A goal of most classrooms in this century is to immerse students in real-world situations by taking the learning experience beyond the classroom. One way to do this would be to connect with experts in whichever field your lesson focuses on. Bringing an expert into the classroom gets students excited about the topic, when they can see someone who works with it everyday. The topic might become more interesting then, and your students may be more excited to learn about it.
2. The EAST Initiative Model:
The EAST Initiative Model works to show the benefits of working with geospatial technologies and multimedia tools as problem solvers in real world situations and help improve the community. By exploring these tools and technologies in this way, students are exposed to multiple different projects in their community and are given the opportunity to become engaged in these projects at an early age. The EAST Initiative has grown to include more than 260 in seven states, ranging from second grade to post-secondary, after its start in 1996. The EAST model is built on four essential ideas:
- Student-driven learning - students need to be responsible for their own learning.
- Authentic project-based learning - students should be engaged in solving real problems in their communities.
- Technology as tools - students need access to the relevant technologies that professionals use to solve real problems.
- Collaboration - when students collaborate in teams to pursue authentic projects, they accomplish more than any one person can do in isolation.
3. Reasons to let students "lead" their projects:
By letting students take a project or assignment in their own direction, we may surprised at what they come up with. When children are given the responsibility and trust of taking on their own project, we as teachers are showing them that we believe they are capable of handling responsibility and doing well with it. Once we allow our students the freedom to pursue something they are passionate about, they will often end up teaching us. They can tackle an issue that arrises in their own life and lead their group members better because the topic applies to them. When we let students lead, we as teachers become more of a support system rather than a facilitator.
4. How concepts in this chapter relate to our topic:
This chapter really seemed to tie back into project based learning, which we are implementing with our group project. Since we have each student choosing their own country and recipe to represent at their classroom dinner, they will be responsible for completing the research on that country and coming up with the ingredients needed for their recipe. It is our hope that the students will pick a country/recipe that is interesting to them.
Renee, I really liked all of the information you put into your reading reflection. It was clear and very easy to read, as well as being straight to the point. I liked the way that you made the connection between this chapter and what your group is planning on doing for your final project. You provided enough information for someone to be able to understand what EAST is without even having read the chapter. Great job!
ReplyDeleteI really like how detailed your blog is ! I think its really important as teachers that we make sure all of our projects are real world based so that way they are meaningful and will help our students in everyday life! I really like how you described the EAST initiative because its a unique way of describing it using a poem. I agree thats its important to give students responsibilities with their project because the more they have responsibility the more they will practice and gain confidence for the real world. I also think its really unique that you are having your students pick out a country and receipe that interests them because that is a great way for them to take the lead on their project
ReplyDeleteI think that this was a great reflection. You were very informative while describing the East initative model. The information from the book really does relate to our topic in so many ways. I also agreed with Karly, I loved the idea of having the children pick out a county and a recipie as well. That is such a great way to teach geography, math, and even cooking. I had to cook in my spanish class and i still remeber how much fun it was to cook in the classroom. I think that students would be so thrilled to actually do this project. Letting the students lead on thier own is a great idea, it begins to build initative and allows them to see what skills it takes to lead their own projects. Your final project seems very good, Great reflection.
ReplyDeleteYour reflection was thought out and very informational, especially to someone who is unclear about PBL and all of the aspects that go along with it. I really like how you mention that our students have the ability to teach us rather than us teaching them all the time.
ReplyDeleteYou highlighted the major points from this chapter and made sure to elaborate if needed. Your post was very easy to read, great work!