"If we teach today's students how we taught yesterday's, then we rob them of tomorrow"
-John Dewey
Hello again, and welcome to another addition of Alex's education blog, where we continue to look into the world of education through a critical 21st century lens. In this entry, we will be exploring the idea of Project Based Learning, a 21st century concept that looks to revolutionize both teachers' and students' perspectives of educational possibilities and goals. Project Based Learning, as explained by the Buck Institution of Education is a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an engaging and complex question, problem, or challenge. It can also be described as a more comprehensive learning approach that is grounded in constructivist learning, content mastery and critical thinking (Drake et. al). This concept is also very beneficial for looking at 21st century current events and social issues, and having students work collaboratively to investigate and possibly solve these issues. The quote above, proclaimed by none other than John Dewey, one of the fathers of education himself, would be a strong advocate of Project Based Learning, as he promoted the idea of "learning by doing", which is highly evident throughout Project Based Learning.
A great online resource for learning about Project Based Learning, is EduTopia, a site committed to a modern educational approach with information on innovative and useful educational tools. The website not only explains what Project Based Learning is, but offers experts opinions and insights on the benefits that PBL has to offer. In Engaging Children's Minds: The Project Approach, a novel specifically aimed at promoting Project Based Learning, and the positive attributes associated with it, it is said that "One of the major advantages of project work is that it makes school more like real life" (Chard & Katz). By incorporating real life concepts through a constructivist approach, students can see the relevance in their schooling to their own lives, and feel meaning in what they are learning. Research has demonstrated that students in project-based learning classrooms get higher scores than students in traditional classrooms (Marx et al., 2004; Rivet & Krajcik, 2004; William & Linn, 2003). If the mechanisms coincide with research, is it not time to reconsider our teaching mechanisms and impose a new and efficient way to empower our students?
We as educators need to maximize the potential of our students, and not only teach them valuable life lessons, but create a productive learning environment in which the students want to learn and succeed. Project Based Learning fulfills all of these criteria, and promotes a healthy and effective educational experience for our youth. The research shows it, the experts agree, and if it's my opinion is worth anything, I certainly agree too! Project Based Learning brings meaning to the classroom, and allows students to focus on issues that are not only relevant, but important to them as 21st Century citizens of this world. I will once again leave you with this creative video on Project Based Learning, further explaining how it can be implemented, understood and most all, effective in our classrooms!
Cheers For Now,
Alex Graham
Bibliography
Drake, S., Reid, J., & Kolohon, W. (2014). The Twenty-First Century Teacher. In Interweaving Curriculum and Classroom Assessment: Engaging the 21st-Century Learner (p. 3). Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford.
Katz, L., & Chard, S. C. (2000). Engaging children's minds: The project approach. Greenwood Publishing Group.
Marx, R. W., Blumenfeld, P. C., Krajcik, J. S., Fishman, B., Soloway, E., Geier, R., & Revital T. T. (2004). Inquiry-based science in the middle grades: Assessment of learning in urban systemic reform. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 41(10), 1063–1080.
ReplyDeleteAlex,
I really enjoyed reading your blog post this week! I thought you did an excellent job of connecting course content, research and your own opinions. I also chose to focus on the topic of project-based learning and I was very intrigued to read about your perspective. I strongly agree with you when you said, “We as educators need to maximize the potential of our students, and not only teach them valuable life lessons, but create a productive learning environment in which the students want to learn and succeed.” As prospective teachers, we all need to be thinking about the tools and strategies we would like to implement in our own classrooms. Through researching the topic, I believe project-based learning is a great approach for making curriculum relevant and meaningful for students. As educators, we can learn many new things about our students, the content and ourselves by incorporating the use of project-based learning. Once again, I thank you for offering your personal familiarities with the topic. This caused me to reflect upon the lack of project-based learning (and inquiry base learning in general) present throughout my own educational journey. As per constructive criticism, I would have liked to read specific examples of questions posed to students or the type of journey they make embark through participation in project-based learning. There were a few awkwardly phrased sentences so I would recommend reading your thoughts out loud. I leave you with this: Why do you think some educators are reluctant to use project-based learning in their teaching practices? Reflecting upon your previous posts, it is evident you have grown as a blogger! Overall a job well done!
Rachelle
Alex,
ReplyDeleteAnother well done blog, I especially like your inclusion of some more reputable theorists like John Dewey. You did an excellent job of explaining the concept of Project Based Learning and helping readers to understand the real world benefits of incorporating it into classrooms. Again I really liked that you discussed the real world benefits of Project Based Learning in you discussion of the three aspects that you really liked, but I felt that it could have been phrased significantly more clearly. There were also a few times when a paragraph seemed to span more than one topic, and become excessively long and a bit harder and less enjoyable to read.I thought that it was awesome that you pointed readers to a few resources to help further their understanding, but I think that they would be more appropriately feature in maybe a list of further readings rather than withing a paragraph in your post. Your post also featured a few grammatical errors that, while not frequent, did make it very difficult to understand what you were trying to say in some cases. Again this was another well done post, your blogs have improved significantly during this course, well done.
Alex,
ReplyDeleteI found your blog to be very engaging this week, and I thought your choice of topic of Project Based Learning showcased an important alternative style of how teachers can make learning meaningful to students. You provided a good explanation of the features of Project Based Learning, and brought in some very good research from outside sources to show how a PBL approach could be used effectively in the classroom. The visuals and video included in your blog were very clear and simplified some of your descriptions of PBL, and I also thought you incorporated your own experiences very well and made connections with your own teaching style to show how you would like to use PBL in your own classroom. Your blog was well-written for the most part, however, I would encourage you to take the time and check through your grammar and sentence structure in future blogs to make sure that your ideas are as clear as possible to the reader. I would also encourage you to consider some opposite opinions in the future as well to make your discussion of the topic more complete. Are there any reasons why some teachers might be reluctant to try incorporating Project Based Learning or why some might prefer a traditional approach? Overall, I thought your blog was very good this week and your writing is becoming very professional and informative!
Graeme