By Sian Haack

I’ve always been interested in doing projects in my classroom.  However, there were a few nagging issues that I needed to address:  How do I get the students to do their best work?  How can I be sure that I am assessing accurately and fairly?  How do I design a project to ensure student enthusiasm as well as incorporate critical thinking skills for the 21^st century learner?  That’s when I saw that ERLC was offering a three day Project Based Learning workshop.  Eagerly, I signed up for the course.

I was extremely excited to learn about how to develop an in-depth project during this workshop, and I was not disappointed.  Andrew Miller is an enthusiastic educator who knows Project Based Learning like the back of his hand.  Some of the criteria that Andrew taught us in how to create a project are as follows:

• Develop a Driving Question
• From the Driving Question students will create questions for inquiry
• Have guest speakers into the classroom to make the project authentic
• How to group students
• Give the students choice and voice in their project
• Always have an audience in which to present to
• Assess 21^st century learning skills – communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking

During the workshop, participants meticulously created a project to bring back to the classroom.  The projects were cross-referenced to the Program of Studies making sure they meet all of the criteria for learning.

Throughout the process, Andrew modelled for us different assessment strategies such as the gallery walk and fish bowl.  These peer assessment strategies give ownership and pride to the students who are both creating the project and assessing the project.

I excitedly took my finely crafted project entitled “Hardships in History” back to my classroom eager to share it with my students.  I was absolutely thrilled with the results.  Students had the choice to create a picture book or a video on one of the outcomes for the Grade Five Social Studies unit “Canadian Identity”.  Students chose from the following topics:

• Hardships that the First Nations faced
• Hardships that Chinese railway workers faced
• Hardships that the Famous Five faced in gaining the right to vote for women
• Hardships of the Underground Railway

I chose to group students based on interest and ability.  Students wrote up a contract for group expectations and allocated the work so that each student had their own piece of the project to complete.  This took away the dilemma of how to mark the group project.  Each student could be marked individually on how well he or she completed the assigned task.

In addition to the group project, I chose to have students also create an individual project.  Students had the opportunity to develop an individual project based on one of the choices that they did not pick for the group project.

The groups presented to parents, other classes and our Admin team.  They were very excited to share their endeavours with others.

Students took a lot of pride in their project, and I was thrilled with the creativity displayed as well as the amount of collaboration and communication skills that the students developed over the course of this project.

The Project Based Learning workshop also made sure that we had the proper supports to help us with our learning. The website www.bie.org has worksheets for planning the project as well as for the students.  As well, You Tube has project based learning explained videos available.

All in all, it was a great experience complete with a ready-made project to take to the classroom.  I can hardly wait for September in order to begin my newest project, “Geniuses in Geography”!