Blog Entry 11: Project Based Learning

Project Based Learning is the future of education. Project Based Learning is exactly as the title suggests, learning through projects. Ideally the students are creating projects that teach them the relevance of their education in the real-world setting. Our group worked together to create a Project Based Learning activity that would span across the curriculum. Our projects focuses on improving student's writing skills while also putting the "magic" back into learning. Students are all learning about history from different perspectives. Students are required to create projects from different points in history and write a letter, newspaper article, or a summary of the events from different perspectives. My part of the project focused on the Civil War. For my specific example the student was to write a letter from the point of view of Stonewall Jackson. The letter was written to his wife and described details of the Battle of Chancellorsville and mentioned other important battles. It was evident from the letter that the student had a strong understanding of the historical events that occured during this time, first person point of view, letter writing, and summarizing. The student was then to narrate the letter in Moviemaker with accompanying images. To view Stonewall's Story click the link.


Gifted in the Regular Classroom
This article views PBL as a tool that differentiates instruction and transitions a general education classroom into a gifted classroom. The article challenges novices to PBL to think about why PBL is effective and how to incorporate it into the classroom. Teachers need to ask themselves whether or not higher order questions are being asked, if they are the facilitator, is the assessment appropriate. It is important to remember to "think big, but start small." PBL will develop over time as your skills and the student's skills develop.