What do you think about when you hear school projects?
I know I automatically think of my own experiences with school projects. I think of creating a simple science fair poster every year in elementary school. I think of being taught an entire unit and them being told to create some sort of project based on something we already learned. Usually these involved PowerPoints, posters, and the occasional 3-D model. However, I was almost always told what the project needed to be. There was little freedom to be creative, and oftentimes, the projects were thoughtless. I had already learned all of the information. I would simply grab my class notes from whatever we learned and transfer that information to whatever project I was doing. On the rare chance that I had a collaborative project, my groups and many groups would have a few group members who would do all the work, a slacker or two who would never do their part, and maybe one person who was completely confused by what was going on. I do not want projects in my classroom to be like this. My individual topic for part two of module five (on investigating partnering pedagogies), was project-based learning. I thoroughly enjoyed part one of this module in which we collaborated with our peers to research and compile information about all kinds of collaborative/cooperative styles. However, I absolutely loved creating a multimedia presentation exploring my topic, project based learning. I enjoyed the creative freedom we had in this presentation, but my favorite part was learning about the potential that projects can have in the classroom if you stray from traditional projects and integrate project based learning instead. Project based learning is a fantastic way for students to participate in engaging, hands-on learning. Because it is so engaging, it results in increased information retention or deep, long-lasting learning that will make the learning experience personal. There are many wonderful partnering pedagogies that stray from traditional learning and allow students to be active participants in the learning process, and I think project based learning is a great one that will help teach students not only state standards and curriculum, but also lifelong skills that they will apply both in and out of the classroom. I wish my own education would have included more active, engaging learning in K-12 grades. I will do my best to implement some of these pedagogies in my own classroom in the near future.
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Audriana ReidArchives
April 2021
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