The school year is almost at a close. It is often the hardest time of the year because you have used most of the year preparing for testing and now testing is over. What will you work towards now? Well, it is the perfect time to try a project, if you have never tried one before. Here are three tips to doing a project at the end of the year. You can also join our webinar on Thursday, April 28 at 7 pm CST. Click here to register.
Start Small
Project-based learning is a culture shift. If your students have not worked collaboratively or learned concepts through an inquiry method, it can be daunting shifting to this way of learning. Rather than immediately doing a project, spend a couple of weeks doing a task. Check out some of our free tasks to get you started.
Small Audience
During a session at a National Faculty summit for PBLWorks, Telannia shared with teachers how some projects do cause students to change the world. But more often, projects change the students. One of the key aspects of project-based learning is to have a public audience. This doesn’t mean you must have a huge event where the community comes in. You can just have your students present to your own family, friends, or peers. In Telannia’s finance project, students created a financial plan for people she knew. The students only presented to one or two people but the students grew so much as people. Small audiences are a great way for students to do their first project.
Revision
One of the most common mistakes made in doing a project is not planning for students to revise their understanding or their product. An easy way to avoid this is to have planned revisions occur at least every other day. For the first few days of a project, revising their understanding is the most common revision. It is as simple as having them answer, on an entrance or exit ticket, what they used to think about some aspect versus how they think about it now .
With their product allow for at least two revisions, that do not include teacher input, prior to their presentation.