Reflection 3

1. There are multiple things that should be considered to finding the "Big Idea" of a project.  Whenever you start thinking about a project you need to figure out what exactly you want students to learn.  This involves outlining concepts and aligning standards to your "Idea".  Another important aspect that is involved in the "Big Idea" is how go you get your students engaged? This can be done by incorporating real-world contexts and different ways that they can offer value to their community.  Students learn more if they have a purpose for learning.

2.  21st century skills consist of a higher order of thinking strategy called Blooms Taxonomy.  Blooms Taxonomy consist of six levels, moving from lower orders of thinking to higher.  The levels are:

1. Knowledge
2. Understand
3. Apply
4. Analyze
5. Evaluate
6. Create

Ultimately you want your projects to evolve so that students are using more thinking skills such as, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. 

3. Literacy in the 21st century has moved towards a digital-age.  This concept is very understandable since most of our lives consist of technology nowadays. Whenever you use or teach new technology it is important to state the purpose for it.  Communicate to students and parents how this tool will help meet the students educational goal.

4. Essential Learning Functions

1. Ubiquity: Learning Inside and Outside the Classroom, and All the Time

• Give students opportunities to learn in and out of class through technology. For example, Blogs, Google docs,etc.

      2. Deep Learning

• Help engage higher order of thinking on websites that gives main details of information, encourage students to think and go beyond information. 

      3. Making Things Visible and Discussable

• With technology today it is easy to make things more visible to students.  This is very important because as you make things more visible rather than verbal you are tapping into different intelligences, meaning you are reaching different types of learners.

       4. Expressing Ourselves, Sharing Ideas, Building Community

• Use social aspects of the internet to find ways students can express their ideas to others and build around shared interest.

       5. Collaboration-- Teaching and Learning with Others

• Make collaboration happen with projects.  Have students share ideas and build on one another. 

       6. Research

• Incorporate research methods into lessons.  This will allow you to give students reliable websites and teach them how to cite work.

       7. Project Management: Planning and Organization

• This helps students manage time, work, sources, feedback from others, drafts, and products during projects.  

       8. Reflection and Iteration

• To activate higher order of thinking, have students reflect on what they've learned and how they learned it (meta-cognition). This can be done through blogs.

5. Learning about health and wellness is a good way to tap into the strategy of higher order of thinking.  Ultimately, students will end up evaluating their lives and apply their knowledge to their own life.