Lynne Zalesak, Social Studies Teacher, Houston ISD, uses Digital Storytelling to engage her students in the classroom.
For a free Digital Storeytelling e-book go here: http://www.microsoft.com/education/teachers/guides/digital_storytelling.aspx
Project-based learning
Project-based Learning: What it is and What it isn’t!
Great videos on Project-Based Learning!
What Project Based Learning Is ► http://howtovideos.hightechhigh.org/video/268/What+Project+Based+Learning+Is
What Project Based Learning Isn’t –
http://howtovideos.hightechhigh.org/video/265/What+Project+Based+Learning+Isn%27t
Virtual Field Trips for Project-Based Learning
Virtual field trips are a form of project-based learning, where instruction and learning occur within the context of a challenging project. Just as workers encounter complicated tasks in the workplace, students are presented with questions and problems that act as catalysts for learning. Projects usually extend over a few classes or weeks to help students acquire new, necessary knowledge and skill sets (Thomas, 2000).
In other words, instead of working on a small project for a week, projects build upon each other and can carry over from semester to semester as they facilitate the learning. Long-term projects make it possible to personalize learning, achieve more active involvement by students in shaping their education, and enable more authentic assessment of what students have actually learned. In history and social studies, a particular interest of mine, project-based learning (PBL) engages students as historians or social scientists and stimulates them to want to know more about the events and people they investigate.
Why should teachers use virtual field trips? Virtual field trips are an inexpensive way to integrate hands-on technology into the curriculum while maintaining student interest in the unit being studied. They offer a student-centered approach to instruction and diversify the teaching methods of content area instruction.
Virtual instruction allows students to view people and places in a visually stimulating environment, which cannot be done through mere textbook reading. (Lacina, 2004) Students bring back facts and information uncovered through their experience on their virtual adventure. Teachers can use virtual field trips not only to meet national technology standards but to combine content standards with technology standards fostering learning that results in interdisciplinary knowledge.
The importance of real-world learning
Project-based learning can be defined as learning that occurs within the context of a challenging project. Just as workers encounter complicated tasks in the workplace, students are presented with questions and problems that act as catalysts for learning. Projects usually extend over a few classes or weeks to help students acquire new, necessary knowledge and skill sets. In other words, instead of working on a small project for a week, projects build upon each other and can carry over from semester to semester as they facilitate the learning.
Long-term projects make it possible to personalize learning, achieve more active involvement by students in shaping their education, and enable more authentic assessment of what students have actually learned.
Project-based learning provides students with the opportunity to engage in real world situations that by their nature have no easy solution, or have no solution at the present time. Students learn to manage their time, interpret data sets, resolve value conflicts between group members and prepare and communicate the results of their investigation. In other words, they will use their experiences to learn to manage real life situations.
PBL empowers students as self-directed learners; by taking responsibility or their learning, students learn what they need to know. This aspect of PBL is crucial to developing active, intrinsically motivated, self-determined, lifelong learners. Project-based, constructivist learning emphasizes problem solving using the idea of an essential question as a starting point to set the stage for further questioning.
Great videos on PBL:
What Project Based Learning Is – http://howtovideos.hightechhigh.org/video/268/What+Project+Based+Learning+Is
What Project Based Learning Isn’t – http://howtovideos.hightechhigh.org/video/265/What+Project+Based+Learning+Isn%27t
Project-based Learning: Why do it? – http://ow.ly/50Ucz
Video Explanation: Project Based Learning
I am a big fan of explanatory videos. This is a great one explaining Project-based learning, where instruction and learning occur within the context of a challenging project.
Just as workers encounter complicated tasks in the workplace, students are presented with questions and problems that act as catalysts for learning. Projects usually extend over a few classes or weeks to help students acquire new, necessary knowledge and skill sets (Thomas, 2000). In other words, instead of working on a small project for a week, projects build upon each other and can carry over from semester to semester as they facilitate the learning. Long-term projects make it possible to personalize learning, achieve more active involvement by students in shaping their education, and enable more authentic assessment of what students have actually learned. In history and social studies, a particular interest of mine, project-based learning (PBL) engages students as historians or social scientists and stimulates them to want to know more about the events and people they investigate.
Technology tools have become so user-friendly that teachers can easily create their own virtual field trips. Teachers, on their own or with their students, can visit a site and use digital cameras or video to capture information. Maps and reference materials can be added to maximize the actual site study. Lesson planning is part of the process of making pedagogical, intellectual, and ideological choices. In constructivist classrooms, students get involved in making these decisions, choosing interesting projects or places that they would like to visit. Virtual field trips can include a range of instructional approaches and technologies. As Cassady and Mullen noted, there needs to be a shift from discussions about hardware and software to the inherent desire of children to explore the world (2006).
