Blog Post #6

Project Based Learning (PBL) with Anthony Capps Part 1 and Part 2 taught me that PBLis always evolving and changing and it is our job as teachers to try and keep up with it. One of my favorite lines in Part 1 is, "PBL projects are done at the end of a lesson to show what you have learned, they are not the method by which you learn." My interpretation of this is that projects should be a creative outlet for students to show you what they learned from the lesson and from your teaching, not the time when they should be learning the information for the first time. I also learned that the goal of PBL is that it is a means to get a student to learn something and be excited about learning. Projects are important and need to be relevant to the student's lives and contain knowledge that they are going to need in their lives. Part 2 explains a lot about how you are going to do many projects and they may not always go as planned, but I think of this as learning from your mistakes, which can be very valuable. I love when Anthony says, "My kids are not trapped in worksheets." This is so great! I love that PBL is a whole new outlet for students than just using pencil and paper all throughout their time at school. 

iCurio is something I had never heard of before. This is a search engine, a storage unit for the content that the user finds valuable, and you can also search by criteria based on what your project is about. This sounds so nice and organized to me and it made me want to go explore how to use it. I like that Anthony said that it is safe, since you do have some interruptions at the school (bells, emergency drills, lunch, etc.). Anthony also said that iCurio has a read aloud feature which makes this accessible for special needs students, which is great!

Discovery Education is a great research resource. This gives videos from experts on whatever topic they are researching and gives them so much more than just words in an article. Children will learn and retain more about a topic if you show them pictures or videos instead of just giving them something to read. Anthony says that the students do not like this better than reading, but alongside reading, which makes sense to me. It is not that you really want students to just stop reading, but just maybe give them a different tool to use while they read.

The video Anthony-Strange Tips for Teachers was really insightful for beginning teachers. Anthony says that teachers learn to teach in their free time, and that becomes fun for you. I think this is very important to make your work fun for you, because when you enjoy something you are willing to learn more about it and keep yourself up to date on information about it. I also agree that teachers must be creative. Say you end up with some extra time in your class, for whatever reason, you do not want your students just sitting around, but instead have some little fun things for them to do, such as the painting activity Dr. Strange spoke of in the video. My favorite tip was from Anthony, "Start with an end goal..." This is so important to me. No one wants a teacher that is just teaching you information without caring if you actually learn it or not. Teachers should want the best for their kids and strive to start something with an end goal that will benefit their students. 

Don't Teach Tech- Use It showed me something that I somewhat already realized and that is that the children that we will be teaching have grown up using this technology and knowing how to use it. This may not be so necessarily every student, but many of them will already know the basics of an iPad or computer. Teachers do not need to spend so much time teaching students how to use technology, but just allowing them the option of using it. I think Anthony made a great suggestion, if you are unsure about something, try it yourself first. That will allow you to understand problems that your students may incur and you might be able to better answer their questions. 

Additional Thought About Lessons says that lessons are usually four layers thick. The first layer is focused on how you are going to cover everything you want and are required to cover in a year. The second layer is about the unit size, which looks at if you have devised projects for each unit that is appropriate to that unit and connects everything in a certain way. The third layer is about how you plan out your week and making sure you will be able to get your work done for that week. The fourth layer is the daily lesson, which is how you deliver the lesson to your students, and measuring what they learn in a day so that you can pick up where you left off the next day. These are necessary for a "good" lesson plan and will help you make sure you reach all of your goals for the year.