Journal Reflection: Chapters 1 & 2
I guess you could call me a cynic. Maybe it’s from the ten years of working in the television news business and covering all sorts of crazy stories involving all sorts of people…many of whom were not so upstanding. This is why whenever I start reading a book or listening to a speaker talk about the ways to do something, I go in with my cynical hat on. This was certainly the case when I started reading David Morsund’s “Project Based Learning: Using information Technology.” I thought to myself, “Here we go again…another educator tooting his own horn and ways of doing things, and if I’m not doing things his way I must be doing something wrong.” Well that feeling lasted all of two pages.
As a Television Production teacher, my class is a perfect example of Project Based Learning with technology. All we do is projects using technology! When I started reading on page three about teams and students taking on different responsibilities within their teams, it was as if Morsund spent a day in my classroom when we started a new video project, picked groups, and assigned crew positions. When I read at the bottom of page three about the assessment questions, including how would the group be graded and how would the individual members within a group be graded, I almost yelled, “Exactly!” out loud. Let me first say that I hate assigning grades. It is without a doubt the worst part of my job. While there is of course a rubric with the basics of what should be included in each project, the real important part is the students’ creativity. I assign a general topic for the project, but then I try to allow the students to have as much freedom to get as creative as possible. There are of course times I have to pull the reins in on a few of their ideas, but overall I want them to work on something they’ve created because I think they will have more fun with it, and consequently do a better job on it and learn more. This was talked about more in chapter two, as Project Based Learning is defined as being more learner centered.
As I said earlier, I want the students in my class to have a lot of freedom to create the videos THEY want. It never fails that at the end of a project when we come together as a class and watch the final videos and critique them, that other students have “A-Ha” moments when watching their peers’ work. They realize ways they could’ve done things differently in their own videos. They learn from each other. Hearing constructive criticism from their peers, as opposed to me also tends to make more of an impact with many of them.
I had my second, or maybe it was my third, shout out loud moment when I read the following question, “Would the class recommend that this same assignment be used with next year’s class?” What a simple, but great question. Again, I want my students working on projects that THEY want to work on. Besides my observations during the course of the project, what better way to assess whether they really enjoyed working on it then to simply ask them. The first semester at my school ends this coming week, and I will be asking them their thoughts on each project and if they have an idea for a new project. I probably should’ve mentioned this earlier, but this is only my fifth year teaching, and obviously I am still learning on the job.
I guess my final shout out loud moment … and this one was probably more of a laugh out loud moment … was when I read the section on “actively engaged students.” Morsund talks about how PBL classrooms are louder than the traditional classroom because of all the group work, and conversations and movement involved. Welcome to TV Production!
The last point that I took away from chapters one and two concerning Project Based Learning that I’ll discuss here, is that it often deals with more “real-life” learning situations. I’ve often said to my students that the work they do in TV Production may be the closest thing they do in high school that resembles what it will be like in the real world. Now not all my students will go on to major in communications in college or become broadcast journalists or television producers, but what I’m talking about is the general pace and atmosphere of the class. Any type of student can take it, they work with others, and there are deadlines that they must meet. Sounds like just about any type of profession out there.
No comments:
Post a Comment