Week 7 Questions and Projects

Week 7 Post #2 Questions and Projects

I loved watching the Project Based Learning in Hand video by Tony Vincent on two levels.  Seeing how the whole vicepresident project was created using a series of apps was very interesting and thinking about crafting driving questions that produce deep learning really made me rethink some things in my own classroom.  

 Weaving Storyrobe, Comic Touch, Easy Chart, Doddle Buddy, and screen shots from Notes together seamlessly was amazing.  There are so many choices of ways students can create content.  It is both wonderful and overwhelming at the same time.  Picking and choosing which apps to bring into the classroom can be a confusing and daunting task.  How do I introduce enough apps to give second graders that choice of ways to create?

I was really struck by the idea of opening a unit of study with a deep question and allowing that to drive the direction of student learning.  The thought of finding a question that would get at the curriculum but allow students to uncover the topic in a personal way made a lot of sense. 

When I first watched the video, we were getting ready to start an animal unit and then go to the Squam Lakes Science Center.  It seemed like the perfect time to give this a try.  The question I posed to my students is what animal would you bring to Squam Lake and how would you design the perfect enclosure for that animal?  The animal they choose had to be able to thrive in the environment at Squam Lake. 

The students were a bit more focused the day of the field trip because they had a task at the Science Center.  It was research for their project.  We used Rubistar to build a rubric together and they are now working on finding an animal suited to our climate and terrain but is not already at the Science Center.  They are automatically learning vocabulary and concepts like nocturnal, omnivore, colony, temperate forest, etc. just by looking for an animal.  Designing an enclosure that allows the animal to thrive and designing the learning activities visitors will see outside of the enclosure will require them to apply what they know in a creative way.  It will be interesting to see what they come up with. 

Hooking the question our curriculum and talking through the requirements using the rubric gave me the confidence that I was still “teaching” what needed to be taught even though they were uncovering it in different places and ways.  I wish this was a unit that I had given pre and post tests in years past so I could compare the learning from the two different teaching methods.