Monday, October 10, 2016

Project Based Learning all the way

Currently every class in grades 5 and up are working on some sort of Project Based Learning task. Most of the project ideas came from the students themselves.

5P is working on a project to help Circus Zambia build a circus school in Africa. Students have been diligent and oftentimes sacrifice their lunch and recess to complete the first stage of the project. So far they have researched, shared information with younger grades, written, organized and recorded a Shadowpuppet and practiced their pitch to the Principal and supporting organization.  All of this involved, collaboration, writing, editing, and researching skills. These students are making a Global impact and once they have the go-ahead to share, will astound you with their accomplishments. 
5S has begun a project about NH. We will begin Mysteryskyping soon and they wanted to create a video about NH to share with other students. Again, collaboration, researching and writing is taking precedence here. They are also organizing and prioritizing their list of desired places to showcase.
6th grade played Breakout edu a week or so ago and challenged themselves to create a game. This will take a few months to complete as these games can be quite complex. The chosen topic for the game is genres. Once completed we will move our game, for the rest of the school and others to try, into the sandbox section of Breakout edu. We look forward to the challenge!
7th grade is doing some real-life skill research on their 8th grade class trip. The class of 2016 accomplished this and felt a sense of ownership over their choice. Students will look at locations and take into consideration: travel time, activities, overnight accommodations, food, and cost. Once they complete their slide shows, they will share with their class advisers and choose the trip. 
8th graders are researching and gathering data on the usage of social media. Each team has chosen a specific social media to investigate and create a presentation of their choosing displaying the data gathered. This should be interesting and I hope to share some of the results here.  

Through my observations, students are excited to work on these projects that have meaning to them. This makes teaching valid resources, collaboration, organization, reflection, writing, editing, presenting, and the introduction of new tech tools easy. My curriculum has not changed, but the way I am teaching it has and I believe it may be for the better. 


Watch what we do and how we grow.
Keep reading,
The Noisy Librarian