How your students can experience current environmental research without leaving the classroom.
Project-based learning in a technology rich environment can be effective in K-12 classrooms allowing students to negotiate understanding and construct knowledge in social situations. Benefits include connecting students in communities in and outside of their cultures, and meeting learning goals in non-institutional fashion, while educators share practices and resources using technology tools. When projects endure over time, characteristics of communities of practice begin to emerge in which shared content grows and is amended by participants, generating historical artifacts. Once instantiated, the project philosophy provides an ongoing basis for immersive learning, using wikis, blogs, and other social networking applications. A project-based classroom philosophy sets an engaging, attractive environment for students by meeting their needs to be socially involved, as opposed to being passive receivers. An example long term Internet learning event called the Monster Project is examined in this paper. Widespread use of project-based learning has been curtailed by a strong focus on traditional instruction to meet testing goals. Research shows that active participation in project-based education results in students being more intrinsically motivated, more likely to show conceptual understanding, and more well adjusted than students in traditional education modes. These characteristics are those of a community of practice, where members are informally connected by their accomplishments and by what they learn together. The range of academic content that can be integrated into project-based learning as the main approach in a classroom is bounded only by a teacher’s energy and creativity.
In a fifth grade classroom based around projects, everything has its place. This classroom profile shows you the design and purpose of Debra Harwell-Braun's fifth-grade classroom.
Tina Maples' eighth-grade language arts students are serious about their work they do. When students work on projects they care about -- what Maples calls "brain food" -- they manage the classroom themselves.
From Buck Institute for Education, Project Based Economics - high school level Đ covers most of the National High School Standards for micro- and macro-economics. Each project is a complete unit of instruction centered around an engaging scenario that presents students with a problem that does not have a single Ňright answer.Ó In order to resolve the problem successfully, students realize they need to understand economics, so they are more motivated to learn the curriculum.
Want to try project-based learning to get your students involved in real-world issues? A former North Carolina Technology and Learning Teacher of the Year talks about how she worked with the North Carolina Zoo to get students excited about learning.
Four Web-based activities let students identify Superfund sites, define hazardous waste, see how aquifers work, and explore cleanup solutions.
For students who always finish their class work early or want more information than you have time to give, try curriculum compacting.
