Reading Reflection #3

1. To find the "Big Idea" for a project, it is important to know your students. Once a teacher knows their students well, they will know what their students should know and what they're capable of. They will also be able to predict how their students will respond to a certain project. It is also important to have a complex and important idea for students to study and to reflect on the concepts and their importance. 

2. Developing 21st-century skills is important for students these days because it will help them succeed not only in school, but eventually in the job market. Using well-designed projects in the classroom will help students develop skills that students in traditional classrooms might not acquire. I especially liked the part in this portion of the text that contrasted a traditional biography assignment with a reconsidered biography assignment that was much more in-depth and engaging.

3. Having 21st-century literacy simply means to understand the ideas behind having 21st-century skills. Students who are literate in the 21st-century skills are independent, aware, and productive. 

4. Learning Functions:

    a. Ubiquity- I like the idea of ubiquity because it allows students to be studious while on the go. Having mobile devices makes it easy for them to stay engaged even when they are not in the classroom.

    b. Deep Learning-Deep learning is extremely important in my opinion because it helps student grasp the ideas and concepts from certain lessons. Using databases to do additional research on a topic is extremely beneficial for the student and their learning. 

    c. Making Things Visible and Discussable-This function is definitely helpful for the visual learners in the classroom such as myself. I like the idea of making things visible for students, because I feel that it helps them grasp the concept better when they can actually see it and discuss it. 

    d. Expressing Ourselves, Sharing Ideas, Building Community-Using blogs, tagging, and other social interaction is a great way for students to bounce ideas off of one another and brainstorm as a community. 

    e. Collaboration- I think collaboration is a huge part of PBL and is one of the reasons why it can be so successful. Collaboration is definitely beneficial for students because it allows them to work together and learn from each other.

     f. Research- Research is great to help students learn more about a topic, but they need to know the right tools that will make researching beneficial for them. 

     g. Project Management- This function is good for students because it will help them learn how to manage their time and keep them more organized in the future. 

     h. Reflection and Iteration- Blogs make it easy for students to look back on their thinking and it is a good way to show how much a student has grown and learned from post to post. 

5. All of these learning functions will be helpful to our project because students will be engaged with most of them throughout the project. For instance, students will brainstorm ideas and collaborate with each other, they will make visuals to help display what they learned, they will do research and develop deeper learning skills, and many more aspects. For us as the teachers, we will be looking at the "Big Idea" for the project, and this chapter will help us figure out what that big idea is.