Reading Reflection #5

Abby Harrop

EDT

Reading Reflection #5

1. When first starting a project with students you, as a teacher, must prepare beforehand. You need to make sure you have all the materials that you need, and if you don’t, for you to go and get them in order to proceed. You need to make sure you know if the technologies required for the project are new to the students or not. If they are unfamiliar, make sure you set aside time and plan to introduce the technology and tools for the students. Think about whether the students will have questions during the project and there are appropriate people and experts available for them to approach and ask. Next, plan and look into anyone who can help and aid with the project, such as a media specialist, technology coordinator, among others. Finally, plan and think about how you will divide responsibilities within the group who are going to work collaboratively together.

2. Teachers and students both have management needs. Teachers’ needs are:

·       Tools for communicating with students and others about the project

·       Tools for making milestones and events visible for notifying students when changed occur

·       Methods for getting resources to students

·       Systems for managing work products

·       Structures that support a productive learning environment in which teams and individuals are engaged in a variety of learning tasks at the same time

·       Assessment tools and strategies including
-ways to gauge whether students are working productively and accomplishing project
-ways to assess the load balance within a team so no individuals end up doing too much or too little
-ways to give just-in-time feedback on student work as it develops, not just when it’s completed

Students’ management needs are:

·       Systems and tools that help them manage their time and flow of work

·       Systems that help students manage materials and control work drafts

·       Collaboration tools

·       Methods for seeking assistance

·       Ways to get and use feedback on their work, through self-reflection, team input, and teacher advice

·       Ways to work iteratively and to see how parts add up to the whole

3. Some applications that should be considered are wiki, an easily edited Web page. A blog, which is a Web page, but has less of a free-for-all, and has great tools for communicating about progress or milestones and to broadcast news related to the project. There is also Drupal and Texpattern, which are more sophisticated Web spaces which combine content management with blogging engine.

4. This can be relatable to our project because we are using a blog, which allows us to communicate with one another and share any news we may need to get across. It shows us how we can possibly implement and use blogging into our future classrooms and see how we like it and if we could manage it.

Google Map

Concept Map Part B

Chapter 5

1.     Before starting a project, you need to consider and gather the materials you will need and use, the information your students need to know about certain technology if that is being used, and you need to think about what access your students will be able to have on the websites and to who they can get information from. Also you will need to consider how they will divide up responsibilities in a group, if they are doing group work.

2.     Teacher’s management needs:

a.     Tools for communicating with students and others about the project

b.     Tools for making milestones and events visible and for notifying students when changes occur

c.      Methods for getting resources to students

d.     Systems for managing work products

e.     Structures that support a productive learning environment in which teams and individuals are engaged in a variety of learning tasks at the same time

f.      Assessment tools and strategies:                

                                               i.     Ways to gauge whether students are working productively and accomplishing project goals

                                              ii.     Ways to assess the load balance within a team so no individuals end up doing too much or too little

                                            iii.     Ways to give just in-time feedback on student work as it develops, not just when it’s completed

Student’s management tools:

a.     Systems and tools that help them manage their time and flow of work

b.     Systems that help students manage materials and control work drafts

c.      Collaboration tools

d.     Methods for seeking assistance

e.     Ways to get and use feedback on their work, through self-reflection, team input, and teacher advice

f.      Ways to work iteratively and to see how parts add up to the whole

3.     Some technology applications are

a.     Wiki

                                               i.     An easily edited Web page.

                                              ii.     Great for developing information that flows from many to many.

b.     Blog

                                               i.     An easily edited Web page.

                                              ii.     One primary author controlling the contents.

c.      Drupal

                                               i.     Allows you to easily organize, manage and publish your content.

d.     Textpattern

                                               i.     Content management system that allows you to create, edit, and publish content.

4.     These concepts can relate to our chapter especially to the part about the blog because we have created a blog based on our topic and this where we share our thoughts and reflections.

Kent Rodman

Reading Reflection #4

1. The potential pitfalls in project design are: long on activity, short on learning outcomes, technology layered over traditional practice, trivial thematic units, and overly scripted with too many steps. A good project emphasizes learning, and not trivial things.

2. The features of a good project are: loosely designed with the possibility of different learning paths, generative, center on a driving question, capture students interest, are realistic, reach beyond school to involve others, tap rich data, are structured so students learn with and from each other, have students working as inquiring experts might, get at 21st century skills and literacies, get at important learning dispositions, and students learn by doing.

3. Project ideas come from everywhere. It is important to be open to ideas. For example if a student suggests something of interest, you should hear him/her out. It could be a great idea that spurs provoking ideas.

4. The steps to design a project are: revisit the framework, make a final list of learning objectives for core subjects and allied disciplines, decide on the specific 21st century skills you want to address, identify learning dispositions you want to foster, establish evidence of understanding, plan the "vehicle", plan entree into the project experience, write a project sketch, create an asset map, track assets online.

5. Concepts in this chapter relate to our project because we are currently working to design a project. We need to ensure that we are following the features of a good project in order to come up with the best project possible and not restrict ourselves or our ideas.

Reading Reflection #4

Abby Harrop

 Reading Reflection #4

1. With a lot of things, there can be some downsides to a concept or idea, and project design also has its pitfalls. There are 4 main ones. The first one is long on activity, short on learning, which means that you have to be careful not to spend too much time on a project if the thing being learned is minor or would not take long to teach students in other lessons. The second is technology layered over traditional practice which is when teachers use technology just to add it for things that it may not be needed, and not getting to the true meaning of project based learning. The third is trivial thematic units, and lastly overly scripted with many, many steps. Projects need to allow for critical decisions for students to make on their own instead of having too many steps.

 2. Although there are some pitfalls, many projects can succeed very nicely. There are many features of good projects. Some of those are that they reach beyond school to involve others, tap rich data or primary sources, they are centered on a driving question or structured for inquiry, they are realistic, therefore crossing multiple disciplines, they have students working as inquiry experts might, they are structured so students learn with and from each other, among others. There are many signs of a good project to look for and see why it is successful.

 3. Project ideas can come from many places such as from student question in the classroom or interest, news stories, contemporary issues, project plans by other teachers, and many more. Good projects can be found everywhere.

 4. The steps to design a project are as follows: 1. Design the project, revisit the framework by making a list of objectives and disciplines, decide on the specific 21st-century skills needed to be addressed, and identify learning dispositions you want to foster such as persistence of reflection. Then you must establish evidence of understanding, what do you want the students to be able to know or do after and through the project? Plan the project, theme, or challenge; what do you want students to do? Inquire about something, create, do? Etc. Plan entrée into the project experience, this is thinking about how you will get students’ attention, make them excited about the project, and want them to learn more.

 5. We have to understand when we are working on our own personal problems the different steps to creating projects; what order to do them in, what we need to think about, etc. We also have to be aware of the pitfalls that can occur. When we are familiar with what they may be, we may be able to avoid them and overcome them if we face them. It is also good to see what is a good feature of a project so we know if projects we create are beneficial and working or not.

Chapter 4

1.     There are 4 major pitfalls in project design. (1) Long on activity, short on learning outcomes, which means that if the activity is too long, the students lose interest and don’t learn as much then. (2) Technology layered over traditional practice, is about deciding when the right time technology should be used and about what its use in the classroom will be. (3) Trivial thematic units has to deal with finding themes that connect the students and their learning together. (4) Overly scripted with many, many steps can be a pitfall because there are too many steps in a process, things can get too confusing for students.

2.     A good project has these features: have students learn by doing, get at important learning dispositions, get a 21^st-century skills and literacies, have students working as inquiring experts might, are structured so students learn with and from each other, tap rich data or primary sources, reach beyond school to involve others, are realistic, capture student interest through complex and compelling real-life or simulated experiences, center on a driving question, are generative, and are loosely designed with the possibility of different learning styles.

3.     Project ideas come from news stories, contemporary issues, student questions or interests, a classroom, or a mash-up. These ideas are found everywhere and can come up at anytime.

4.     The steps of how to design your project involve quite a bit of time and effort. The first step (1) is to revisit the framework. Under that step there are 3 other steps. The first step under step 1 is to (a) make a list of learning objectives for core subjects and allied disciplines that the project will cover. Next (b), you need to decide on the 21st century skills you want to address. Next, you have to identify learning dispositions that you want to foster. Step (2) is to establish evidence of understanding. At this step, you really have to think about the students and what they will do once they have learned all that information. Step (3) is to plan the project theme or the project challenge. At this you really need to consider the real life connections that the project has to the world. Step (4) is to plan how you're going to introduce the project to the class. Since you have all those steps done, it is now time to do a project sketch, which is just a brief summary of your project. Once you have completed that, share your project sketch to other teachers in your building and discuss thoughts about the project.

5.     Topics in this chapter relate to our project because we need to know how to overcome pitfalls if they happen to us. We also need to know how to get started so this chapter was very helpful in that sense.

Google Maps

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gaia+Waldorf+School/@-33.9399698,18.4912849,16z/data=!4m7!1m4!3m3!1s0x1dcc5ceee5ce194d:0xc636248d6c4544f1!2sGaia+Waldorf+School!3b1!3m1!1s0x1dcc5ceee5ce194d:0xc636248d6c4544f1


We chose the location of the Gaia Waldorf School in Cape Town. We chose this school because it is in Cape Town, the school where we are going to have social interactions with. This school looks like it is on the outskirts of a busy neighborhood. It also is located by a river and a major "highway". There is also an emergency medical building close to it. By seeing these details, we can tell that this school is located in a perfect location compared to neighborhoods. We can't wait for our students to connect to Gaia Waldorf School's students.

Virtual Penpals

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1m9rnLjcW3tHevmEEtiYWKTXfvJXolE0isBw_Nv9nQ0s/edit?usp=sharing

Reading Reflection #3

Kent Rodman

1. The "Big Idea" should be something that can be focused around. Something that has many things that can be branched off of it. A good "big idea" is something that focuses on things children and their families actually deal with in the real world.
2. 21st century skills are analyze, evaluate, and create. If these higher-order thinking skills are mastered your project can evolve. The Bloom categories move from lower-order (typical instructional) to higher order (project realm.)
3. 21st century literacies are no longer simply reading and writing. In order to be literate you must be able to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, and compute to name a few. In other words literacy is being able to keep up in a modern world.
4. The essential learning functions are:     Ubiquity is the opportunity to learn anytime and anywhere. Deep learning is when students use higher-order thinking to navigate, sort, organize, analyze,  and make graphical representations in order to learn and express learning. Making things visible and discussable is important in order to get and keep conversations going. Expressing ourselves, sharing ideas, and building community are everywhere and since we are in an internet age expression has never been easier. Collaboration is important for bringing experts and ameatures together and many tools are now easily accessible for this. Research has never been easier, instead of searching for hours in a library we can simply type a sentence on our computer and see hundreds of results. Project management helps students manage time, wrok, sources, feedback draft, and products during a project. Reflection and iteration is important to see alternate perspectives and reshaping ideas. It has never been easier to edit, share and write together using tools such as wiki.
5. Concepts in this chapter relate directly to our topic. By doing a project together in and outside of class we must work collectively and share ideas. Project management, ubiquity, research, expression of ideas, every other essential learning function are taking place in order to accomplish a collective project goal.

Reading Reflection #3

Abby Harrop

EDT

Lab 4:00

Reading Reflection #3

1. For the “Big Idea” of a project lots of things should be taken into consideration. It recommends scanning the contents of teaching guides, reviewing the curriculum standards, and asking, “What do these add up to?”

2. The 21^st Century skills are analyze, evaluate, and create. These are taken from blooms taxonomy and are the three highest. They can really evolve and become something really beneficial to learning. With analyzing they will be able to examine, explain, investigate, characterize, classify, compare, deduce, differentiate, discriminate, illustrate, and prioritize. With evaluate they will be able to judge, select, decide, justify, verify, improve, defend, debate, convince, recommend, and assess. With create they will be able to adapt, anticipate, combine, compose, invent, design, imagine, propose, theorize, and formulate.

3. There has been research on what 21^st-century skills and literacies are and they all go beyond just being able to read and write as some people may at first perceive literacy. Literacy is said to be learning to be independent and productive citizens. And with project based learning students can be experiencing literacy with opportunities for them to become literate in the 21^st century. Some things subjects that deal with literacy are topics such as history, mathematics, science, etc.

4. There are 8 essential learning functions. These are 1) Ubiquity 2) Deep Learning 3) Making things visible and discussable 4) Expressing ourselves, sharing ideas, building community 5) Collaboration 6) Research 7) Project Management and 8) Reflection and Iteration. Ubiquity is learning all the time, not just in school and the classroom, but outside of school to. Deep learning is allowing students to look for themselves at websites and things in which they have to navigate, organize, analyze, etc. Making things visible and discussable is showing ideas or what they have done/thought such as a concept map, an animation, etc. Expressing ourselves, sharing ideas, building community is to share their thoughts, opinions, ideas, etc. so that other people can see what they have done, share ideas, and so students can get feedback and get to know people and their ideas too. Collaboration allows people to work with others, talk, share ideas, concepts, and build upon what is discussed and decided upon. Research allows students to learn and read to find what they need and are looking for. Project management is what allows students to plan and organize, to essential skills needed. They will manage time, work, sources, and feedback from others, among others. Finally, reflection and iteration is when students examine what they have done, forces them to look back, and to then reconsider any ideas or reshape them to create the best work they possibly can.

5. These concepts all relate to our topic of Staying Healthy because in order to achieve a successful end result we have to include a lot of the essential learning functions. We will be thinking about it outside of class as well as during our class, we will be doing our own research and deep learning, we will be making things viewable and discussable with our professor, with each other, our classmates, and anyone else who would like to access our blog. We are sharing ideas, building a community, we are collaborating as a group with our ideas, we have already and will continue to do a lot of research, we will be planning and organizing, and will also be reflection as we go and at the very end of our project.