Reading Reflection #9

  1.       A suggested method of understanding prior knowledge is completing a KWL chart. This might be a good way to see where your students’ prior understanding lies, because not all students will be starting off at the same place.

  2.       The book describes that it is important to establish anchors for our students. When teachers establish anchors, they gain a sense of where students are starting and how far they can go when completing a project.

  3.       There are several ways to assess what students learn during a project. One way is to develop a rubric for the project. Rubrics can assess progress toward key learning goals. They can assess content, written communication, critical thinking, work ethic, and a variety of other categories deemed worthy of assessing. Online grade books can also be used to provide a look at milestone assignments. Students could also be interview at the end of the project, reflecting in an honest way what they thought about the project and how it helped them learn more about that subject. Students could also create something new that helps them summarize what they have learned. The type of assessment helps students take what they have learned during the project and apply it in a new context. Students could also be asked to apply the skills of professionals from a particular discipline, using the standards of the discipline. A final way that the book suggests to assess students is to have them submit their best work to a competition or publication. These types of opportunities help students have motivation for a real world challenge.

  4.       This chapter’s concepts relate to our project in that there will be some way we need to assess prior knowledge. One way we could do this would be to create a KWL chart about what areas they know our school has. There will also be ways in which we will need to assess our students for the project. We could create a detailed rubric, showing students the specific criteria that needs to be included into their school brochure. We could also have each group submit their final brochure into a contest or competition.