chapter four reflections

Chapter four from Reinventing Project Based Learning talks about children making observations from their world they live in to understand how inquiry works at a basic level. One example is how they had students make observations about the recycling habits at their own home to reflect upon and to generate questions. This is the basic thought process that we need to develop for our children so they can build schemas about their world and to help them solve everyday problems. This chapter also talks about how you may select your specific project and how you go about designing it. There are a multitude of things you must consider before starting a project here are a few the authors suggest in this chapter. First if you are going to use a previously used lesson make sure you understand the limitations and downfalls of the project before starting. Then when you are ready to begin designing you can really engage learners by knowing what their interests are and trying to design one that balances out your learning goals while keeping them engaged at the same time. The authors contend the best learning projects are loosely designed so that students may take different steps to ultimately learning the same thing. This idea of differentiation in teaching is monumental and one that I hope to instill in my classroom one day.