So, after participating in an online discussion on project based learning I ran into many people who felt that project based learning didn't provide the necessary means to teach students all of the concepts they need to know. Especially if you are teaching at a school that focuses on standardized testing. I feel like I am in a little bit of a different position than many of the other contributors to this discussion because I have just begun teaching my first year at a private school (that doesn't take CRCTs) whose instruction is strictly project based teaching. I am currently having a giant learning curve as this type of teaching is still brand new to me and totally out of my element, but am discovering the joys and the advantages to this type of teaching. I see how engaged my students are because they are allowed to guide instruction and decide what type of projects they want to do in order to better understand the content. However, as I mentioned before, I am having a major learning curve.
I am coming from a place where I had every unit, lesson, activity planned out to a T. I knew exactly what I was doing each day, week, and sometimes for a whole quarter. Using the project based method where I am allowing my students' inquiries lead our instruction and develop the activities has certainly thrown me for a loop. I don't know what we will be doing the next week, sometimes not even the next day! I am fortunate enough to have a co-teacher who has been working at this school and in this environment for over 18 years so she has been an amazing mentor and reassures me that everything will be done as it needs to be, but I still am weary at times.
One thing that I do feel that I can bring to the table is my technology integration. Even though my co-teacher has a ton of experience with our PYP units, she isn't as technologically able as I am. This is allowing our class to flourish with new ideas and resources when the students' inquire about things we can't readily find answers to in our classroom. Last week I asked what is the best way to introduce new technologies into primary classrooms and found that Katrina's comment really proved to be beneficial. Nancy, my co-teacher, and I have decided to stick to one tool for right now until our students have become proficient with it and then we will add new tools. Right now we are working with ikeepbookmarks.com where the students can find teacher selected websites for their research and practice. You can view our site by logging in with the user name Bingham - Elliott and no password.
As for how I feel about schools that do need to focus instruction on test scores, I think that project based learning has its place there as well. The only difference would be to have it scaffolded more by the teacher and to limit the amount of the day/curriculum that is done through this method. If there are specific skills that are going to be assessed in a specific way, it certainly makes sense to directly teach the specific things they need to learn. However, is this how we really want our students to learn? Do we want to teach them that the only relevance that a specific skill has in their life is for the test they will take at the end of the year? How is that meaningful, beneficial learning? And if this doesn't work, how do we find the happy medium where the students DO have meaningful learning but are still mastering the skills at a rate that helps them perform well on a standardized test?
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