Chapter 4

Strategies for Discovery

Specifically they wanted to encourage primary students to make observations and raise questions about  what they were seeing in the world around them. Learning through observation occurs in real life so teachers began imagining how to bring inquiry into students' daily activities-travelling to and from school, pursuing hobbies, or just spending time at home. I think that it is very important to teach relatable subjects to your students, even giving them the freedom to brainstorm ideas in the class for what they would like to do for there classroom project.

For reviewing projects it is really good to look over other projects by other teachers and other teaching teams, there may or not be things that you like but since it is your class you can change things up or stick to somethings that you liked.

I think that it is important to be aware of ways that you can improve.  There are many potential pitfalls to look out for like Long on activity, short on learning outcomes. Technology layered over traditional practice. Trivial thematic units. And overly scripted with many, many steps. These are all potential pitfalls that could appear in your project design, which are all important to look out for.

There are many projects that share important features. Some of the features that I would want to make sure that I included in my projects as a teacher would be loosely designed projects with the possibility of different learning paths. Also projects that center on a driving question or are otherwise structured for inquiry. Projects that are realistic, and therefore cross multiple disciplines. Are structured so that students learn with and from each other. Have students working as inquiring experts might. Get a 21st- century skills and literacies, including communication, project management, and technology use.