Chapter 11
Bringing it Home
It is important that although a project ends that your own learning continues. You should always take time to reflect on what you have gained from a project. You should also share your insights with others. Always make the most of the project experience by building these insights into the next project. By the time a successful project comes to an end, you and your students will feel as if you have "been somewhere." Doing a project with a class is something that they will remember, it sticks with the students just like going on a trip. End of projects provide the class with ideas for the next learning adventure. When a project ends it opens the doors for creating a new project. You can learn so much from doing one project, for the next project just as what works and what doesn't work, how to structure a project, and how the class learns as a whole.
As a teacher you should always reflect back on a project and recall what some of the engaging learning activities were, what really seemed to grab the students attention. You can see if things that worked in one project will cross over and work in another project. You should always critique your work, you want to make sure that there is evidence of your students understanding the material. What has the project taught you about how your students think and learn, this is important for a teacher to know about their students.
Projects take a lot of thought and work, time and effort. You should try to find ways to share your project with others. You can do the same with other teachers, get ideas and use them for your classroom. There are many resources out there that you can go on and post your own, or view other lessons and projects.You can publish your project, or post in on the web. You could even submit your project to contests.
I agree that it is important to remember as a teacher what activities grab your students attention and allow them to have fun as their learning. It is also very important that teachers do not just end a project when it is done, they also must remember to critique themselves to help them grow as a teacher.
ReplyDeleteI liked the concept you included in your response on how you are encouraged to share project ideas with others. We are all in this together and it is more beneficial to share with others, than constantly having to create our own worksheets and projects. Collaboration is educators best friends. In all honesty, we will do better work when we can see the effects of how another teacher's work went and make our own alterations to it- compared to starting from scratch with our own ideas and having to test it off the first chance.
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