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Teacher as Co-Learner - Camp Creek Blog - Camp Creek Blog on 2010-01-03
- For a child to connect with their work,
- The child’s interests and questions have to determine the direction the project takes. Try not to make value judgments; instead, wait to see what happens. What may seem to be a trivial pursuit may turn into something complex and interesting.
  
  The child needs to own the process. If you are feeding them materials, experiences, thoughts, they know that. They understand that you think you know more than they do, which is discouraging.
  
  If you think you cannot pursue a certain project topic because you don’t know enough about it, good! The point isn’t for you to filter all the knowledge that ends up in your child. If you can learn together, good. If you can allow your child to teach you, even better.
  
  Your child’s work is to learn about their project. Your work is to learn about your child, how he learns, and how you can support him.
How to Start - Camp Creek Blog - Camp Creek Blog on 2010-01-03
- The most important part of learning through projects isn’t amassing knowledge about any particular subject, but mastering how to learn.
- So we start by asking children, “How can we find out about this?”
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- - Running concurrently with our study of any particular subject is the study of learning itself: Where is the information? Who knows about this? Where can we go? What can we see?
  - Then, after we collect facts: When do we really know? How do we tell what’s important and what’s not? How do we explain what we know to others?
  - There are a myriad of ways to learn about something. Rather than handing these things over to our children as a fait accompli, we want them to discover them on their own.
  - If you bring your child 20 books from the library, then announce a trip to the museum on Friday, you may succeed in getting done sooner. But if you let your child go to the library and talk to the librarian about how to find books, let your child decide which books look like they have the best information ... well, it’s going to take a lot longer. But they are learning all the while.
  - Even something as simple as talking to the librarian themselves is a huge accomplishment for a young child. In our adult world, we always want to race ahead; getting there first is seen as a win. In this, we need to slow down to a crawl. Take your time and examine every step of the process, because when your child really knows it, they own it, and they can access it whenever they choose.
  - You *can* assess your children’s project learning. You can, for example, download your state’s learning standards for your child’s appropriate grade and keep track of what goals and benchmarks your children meet as they progress through their project. Then, if you wish, you can cover the material unmet by the project in other, more direct ways.
project-based learning, part 2 - Camp Creek Blog - Camp Creek Blog on 2010-01-03
- The fact is, with every project I've ever been involved with, the kids started at a particular point, sometimes quite obscure, and always -- always -- manage to end with a very wide-ranging, dense web of knowledge. Like a spider spinning, it didn't matter where they started -- from the top of the mailbox, from the corner of the front gate -- they always ended up with a big, showy web.
- And when they learn this way -- when everything is related meaningfully to everything else, and they are following a path of knowledge that makes sense to them -- they have a much deeper, more complex understanding at the end.
project-based learning, part 1 - Camp Creek Blog - Camp Creek Blog on 2010-01-03
- Projects are child-directed.
- By child-directed, we mean the child's interest in the topic is the beginning, their particular enthusiasms determine what is done in the middle, and their determination they're "done" signals the end. They play a major part in what is studied and how their knowledge is represented.
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- - Projects are open-ended. They last until they're done. There is no set time limit.
  - Projects are not linear. To define a project at the beginning (e.g., "We are doing a project on apples!") is to doom it to failure.
  - Projects are organic and fluid; they grow in every direction. They can only be named at the end.
  - Projects integrate basic skills. Rather than teaching all subjects in isolation, when a project is under way, the teacher looks for every opportunity to pull in basic skills.
  - Whatever basic skills can't be acquired naturally during the project can still be taught in isolation, but as much as possible, the child's reading, writing, mathematics, history, geography, science, etc., are taught within the boundaries of the project.
  - The amount of knowledge gained during a project is controlled by the child. Rather than having an adult determine what is appropriate for a child's age or attention span, the child will begin at zero and take it as far and wide as he or she wishes. There is no ceiling to what can be learned. The child determines what they can do rather than the adult.
Project-Based Homeschooling - Camp Creek Blog - Camp Creek Blog on 2010-01-03
- A project is an open-ended investigation of a topic, driven by inquiry — posing questions, answering those questions, and uncovering new questions along the way.
- For our purposes, in a project,
  
  • the child chooses the topic to be studied,
  
  • the child directs his or her own learning,
  
  and
  
  • the parameters are not predefined (length, breadth, or depth).
  
  The point of project work isn’t to impart a particular group of facts, but rather to help a child master the skills of learning.
Camp Creek Blog - Camp Creek Blog on 2010-01-03
- My part in our learning relationship is to support them in their investigation, and that requires a lot of me — I have to pay attention to what’s happening every day. I have to be quiet and see what they are saying, doing, and planning, without my interference. I have to respond faithfully when they ask for things — whether it’s wire, tape, help looking up something online, or a trip to the natural history museum. I need to keep track of all those lines of inquiry they mark as a path they want to follow later, when they have more time, so they can focus on what they are doing right now.
- Your journal can also be a powerful assessment tool, if that is something you need or want to do. And it is a powerful reminder of what your children can accomplish simply following their own trail of questions.
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- - Their project journals will be primarily about their topic — say, bees — but your project journal is primarily about your topic — your children and how they learn. Therefore, it isn’t a dead record of the past, but a living documentation that stretches from the past into the future.
Reading Journals | Heart of the Matter Online - bridging the gap between child and parent on 2009-12-26
Betsy Stout's Homeschool Networking and Fileshare Page on 2009-12-22
Ancient Egypt Lapbook - a set on Flickr on 2009-12-22
Ancient Mesopotamia Unit Study on 2009-12-22

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