Reflection 2

Meaningful learning through projects

In my one-day visits I had the opportunity to observe lessons from a wide range of KLAs. A very insightful experience was the visit of the HSC design and technology class just a day before students presented their ICT-based projects on which they had been working for the last twelve months to an HSC external examiner. By talking to the students and learning more about their projects I reflected on two aspects in particular: projects as an excellent way to engage students in “meaningful learning” (Grabe & Grabe, 2007) and a great opportunity for students to use ICT and develop a wide range of skills and intelligences across different KLAs (MI / Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy). In this blog entry the focus will be on the first point:

“Project-based learning” constitutes an “authentic task approach” in which students are confronted with challenging and complex problems for which they cannot immediately provide a solution (Grabe & Grabe, 2007). Hence, the set task requires them to activate and apply a great variety of knowledge and skills over a sustained period of time, such as valuable higher-order, planning and problem- solving skills, just to name a few. Furthermore, the projects constitute a student-centred approach in which students actively construct both “declarative” and “procedural” knowledge rather than passively acquiring “inert knowledge” (Grabe & Grabe, 2007). As the teacher does not act as an instructor but as a facilitator by scaffolding and guiding the learning process in an appropriate way, students have to take responsibility for their learning, which makes learning more relevant and meaningful to them. Students had to set time plans and constantly reflect on the progress of their work in a “Design Project Management Plan and Journal”.

References:

Grabe, M. & Grabe, C. (2007). Integrating Technology for meaningful learning. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.