reflection chapter 6

After reading chapter six I believe this chapter may have been the most informational to me in my own teaching style when it comes to how to set up projects in my own classroom. One effective tool they discussed was the particular skill set needed to manage a project. One effective tool set is using Skype to encourage students to ask a pool of experts in that particular topic for more insight. One really cool example they used in the book was the students actually got insight from someone who worked at N.A.S.A. which could really motivate students to be engaged in topic. When gathering resources for a topic you need to include the entire list of essentials that your class will need for that given project. Some examples might be do they need an internet connection, pencils, paper and so on. Giving a survey before the project so you know what your list of resources are is always a good idea before starting. The project management needs teachers must have include: “tools for communicating with students and others about the project, tools for making milestones visible and for notifying students when changes occur, methods for getting resources to students, systems for managing work products” (Krauss and Boss, 2015, loc.2390). There are several more but these are the basics to build a successful project based community. Some management needs the student must have before starting are understanding the systems and tools that will help them most effectively manage their time, this would mean that teachers go over tools so students are fluent in using them before starting. Collaboration tools are also effective by means of showing students how to work together to achieve a goal. Finally students must have an understanding of how to get useful feedback from the project so they understand how to correct their mistakes. Some applications that should be considered for the project are wiki sites because they are easily edited and can create easily sharable material for class to work through. Another idea is blogs like the blogger website we are using this semester to share and engage with our classmates. Finally proprietary web spaces like WordPress allow students to collaborate with others as well as learn informational tips that could assist them in writing. The resources our group will need for this project are ability to use communication blogs to share and comment on others peoples writings. We will also need a knowledge of google documents because we will be exclusively using this site for the production of papers for the project. This chapter was very informing about the essentials of project based learning and one that I will refer back to when using this in my classroom.