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Tracy Watanabe

10 Steps to Managing Cooperative, Project-Based Learning Groups | 1 to 1 Schools - 0 views

  • Even with these tools, scaf­fold­ing is nec­es­sary.
  • 1. Con­tent Comes First Be clear about how stu­dent projects will be eval­u­ated
  • 2: Choose and Defend A Par­tic­u­lar Pre­sen­ta­tion For­mat Once stu­dents know what they want to com­mu­ni­cate, they can begin dis­cussing the clear­est means for com­mu­ni­cat­ing their ideas.
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  • 3. Stu­dents “Divide and Con­quer” the Work­load
  • Divi­sion of labor should be explicit
  • Crit­i­cal ques­tions are: What needs to be writ­ten? Can that be divided into chunks? What needs to be pur­chased? Who wants to go where? When? What needs to be researched/read? Can that be divided? Can the project be divided into sec­tions so that each stu­dent is respon­si­ble for one of those sec­tions? Posters can be divided into sec­tions — Who will be respon­si­ble for which sec­tions? Pre­sen­ta­tions are divided into slides — Who will be respon­si­ble for which slides? iMovie sec­tions can be pro­duced on sep­a­rate com­put­ers and assem­bled in the end — Who will be respon­si­ble for which sec­tion? Prezis work like Pre­sen­ta­tions - Who will be respon­si­ble for each part?
  • 4. Stu­dents Plan a Time­line Time man­age­ment is one of those crit­i­cal skills that is miss­ing from the writ­ten cur­ricu­lum. The key is back­ward planning.
  • 5. Group mem­bers work as Indi­vid­u­als After stu­dents have decided on con­tent, defended a for­mat for pre­sen­ta­tion, and “divided-to-conquer” the work, they can be mean­ing­fully engaged in their own mini-projects. Each work ses­sions should have a work goal. M
  • 6. Indi­vid­u­als Com­ment on Part­ners’ Pieces Dur­ing the revi­sion and assem­bly stages, some trouble-shooting may be necessary.
  • 7. Groups Reflect on Their Work Finally, the group needs to come together and com­ment on the “fit” of all the parts.
  • 8. Allow Groups to see other Groups’ Work Some stu­dents are risk-averse. They want to work on project for­mats they know. But when they see oth­ers’ work, they have a frame­work they can use when con­sid­er­ing for­mats for other projects.
  • 9. Use Projects to Inform Report Card Com­ments Those who chose to make Prezis don’t know this, but I jot­ted down a quick report card com­ment about self-motivated learn­ing.
  • 10. Cel­e­brate! Stu­dents should cel­e­brate work well done.
Tracy Watanabe

Keeping Students Engaged in a 1:1 Project-Based Classroom [guest post] | 1 to 1 Schools - 0 views

  • The fol­low­ing are sug­ges­tions for keep­ing stu­dents engaged in a project and account­able for their time with computers:
  • ask What are you try­ing to learn? or What are you try­ing to com­mu­ni­cate? or What are you work­ing on as a writer? Those ques­tions get answers like I want to know more about the horses that Civil War gen­er­als rode or I want to con­vince peo­ple that Justin Bieber is the best singer ever or I’m try­ing to describe the character’s actions. When you ask about learn­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tion, you are sig­nal­ing that the con­tent is more impor­tant than the tech­nol­ogy.
  • Stu­dents set time-bound goals. Once stu­dents have a plan, they break the project into smaller tasks that can be fin­ished in 10– to 15-minute chunks of time. Have stu­dents write the spe­cific tasks on Post-it notes. Post-its are set beside the com­puter. On their Post-its, stu­dents fin­ish the sen­tence, “In the next [x-amount of] min­utes, I plan to…”
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  • Tasks should be spe­cific. I’m gonna work on my project is not spe­cific enough. At the end of class, Post-its become “exit slips”.
  • Lap­top screens are “fisted” or “put at half mast”. 
  • Fin­gers indi­cate the amount of time stu­dents need to com­plete a shorter task.
  • Cir­cu­late the room, con­fer­enc­ing with students.
  • Rather than ban­ning chat, teach stu­dents how to use it for collaboration.
  • Don’t be afraid to have tough con­ver­sa­tions with indi­vid­ual students.
  • Many of the sug­ges­tions above apply to project-based learn­ing envi­ron­ments both with and with­out com­put­ers. The trick in a 1:1 envi­ron­ment is to main­tain focus on learn­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Then let tech­nol­ogy nat­u­rally enhance those outcomes.
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