RR #2

     Learning in communities is important  and helpful  way to share ideas with other teachers, other students at any age level and people in the community. This is a great way to get feedback or change something you never thought to to better your classroom overall. Like Whipple had stated "I'd find a way to have teachers have more time to work with each other and to develop collaborative projects."

      Learning communities can benefit many teachers, they can share ideas on projects they have done with classrooms that either went great or may have gone way wrong to help out the other teachers in the learning communities. They can than work together to improve on projects and ideas to benefit not only one classroom but many. Also this can help new teachers work with ones that may not have a lot of experience with PBL and share there ideas and give each other feedback.

      These communities affect teachers in many great ways, like the book talks about working in teams to get better ideas and "learning organization" you can bounce ideas back and forth to really get the best ideas together. It builds a better school system as well for the teachers if they are all working together on ideas and PBL. This gives the teachers a chance to give critical feedback to each other and gives you a chance to see what you many have overlook in a project. This will also help any new teacher that maybe new to PBL.

       Learning communities will help give students a better education by getting the best from every teacher now with PBL. The projects will be better prepared and better understood by both students and teachers. Teachers who are part of the communities are more focused on the student, giving each student a better understanding of whats being learning through PBL. Like I stated a few times before, the communities help to give feedback and improve on every project making it a better learning experience for everyone.

       Each teacher holds clear values and beliefs with how they go about teaching a classroom. Learning communities must shared a similar vision of PBL to help benefit one another. They share a great responsibility when it comes to helping students achieve a goal with learning. Everyone  must have a clear sense of the mission, share the same ideas to achieve the mission, be able to work together in collaborative teams the best practice to achieve a mission, are goal- and results-oriented and see themselves as life-long learners.

   The concepts in this chapter relate to my project because my members need to share the same ideas and goals with me to make the best project we can together. I have to trust that my members will be well organize and have ideas ready to share so as a group we can collaboratively come up with the best project for the students or whom ever might see this project in the future. Overall be able to work together and open to new ideas.

Reading Reflection #2

                Learning communities is a great way to work with other teachers, people in the community, coworkers, etc. to create ideas together and get feedback from one another about changes or good ideas. When working in a learning community you get to work on communicating with other people whether they are in your school, different schools, different states, or even different countries. It’s a great way to get to know other peoples’ ideas on project-based learning.

                The benefits of learning communities are as instructors you learn different ideas and how to use them in your classroom from other teachers who have used them previously and successfully, or collaborate on a new idea by bouncing around ideas and getting feedback from each other. By being a part of a learning community, you are learning to work as a team and cooperating together. Team work and cooperating well together are important aspects of life.

Learning communities affect teachers by working with other teachers, people in the community, and professionals to create ideas of project-based learning that will help have a deeper understanding the material of what they are learning. It helps teachers collaborate with each other because by working in a team, you must be comfortable enough to tell a team member that their idea is good bad, try something different, or to make tweak it. It also affects teachers because they as a community are focusing on student learning as the priority.

Learning communities affect students because, as stated above, the teachers who are a part of the learning community have the priority of focusing on student learning. With this as a priority, they are focusing on how they can together make project-based learning for students more interesting so students have a deeper understanding and connection with the material being taught. Through project-based learning, students are learning to work as a team, learning to communicate with each other, and work on how to problem solve.

Members in a learning community share many components to see their ideas being done in a classroom. Some of these components are a clear sense of mission, share a vision of the conditions they must create to achieve the mission, work together in collaborative teams to determine the best practice to achieve the mission, organize into groups headed by teacher-leaders, focus on student learning, are goal- and results- oriented, collaborate with each other, hold shared values and beliefs, commit themselves to continuous improvement, and see themselves as life-long learners.

Concepts in this chapter relate to my topic weather monitoring because as a group member, I need to be able to trust my group members that they will get their work done accurately and accordingly as well as providing feedback to each other on things that may need to change or good ideas. By working together, we will be able to create our project more efficiently and without some unneeded stress.

Weather Monitoring Conept Map

Reading Reflection #1

           What I need to keep in mind as I start the journey through Project-Based Learning (PBL) is that I should use whatever technology is given to me in the classroom with the students. Weather it be a smart board or taking the students weekly to the computer lab but get them using all the great technology we have. Of course some teachers may have more technology in the classroom than others but to just work with whatever is given to me. When using all this new technology, get the students working together with the mind set of using PBL. Weather it be getting the kids to make a film of what they learned (like the book talks about) to get them more excited about the subject they are learning. Unlike writing a boring essay on there own, the kids will have a better chance of remembering working together and using all the different technology, as well as learning together instead of alone. As a teacher it would than be my job to work in all the standers for that topic but using PBL.

       Overall benefits of the PBL approach is almost like "teaching in a different way" and "turning the traditional classroom upside down". Getting the students to learn in a real world sitting changes there whole experience of how they learn. It becomes fun and the students aren't just being feed a bunch of boring information they most likely wont remember later but learning together with new technology, in a real world sittings will change how they see and learn new topics. This will also change how I will go about teaching as well, I'll set up the framework to the projects but the students will come up with the questions as well as find there own answers to those questions using technology to access there information. Projects would also be the centerpiece of the curriculum, so PBL wouldn't be extra work on top of the unit but built all in one.

      There are many benefits to students who participate in PBL, such as getting students using technology at a young age. This will help them not only in learning but in the real world and later in life. Getting to find information online, that me as teacher might never have found to share with the students. When students ask there own questions and need to go out and find those answer they are more likely to be excited about what they are learning and remember it more than just having a teacher stand in front of a class teaching or having students doing busy work. Students will also collaboratively work together to solve problems getting there questions answered more easily, overall working on projects together because face it no matter what job you get later in life you will have to work with others. This gets students doing it a young age as well.

     When using the PBL approach you must considered a lot, such as the kind of classroom you have, technology wise and what kind of students you may have. Everyone learns at different speeds so its important to figure out what approach will work best with the students you have. As the book states teachers are learners too so its important to really understand what PBL is before you just jump into it with a class. Everything comes with trial and error but its important, like with every lesson plan to have a lot of the project worked out ahead of time. With PBL the students will be doing a lot of there own work in groups but its important that your guiding them to the right answers as well. Being up to date with technology is something that will also need to be considered as well. You can't expect students to know how to work an ipad if you can't.

      The New Technology Model. Paul made a good point that we as teacher might face one day if we plan to use PBL, if your trying to use PBL in any classroom as a new idea and no one else in the school agrees with it you might be fighting an uphill battle like he talks about. How would you go about still getting to use PBL in your own classroom if no one else agrees with you on it? Unlike Paul you may not be able to just leave and go to a school that does agree with it. How might I go about still being able to use it in my classroom? Yes a lot of schools have great new technology but lets face it most schools don't. That will be a huge problem you might face when trying to teach using PBL.
     

Reading Reflection #1

                What I need to keep in mind as I start the journey through Project-Based Learning (PBL) is that students are up to the challenge because many students already have technologies within their lives. Students will also live and learn in the real world. By creating a project, the students will be able to think more critically about the subject at hand as they learn to analyze certain components. They also can make stronger connections between what they were learning and their own world.

                The overall benefits to students who participate in PBL arethe students’ aspects of their experiences are being changed. As stated above, students are able to think more critically about the subjects are hand and learn through experience instead of just reading out of a text book. Students also learn to work together with other classmates, community members, experts, and many other people. Students are engaged more deeply in meaningful learning.

                The benefits to students who participate in PBL are they getting hands on experiences like they would in real life situations such as problem solving when something doesn’t go the way it’s supposed to. Students develop good communication skills, inquiry skills, learn to be flexible with their working hours, develop a better understanding of how the world works, and students achieve the feelings that individuals can do something about changing the world we live in.

                The issues that need to be considered in PBL approach is the need to prove that technology has an educational side when properly utilized. Some other issues are what are the learning goals, classroom management style, how to talk and engage with students, assessments, and how to communicate with parents and colleagues.

                New Technology High is considered an example of New Technology Model because they are preparing students for their futures by having them learn to think critically, collaborate as part of a team, and use technology as a tool for problem solving.