Reading Reflection #3

            “The Big Idea” for a project should have students invested in their learning. Thinking about real-world contexts helps to reveal the interdisciplinary nature of a project. “The Big Idea” for a project should incorporate science, math modeling, language arts, and civics. Students can use technology in order to find out information about “the Big Idea,” and students will have learning opportunities they normally wouldn’t have without project-based learning.

                The 21st Century skills for project-based learning are particularly relevant to the last three Bloom categories of objectives: analyze, evaluate, and create. Analyzing means to examine, explain, investigate, characterize, classify, compare, deduce, differentiate, discriminate, illustrate, and/or prioritize the information the student have gathered about “the Big Idea.” Evaluating means to judge, select, decide, justify, verify, improve, defend, debate, convince, recommend, and assess the information that the student has analyzed. Creating means to adapt, anticipate, combine, compose, invent, design, imagine, propose, theorize, and/or formulate new ideas, questions, and mini projects to “the Big Idea.” By analyzing, evaluating, and creating through project-based learning, students are able to expand their intelligence in ways traditional learning activities do not.

                The 21st Century learning literacies highlight digital-age literacy, inventive thinking, effective communication, and high productivity. 21st Century learning literacies have incorporated core subjects such as mathematics, science, language arts, etc., along with 21st Century content (global awareness, entrepreneurial and civic literacy, and health awareness), learning and thinking skills (critical thinking, problem solving, communication, creativity, collaboration, and information and media literacy), information and communications technology literacy, and life skills such as leadership, self-direction, accountability, and adaptability. 21st Century literacy can basically be broken down to be explained as learning to be independent, aware, and productive citizens.

                The essential learning functions are: 1) ubiquity-learning inside and outside the classroom, and all the time, 2) deep learning, 3) making things visible and discussable, 4) expressing ourselves, sharing ideas, building community, 5) collaboration – teaching and learning with others, 6) research, 7) project management – planning and organization, and 8) reflection and iteration. Ubiquity is when students are given the opportunity to learn anytime, anywhere, and with whomever they want to learn it with inside and outside of the classroom. Deep learning is when students are engages to navigate, sort, organize, analyze, and make graphical representations in order to learn and express learning. Making things visible and discussable can help students share ideas about the material being shown to promote conversation between students. With technology becoming so widely used, students have many ways of expression themselves, sharing their ideas, and building communities through websites, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Projects invite collaboration and help us learn together. There are many different things students and teachers alike can do with each other such as share writing and reading. Students now-a-days look to the World Wide Web for research. Search engines can help find materials that are related to “the Big Idea” being researched. Project management helps students manage their time, work, sources, feedback from others, drafts, and products during projects. By reflection and iterating on their own work, students can determine the difference between what is acceptable and masterful work. Students deep learn when they examine ideas from all sides and from other points of views.

                The concepts of this chapter relate to our project because we have a “Big Idea,” weather monitoring. This “Big Idea” needs to be researched, analyzed, evaluates, and created into a project that will get students to have a deeper understanding of weather besides the temperate, the precipitation, and the clouds outside. By researching “the Big Idea” through many different features just as this chapter states, we can create a lesson plan that will help students understand why the days become longer near the summer time and shorter during the winter instead of just understanding that the days are longer during the summer than in the winter. This chapter relates to our project because as teachers we also need to have project management. We need to plan accordingly and be organized.