Bryan Lee's List: Project-Based Learning

• "We teach numbers, then algebra, then calculus, then physics.

  • By teaching the conventional way, the student must suffer through so much time without context or meaning for the abstract educational, learn-numbers-for-their-own sake goals.
• starting with the concrete and solving hands-on
• teams of students in a high school geometry class design a state-of-the-art high school for 2050.
• second graders curious about the number of medicines a classmate takes and her frequent trips to the doctor investigate -- with the classmate's permission -- the causes of cystic fibrosis.
• a fifth-grade project on kites involves using creative writing skills in poems and stories with kite theme
• A casual remark by one student leads to an in-depth study of the role of kites in various cultural celebrations
• Like adults trying to solve a problem, they don't restrict themselves to one discipline but rather delve into math, literature, history, science -- whatever is appropriate to the study
• One of the major advantages of project work is that it makes school more like real life
• In real life, we don't spend several hours at a time listening to authorities who know more than we do and who tell us exactly what to do and how to do it," she says. "We need to be able to ask questions of a person we're learning from. We need to be able to link what the person is telling us with what we already know. And we need to be able to bring what we already know and experiences we've had that are relevant to the topic to the front of our minds and say something about them."
• She advocates a three-phased approach: Phase 1 involves an initial discussion of a project topic, including children's firsthand experiences related to the topic. Phase 2 involves fieldwork, sessions with experts, and various aspects of gathering information, reading, writing, drawing, and computing. Phase 3 is the presentation of the project to an audience.
• First, her students were not learning concepts deeply enough to apply or even remember them for a long period. Second, a growing body of research upheld the view that concepts are best understood using concrete examples constructed by the students themselves. Third, while taking a break from teaching to finish a master's thesis, Reeder took a job at a bridge-design company and realized, when she was asked to do a task, that she had never applied her knowledge of mathematics in a real-world situation

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• • Or else SHOULD change.
• Much more attention has gone to the ways students might use phones to cheat or take inappropriate pictures. But as the technology becomes cheaper, more advanced, and more ingrained in students' lives that mentality is changing.

• Admitting laptops into the classroom means facing the reality that in the competition for attention, our best lectures can't even beat solitaire
• Students no longer need us for the facts because facts are instantly available on the Internet. Instead, they need us to help them figure out what to do with all that data.
• Teachers must step down from being the sage on the stage and learn to be the guide on the side
• solve engaging problems
• They are synthesizing their own experience, ideas from the professor, and sources that they can find on the Web
• e-mailing experts, posting to blogs, or editing pages on wikis
• The Socratic exchange
• The powerful face-to-face questioning isn't competing with the laptops; instead, it depends on it.
• Sometimes the instructor is delivering content, but more often the teacher is helping students learn how to learn.

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