Saturday, March 7, 2015

Discussion Forum for Assignment 3: Project-based Instruction in English Environment

Dear Access instructors, 

To get actively involved: 

a. the Discussion Moderator will start a Conversation thread (discussion)  related to Project-based Instruction 
by Wednesday.

b. the Conversation wrapper will end up  the Conversation thread by Sunday, by making general conclusion of the colleagues' shared opinions as answers to the Moderator's prompt. 

c. each  participant will offer feedback to 3 comments of  their 3 different colleagues ( 1 comment for 1 colleague) by Saturday.   




Enjoy Chatting !!!



Conversation Moderator:

Daria Prozorovschi, 

Access teacher, Access-Hincesti


Conversation Wrapper

Vera Caprarenco,

 Access teacher, Access-Ribnita

5 comments:

  1. Conversation Moderator: Daria ProzorovschiMarch 16, 2015 at 7:56 PM

    Dear Access teachers and teacher assistants,

    According to the resources we are to study this week, Project Based Instructions is an innovative teaching – learning approach students ca benefit from.
    On the other hand, taking into account the social and cultural context we are living in, our students may meet some difficulties when involving in this activities and performing successfully these tasks as a team, simply because they still have to learn how:
    to use correctly their time and resource when working in groups
    to delegate responsibilities
    to provide valuable feedback
    etc.

    Please respond to the following questions below, limiting your answer to 4-5 phrases:

    1. What other issues can Access Students, as well as Teachers and Teacher Assistants, face when involving into a Project Based Learning Activity.

    2. What measure can we adopt to avoid or to “smoothen” these issues? (In other words: What should we do to prepare them for this type of activity?)

    (You could find useful the following resource: http://www.ericdigests.org/2002-2/problem.htm)

    Be sure to comment substantially to at least 3 of you colleagues.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The challenges are right “behind the door”:to involve the students of all language level and awareness; facilitator/teacher needs to choose the right Driving Question. The difficult part is also projecting the plan – a good start should be done properly—collecting materials, connecting and interacting with other mates and to make it clear, what we promote by these projects? What is challenging— the fact how well we formulate the objectives and collect the material, will lead to final destination and success.
    The teacher must thoroughly explain all tasks that are to be completed, provide detailed directions for how to develop the project, and circulate within the classroom in order to answer questions and encourage student motivation, making students to be “self-managers”. In order to create successful units focused on project-based learning, teachers must plan well and be flexible.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello Emma,

      You are absolutely right, self - management and motivation are the 2 big challenges teachers deal with today. And the solutions you mentioned (planning and flexibility) though are time consuming and often exhausting seem to be the best we can do.

      My students have difficulty with "staying motivated" for a long time. That is why I will try to infiltrate into the project activities some "breaks" in form of funny quizzes or mental/ visual teasers to stop them thinking of finishing faster the tasks and go home.

      Have you ever tried any strategy like this? Or maybe other techniques? Did it work?

      Respectfully,
      Daria
      Hincesti

      Delete
  3. Dear Daria, thank you for interesting questions to ponder over....Frankly speaking, the PBL issue is so challenging and it is hard to limit yourself with only few phrases to commnet. Anyway, we will try to make more discussions possible.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I know your expertise on this. I must say we should have an online discussion on this. Writing only comments will close the discussion straight away! And will restrict the benefits from this information. Allo Talk

    ReplyDelete