Project-Based Learning

Project-Based Learning!

I would like to have more student initiative in student learning.  I think that the one type of learning that I would really like to promote in my classroom next year would be project-based learning.  Project-based learning would be best to achieve my goal because it focuses on a driving question and how students devise their own problem and solution.  It is authentic with the real world and encourages students to problem solve.  Next year I will piloting the new NGSS aligned curriculum.  A huge focus of the NGSS is inquiry-based learning.  Since being on the science committee and planning for 5th grade, there are a lot of units and activities that are project-based learning.  Students are required to come up with a solution to a driving question.  This promotes creativity and innovation along with collaboration with peers.To get started I am going to look back at the Common Core State Standards and the NGSS.  It starts with the standards and what I want the students to know. From there I think I need to generate some driving questions that are already part of the curriculum in 203. Of course I have to be prepared for students to have their own driving questions. Those driving questions are the force behind the inquiry process.  I will know when I am successful once there is evidence of student learning and hitting their targets.  From another perspective I know I will be successful when students translate the skills from project-based learning into their own lives!I plan on starting this in the 2016-2017 school year! Piloting science will help because students will be engineering and designing solutions to their own problems!

For more information on project-based learning check out this website--> http://bie.org/