Project-+Based+Learning

==I think that I use project-based learning a little. Each year I do a Science Fair with my fourth and fifth grade science students. We work together as a class and each student chooses a topic, then each student creates a hypothesis, then we test it, then each student writes a report on what they did and how it turned out, and they create posters to display their work. I also do a Native American project. During this project the students are assigned to a group where they gather important information on their particular group. In previous years the students would create posters and models to show their information, but this year I had them create a Power Point presentation instead.==

==I think that project-based learning is great. I think that students gain a lot of knowledge doing things like this, but I also see a lot of drawbacks as well. The first drawback I see is time, the time it takes do a project versus the time it takes to learn the material in “traditional” fashion is much greater. I also think this is another one of those cases that deal with students learning styles, some students may learn very well when they are doing projects, but others can’t seem to focus on what they are to be doing. Another drawback I see is the workload, it doesn’t matter how you divide the work or how much you monitor what the students are doing, there is still that one child who seems to sit back and do nothing. The last drawback that I see is time spent preparing on the part of the teacher. It is a lot of prep time to get this material ready for them to explore and learn from. I feel that if you can work through the drawbacks project-based learning can be rewarding and successful.==

==I would like to incorporate more project-based learning it all of my classes. I know after watching the video about “Journey North” and the project March of the Monarchs I was inspired to create more project-based learning. I thought this project was really cool. They incorporated a lot of subject areas, math- time it takes, science- migration, language arts- writing letters, social studies – tracking paths and looking at locations, art- drawings and creations. If I could come up with a project that would integrate a few subject areas that would be great.==

==Some of the technology that I learned about so far that you could use would be: Skype, Mind42, Bubbl.us, Voice Thread, Wikispaces, etc. These are just a few of the tools that you could use to help incorporate more technology into your project-based learning.==

