learn about maps and distances.

In his video, Blended Learning Cycle, Paul Andersen talks about how he uses the blended learning cycle in his class. The blended learning cycle consists of blended learning and the learning cycle. Blended learning is the combination of online, mobile and classroom learning. The learning cycle consists of the 5 E's: Explore, Explain, Expand, Engage and Evaluate. He came up with an acronym for the blended learning cycle: Q.U.I.V.E.R.S. Which stands for Question, Investigate/Inquiry, Video, Elaboration, Review, Summary quiz. This a great idea of Project Based Learning for Science.

In the video, Making Thinking Visible, Mark Church talks about a project he had his sixth grade class do. In the project he had his students watch a video about early human beginnings. They have to come up with a headline to summarize what the whole puzzle is about the beginning. He put up the headlines in the classroom and when they finish the whole lesson the students come up with another headline. At the end of the whole project the student will get to see how it all changed.

In the video, Super Digital Citizen, Sam Pane talks to his fifth grade class about how to be a good digital citizen. The main point he is trying to make to the students is how to use the internet safely and responsibly. The project that the students get to do is make their own digital citizen superhero. He first shows them the basic way of making their superhero and then let them go on and make their own superhero. They also get to create the citizen and put them in a real life situation that occurs online like cyber-bullying and putting person information online. They end up getting to make a comic story that their superhero gets to come in and save the day. This project is a way that Mr. Pane uses to help the students reach the English standards that they have to meet. The students then got to walk around and see what all their classmates did for their comic. This is definitely a great way of using Project Based Learning. The students had fun with it and they also got to learn how to use the internet safely.

In the video, Project Based Learning by Dean Shareski, three teachers talk about how they restructured their classroom to incorporate Project Based Learning. They would plan to spend more time doing a project or be able to spend more time researching to make their end result better. Some students would think that they were done with their project, but when the teacher would tell them that they can make it better and that they students could present their project in a great way. Some students would spend more time fixing it and were proud that they fixed it and enjoy the end result of their project. The teachers gave the students more time in the class and let their classmates read the project so that the one who made the project could fix different places. Many students liked how the teachers organized the project and would like to do more projects like it.

In the video, Roosevelt Elementary's  PBL Program, teachers from Roosevelt Elementary talk about how they incorporate project based learning in their classroom. They teach the students real world things that they will use in the real world. A kindergarten teacher has her students making presentations so that their public speaking skills can improve.