Last week I started a class about Project Based Learning. I had actually never heard that term before, but had an idea since I've been around teaching for awhile now. The first week was really difficult. I felt so stressed out at the end of every day that I thought I was going to explode by Friday. Throughout the week and over the weekend I tried to evaluate why the class was so stressful for me so that I could handle it better. This is a two week, three hour a day course, so there isn't much time for decompressing between classes. I think the stressful part of the class for me has been twofold - not having a good outline of what I am expected to learn, and navigating interpersonal relationships when I am also dealing with a lot of interpersonal relationship issues at home every evening as well.
I find that I need time to organize information in my mind and I need to get a general outline of what I am expected to do so that I can work efficiently. I do well with having work modeled or having examples so I can get a good idea of the big picture. I don't do well when I have to work blind because it doesn't have any real meaning for me.
What I have realized is that I need to make sure I give my students lots of modeling before I expect them to do a project.
Wearables and More
-
The email alerts are full of articles about the AppleWatch ranging from
"you must have" praise to "why bother." A novel thought was that when the
watch fi...
These are great things to realize about what your own learning needs are. What have you come to realize about the process of place-based/project-based learning experiences for students? Modeling is fine but what if they choose something you can't model for them? If your experiences are truly student-centered always giving an example is going to lock down what they can produce (to a certain extent).
ReplyDelete