Chapter 3 reflection

1. Discussion on what should be considered in finding “the Big Idea” for a project.

The project first needs to be effective and purposeful for the classroom, after that begin to consider the relevance to the students lives, and the world that surrounds them. The “Big Idea” should be realistic, engaging, and produce a higher order of thinking. The students should come to see how this project could change their outlook on the world or at least their community. Think of who can be involved, who can benefit from this knowledge, and how will this impact the student and future students in the community.

2. Discussion on the 2lst Century skills.

Focusing the Bloom’s Taxonomy helps for lessons and projects to produce high order thinking skills, and engage students into new realms of thinking that will help them to succeed in the 21^st century. Using the higher order thinking verbs in Bloom’s Taxonomy will develop 21^st century thinking skills because they are not asked just to explain but to justify, characterize, invent, design, differentiate, and examine all parts of the topic. The students will know the depth of a topic not just the breadth.  

3. Discussion on the 21st Century literacies.

Literacy skills are a different topic then they were 10 years ago, it isn’t about the ability of reading written word, now it is about inventive thinking, digital age literacy and studies, as well as high productivity. Not only must student have the skills to read and write in their native language, but in that of the digital world, possess  the ability to collaborate, communicate, understand personal, civic, and social responsibilities. Our community isn’t limited to the location where we live, we literally have the entire world at our finger tips.

4. Discussion on each of the essential learning functions.

I find that the learning functions are essential to any and all successful learning communities. For some students “school” is hell, they hate it and are only there for food, shelter or social interaction; it doesn’t have to be that way. Learning can be fun, not a punishment, but encouraging and promoting these learning functions students will be excited to come into your classroom because learning will not strenuous, it will feel like daily living.

Ubiquity: Students should know that they are always learning, and their mind never stops working, processing, ordering events and that is awesome. Learning shouldn’t be about what only happens in the classroom, it should be about what happens outside of the classroom and how we can apply it to our daily living and learning.

Deep learning: Allow students to find the depth of a topic that interests them, and apply that to the lesson. Never make the student fit into the lesson, make the lesson fit the student.

Making things visible and discussible: Many of our students are hand on kinesthetic learners, they need to see, feel, and touch what they are learning to understand it. According to the cone of learning people remember 20% of what we hear, 50% of what we see, but we remember 90% of what we are able to see and do. Allowing for open discussion will let the teacher see what interests the students, and what they want to learn, not what the textbook says they should.

Collaboration: In today’s world the most successful people are not only people but groups of people working together in collaboration.

Research: Students research everything, it might not be education related but they are constantly finding new information on music, people, games, etc. Let them use those tools to find what interests them and have them produce a product they are proud of.

Project management: Someday students will grow up to be adults, they will have appointments, deadlines, and tiny time frames to work in, and they won’t have anyone managing their time for them, teach them this early. Help them to plan and organize, and then teach them to plan and organize.

Reflection and Iteration: Life gives you the test first and the lesson after. Reflecting on what you have learned, how you have felt,  will deepen the learning experience, what was good about the project, what could have been modified or eliminated to make it better. Showing students how to reflect and examine their learning and thinking process will produce more developed, thought out, and engaging projects.  

5. Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.

In using the above listed idea into our project we will be able to produce a project that will reach to our community, develop our higher order thinking, engage us in more than just our classroom, and help produce 21^st ready students and citizens.