Project Based Learning

This semester, my favorite project was the Project Based Learning(PBL) Video our class was required to make.  At first, I hated the idea of being involved in a PBL project because I wanted the requirements completely laid out before me, and I have not been challenged to complete a project based off of my own creativity (which scared me to death).  At the start of the PBL, my group and I were extremely lost and had tons of questions, but after we decided what type of video we would create, the creative “juices” started flowing.  We were all contributing ideas and asking for opinions.  Looking back, I think that if Dr. Alexander had given us specifics on our Project Based Learning Video, we wouldn’t have had as much fun working together as a group, and we wouldn’t have seen the creativity that we possess.

This project could be used in a classroom in many different ways!  It could be used for group projects of any kind because it is a great way to teach the importance of collaboration and respect for others’ ideas, it could be used for every unit a teacher would need to teach, for individual research, and the list could go on forever!  This project has endless possibilities since each student is required to use their own ideas to accomplish a main objective.  In this way of learning, book facts become unintentionally important to the student because they are actively contributing to their own learning.  With this, I think test scores would inevitably rise and that students would start to become excited about learning in every subject.  If you could put yourself if the students’ shoes for a moment, you would realize that if you are able to control the way you learn, it seems more fun because it was your idea.  Image what a great trick this would be!  To me, the PBL project was definitely the best one we did this semester due to the many ways it could be used in a classroom and how it facilitated growth in my own outlook of learning and creativity.

Mr. Winkle Wakes by Mathew Needleman

This video was extremely sad in the truth that it presented…

Mr. Winkle Wakes is based on the character Mr. Winkle who has fallen asleep and awoken after 100 years.  He finds the outside world has completely changed, but the classroom in school has remained the same.  Students still sat in desks in straight rows, the teacher still lectured at the front of the room, and even though there was a computer in the back of the room, it remained untouched.  While watching this video, I immediately went back to high school, sitting in a desk, and listening to my teacher lecture.  I was hardly ever challenged to think creatively and when I was, I hated it because I didn’t know how to think on my own.  The world Mr. Winkle woke to was a world of technological creativity.

Unlike the picture painted of the classroom in the video, I think school should be a class of movement, collaboration, research, and the use of technology by the students.  The real world is using technology that students are expected to be able to operate, but beyond that, they are also expected to think creatively in order to solve problems and incorporate the use of technology.  Without creativity, there would be no technology, and now, without technology, the world would not be spurred on to create more things.  Students learn about the world in the classroom, but if the way of learning in the classroom doesn’t meet the way the real world learns, how will our students thrive and give back to the society?

To me, the ideal classroom looks like mass chaos from the outside:  students talking, sharing ideas across the room, researching answers using resources and technology of ALL types, and creating things/coming up with ideas that have never been seen or thought of before.  Creativity should be at the heart of a classroom, and with that, technology should be expected to be used!  I think teachers become stuck in teaching the same ole way they always have, but if we can step out of the box and challenge ourselves to be confident in our own creativity, classrooms won’t be straight rows of desks or dusty computers!  Imagine what your classroom would look like if you taught beyond a lecture and notes!

The Importance of Creativity by Sir Ken Robinson

After watching the Sir Ken Robinson video, I immediately started thinking of different ways to incorporate the arts into my classroom. I once heard a story in my technology class, this semester, about a little boy who was continually told how to do and make everything according to his teacher's preferences. At the end of the year, the teacher allowed the class to make whatever they wanted, but the little boy had become trained so well to do what his teacher did, that all he could make was a replica of the red rose his teacher made at the beginning of the year.  Sir Ken Robinson stated that educators and society has said that being wrong is bad, but if you aren’t prepared to be wrong, you won’t come up with anything creative.  I think as teachers, we want our students to produce the right answer so badly that we teach them a lesson, give them a textbook, and expect them to regurgitate the answer on paper.  Unfortunately, this does not prepare students for the real world at all. 

The world forces you to make decisions based on answers you have searched for and thought about.  Thinking is where creativity comes from!  If we don’t allow our students to think for themselves and develop their own ideas, we force them into a world of right and wrong/success and failure.  In the movie Meet The Robinsons, the Robinson family builds their life motto around the celebration of failure.  For without failure, there would be no great ideas or inventions.  I hope to be a teacher that promotes creativity in everything my students do.  Facts are necessary, but when assigning projects, why not let the students incorporate their own ideas and use them?  I think if education promoted more creativity, the world would be an incredibly different place, and there may even be more world peace…  Creativity opens the door to openness and acceptance of diversity.  If creativity were to begin in the classroom, it would inevitably flow beyond the school doors into real life!  Creativity could change the world!