week+6

Watching the week six video's provided me a great deal of inspiration for my basic level science classes. Before the school year, I had grand plans for project based learning to take place but it is difficult to fit in while covering all the standards in the conventional ways. I am hopeful that project based learning will become easier to incoporate as standards evolve to a deeper, rather than broad format.

The message most inspiring in the first video, found here, was realting to the promotion of motivation and initiative through technology. The idea of having specific long-term goals at each grade level would work extremely well for those students enrolled in special education services. The second video promoted project based learning by placing students at the center of the curriculum, rather then the content. I think it will be important for us, both as individual teachers and as a grant team, to research all thats already ou there as far as projects are concerned. In this particular videa students at the sixth grade level work on a horticulture project which lends itself nicely to cooking and health issues, and seventh grade runs a radio station that broadcasts every other day for an hour. The key is that it is run by the STUDENTS, not the teachers. I like the concept of teachers being facilitators. I think students prefer this as well.