I’m a big believer in the Project Based Learning idea. I know from my personal experience in college, the classes where we did multi-week or multi-month group projects and put something together with our own hands were always the most meaningful and memorable. Learning to work together as a team to solve a common problem is a crucial skill that the PBL approach facilitates and applies in spades to the real world, both for children and working adults. It allows those with natural leadership abilities to build on their existing skill set and allows each member of the group to practice patience and collaboration skills while working toward a common goal. Having an overarching goal in mind helps students to better focus on what they are learning because they see immediately where the curriculum is going to apply.
Once I gain more experience as a teacher and am comfortable teaching the various units for each of the four different classes I teach, I can begin to implement this PBL format. It would be ideal to form a major group project around one outstanding unit per class for starters. I could do a search on the PBL Works website to get some ideas for what kind of math projects exist already, and maybe formulate my own based on examples I find. The PBL project Amanda and I worked on will help me think and plan for what exactly I have to do in terms of rubrics and assessments surrounding the unit project. I know that planning for a project such as this is very time consuming, and I will probably need to do it over the summer. In all honesty, I don’t foresee any major obstacles to implementing PBL in my classroom, other than time and experience. I will need time in order to plan a project for each of my classes, as well as a little more experience teaching the subject matter, so I can better tie my instruction and curriculum directly into the project that the students will be working on. I want to feel I have some degree of mastery over how I communicate the curriculum to students before I ask them to take that curriculum and tackle a large project with it. I feel I am already close to this state of mind, and within a year or so I can begin to implement the PBL format into my own classroom.
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Today's classroom requires a bit more technological know-how then when I was in school. We use at least 3 different websites for my math curriculum at the middle school, such as DIGITS, Khan Academy, and Moby Max - and that's just for basic curriculum and daily activities. We use other websites for specialized activities, such as DESMOS for graphing and in-depth lessons. This technology allows math to come to life in a more visual and colorful way, which is definitely helpful for some students. Our curriculum also involves more word problems and real-world applications, which is helpful for students to appreciate exactly how what they are learning can be used.
Ken Kay, CEO of EdLeader21, highlights 4 C's that are critical for modern education. 1) Communication: students need to understand how critical effective communication is to the modern workplace. From writing a clear email, to etiquette and professionalism, each of these skills leads to success in working life. In the math classroom, students can be asked to write an instructional document or do a flipgrid video teaching how to use a particular mathematical skill. 2) Collaboration: it is often said that there is no 'i' in team. Students need to learn to work effectively in groups with other people to get important projects done on time. In the math classroom, students can practice this skill by working in groups on a large project that requires multiple roles to complete. 3) Critical Thinking: One can't survive in life by just always doing what they are told. Students need to learn how to think outside their own box and solve problems that they might not have come across before. This can be done in the math class by asking students to solve a given problem in more than one way. 4) Creativity: This can go along side critical thinking, when it comes to thinking "outside the box". Students in the math class can practice their creativity by engaging in an artistic rendition of some math concept being covered in class, decorating a graph, color coding notes, etc. Working Inside the Black Box had a wealth of useful information when it comes to improving how assessments are used in the classroom. There were four (4) main take-aways from the essay. 1) Teachers need to focus on giving more reflection time when they ask questions. Basically extending the time between question and answer, giving students more time to reflect and develop deeper and more well thought-out responses. 2) More focus needs to be put on effective commentary on student work, versus giving them a score. There is evidence that a score on a paper can lead students to completely ignore any commentary on the paper. 3) Peer and self-assessment are necessary in order for students to get their own buy-in on what goals they are trying to accomplish, and gives them an opportunity to take the roll of the educator (teacher) when critiquing others. 4) Formative use of summative tests was the final focus point. Summative tests need to become a positive part of the learning process, by allowing students to reflectively review the work they have done, as well as develop their own criteria as to how their own work might be improved.
The information in this article confirms much of what we have been learned throughout our time at TCSJ. My biggest takeaway was the fact that learning and brain growth are reciprocal. Brain growth helps learning occur, and learning can facilitate brain growth. This is a confirmation that lifelong learning is important. In order for assessments to be meaningful, they must be directly related to what the students are trying to learn at the time, and students must be able to see how the assessment ties in directly with their learning. That means my job is to make sure that the students understand how these formal assessments helps represent what they have absorbed so far. These days there are a lot more technological tools available for students to use, compared to when I was in school. I’m going to make a concerted effort to incorporate the tools we cover in CURR 343 into my own classes going forward.
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AuthorMy name is Tim McCarville. I am interested in developing my skills as beginning teacher. My goal is to balance all of my priorities starting this fall. ArchivesCategories |