Alana McSharry- Course 2- Blog 5

What I Used to Think/ But Now I Know

I thought project-based learning was about students deciding on a topic and learning about it. It seemed to happen without the standards that we all have to teach in South Carolina. During the summer I learned that the project has to relate to the South Carolina standards and be authentic and relevant as well as producing a final project and a public project. The project Exercise, Eat, Sleep and Be Clean is authentic and relevant to young students because they learn healthy habits that might last a life time. The final project was the My Health Plan book. In this project the students drew a picture of each healthy habit, dictated a sentence to match the picture and read the sentence on the bottom of the page. Most of the students drew a picture and dictated a sentence in their My Health Plan book that showed them participating in healthy habits. For the final project students created videos and a book to present to the public. They chose the content of the videos and book. My assistant and I guided them through the creation of the videos and book. The public project was a great showcase of what they learned during the project.

Before implementing the project I knew students enjoyed learning from speakers or guests but I rarely have them in the classroom. At the beginning of the project I invited the nurse, the physical education teachers and the cafeteria manager to speak about their area of expertise to the students. The students enjoyed listening to them and learning from them. It helped to maintain their interest in the project of healthy habits. At the end of the project the experts came back to the classroom so they could view the videos and book produce by the students. Both the experts and the students enjoyed the presentation and the whole process. The students were eager to share what they learned with the experts. Ending the project with this activity closed the circle of learning for the students and the experts. This part of the project was the best and in some ways the easiest to implement because of the generosity and availability of the experts. It takes other people to help implement a project well.

During the summer I understood that the students need to drive the learning with my guidance. Throughout the project I had a difficult time balancing between teaching students and allowing them to explore the topic. I know that K4 students can drive their own learning because I observe them doing it every day during work time but it is still hard to let go of that part of my teaching. I hope to teach more student driven lessons as well as allowing students to explore the information during the next project-based learning unit plan.

In the next project I am thinking about having the students work on exploring the weather. I will develop a project that has a driving question and is authentic and relevant. I would like to ask the parents and the administrative staff to attend the public project. I will give students more opportunity to make choices about their learning and their final projects.