Blog Post 9

What Can Teachers and Students Teach Us about Project Based learning?

Seven Essential for Project Based Learning are things that need to be done in order to truly keep the students involved when starting a project. It's based around presenting project material to a students in a way that invites the student in and makes them want to learn. Teachers can show us the correct steps to take to make a project a meaningful and successful one for the teachers and the students. The students produce high quality work when they have a chance to work collaboratively and are able to give each other feedback. Students have the opportunity to create anything if the teachers come up with great projects. The steps that were provided show us a great example of how to produce great work.

In Tony Vincent's video Project Based Learning for Teachers, we are able to see the all the positive effects that can come from project based learning. We see how the teachers are not having to teach the old fashion way. The teachers are also able to benefit by providing students with a driving question and being able to see that the students are thinking on a deeper level. The students are learning by state standards. Also, the students feel like they have the control to create. The results are better work and students wanting to learn. This video is a wonderful way to get people to see how teachers and students thrive from project based learning.

In the video PBL-High School Math, project based learning is the way that all the teachers in Sammamish High School are going to be teaching. It has proven to be difficult to incorporate in some subjects, but it has its benefits for the students and the teachers. The students really liked the collaborative way of learning and it motivated them to want to learn. Also, the students are seeing that the skills that they are receiving are lifelong skills. The teachers are actually getting to work together collaboratively to create new lesson plans for this way of learning. They are experiencing what it is like firsthand because they are working with other colleagues to help them create. Although the school has seen some increase, it has not been proven to be because of project based learning as of yet.

In the video What Motivates Students, we get a good picture of what the students feel that is the reason behind them working hard to get good grades in school. The teachers are the reason that the students like to do well in school because of the rewards that they get motives them. Also, almost all of the students answered it was because they were trying to have a secured future in whatever they would like to be. In this video we can see that teachers play a big part in their students’ lives. We, as aspiring teachers, can see that we are the step to helping children succeed with the skills that we teach them in the classroom.

In the video Two Students Solve the problem of Watery Ketchup by Designing a New Cap, these two students amaze us with the cap that they came up with. They were in a class that allowed them to explore and create for the whole year. Just by being in that class, these students were able to really put their skills together and solve a problem. That is the whole point of project based learning. The student are able to show us that what we as teachers allow them to experiment with, the results can truly be astonishing.