My philosophy in teaching incorporates respect, engagement, and investment. These three broad ideas are necessary for both teachers and students so that teaching and learning can take place. One earns respect by his/her actions, and as teachers we have to show respect and care towards our students to receive respect from our students. Furthermore, students and teachers need to be engaged and invested into the process, which is why I take the time and energy it takes to plan project-based teaching and learning.
The rationale for both the need to incorporate project-based learning and my own teaching is that I aim for student engagement and investment into their learning to promote critical thinking and problem solving. I am to do this through varied text “includes authentic, interesting, and current issues that affect your people’s daily lives” (Daniels & Zemelman, 2004, p. 15). In the sample Ebola PBL unit, which I will refer to throughout this rationale, my students will contextualize the information due to the theme of Ebola, which is an important world-wide issue which students are currently captivated by and elicit several emotions from students. Likewise, when teaching my students, I intend to teach in the way that Pogrow (2009) describes “Teacher actions that turn lessons into a collective experience by creating a story or contexts that produces excitement and other emotions central to acquiring and consciously processing the key content ideas and knowledge”. Furthermore, I have incorporated several forms of reading which Daniels and Zemelman define as successful content-area reading such as up-to-date articles, primary sources such as audio and written diaries, related fiction and nonfiction text, and various media sources(Daniels & Zemelman, 2004, p. 15).
However, having the reading material is not enough, but how it is read and used to promote student writing and critical thinking is also a key. As a teacher I would, and for this PBL unit I have, use a student-centered cooperative learning environment in which the teacher is actively engaged in guiding groups of students and helping them in their investigation, learning, and projects. Through the student-centered approach, I have created weekly projects that my students will work on based on their choice, which will increase in demand from the students as weeks progress, thus providing scaffolded learning. Furthermore, students will do various readings and have incentives to do the reading through the use of blogging that they will be required to do. In class, students will also be working as a group in stations and jigsaw groups weekly which will allow students to collaborate and build from the schema and experiences of their peers while building the stamina and skills needed for the weekly projects.
This plan supports the statements made by Rycik and Irving (2005) that “Young adolescents need the opportunity to learn literacy through experiences that provide both challenge and security” as I have provided and will provide challenges in content and expectations along with the security needed in the form of project proposals, weekly structures, exit tickets, class meetings, etc. (p. 7). Furthermore, according to Rycik and Irving (2005), “When readers show a high level of engagement, they have an inclination to find interest in what they read, and they feel confident that they can make sense of even a difficult text” (p. 10). Thus, achieving my desired goal of student engagement and investment into their learning.
As one can imagine, this type of teaching and learning takes engagement and investment of the teacher prior to that of the student. This is the type of teaching and learning I believe in, where students and teachers have respect for each other and the rigorous process they are going through together.
The rationale for both the need to incorporate project-based learning and my own teaching is that I aim for student engagement and investment into their learning to promote critical thinking and problem solving. I am to do this through varied text “includes authentic, interesting, and current issues that affect your people’s daily lives” (Daniels & Zemelman, 2004, p. 15). In the sample Ebola PBL unit, which I will refer to throughout this rationale, my students will contextualize the information due to the theme of Ebola, which is an important world-wide issue which students are currently captivated by and elicit several emotions from students. Likewise, when teaching my students, I intend to teach in the way that Pogrow (2009) describes “Teacher actions that turn lessons into a collective experience by creating a story or contexts that produces excitement and other emotions central to acquiring and consciously processing the key content ideas and knowledge”. Furthermore, I have incorporated several forms of reading which Daniels and Zemelman define as successful content-area reading such as up-to-date articles, primary sources such as audio and written diaries, related fiction and nonfiction text, and various media sources(Daniels & Zemelman, 2004, p. 15).
However, having the reading material is not enough, but how it is read and used to promote student writing and critical thinking is also a key. As a teacher I would, and for this PBL unit I have, use a student-centered cooperative learning environment in which the teacher is actively engaged in guiding groups of students and helping them in their investigation, learning, and projects. Through the student-centered approach, I have created weekly projects that my students will work on based on their choice, which will increase in demand from the students as weeks progress, thus providing scaffolded learning. Furthermore, students will do various readings and have incentives to do the reading through the use of blogging that they will be required to do. In class, students will also be working as a group in stations and jigsaw groups weekly which will allow students to collaborate and build from the schema and experiences of their peers while building the stamina and skills needed for the weekly projects.
This plan supports the statements made by Rycik and Irving (2005) that “Young adolescents need the opportunity to learn literacy through experiences that provide both challenge and security” as I have provided and will provide challenges in content and expectations along with the security needed in the form of project proposals, weekly structures, exit tickets, class meetings, etc. (p. 7). Furthermore, according to Rycik and Irving (2005), “When readers show a high level of engagement, they have an inclination to find interest in what they read, and they feel confident that they can make sense of even a difficult text” (p. 10). Thus, achieving my desired goal of student engagement and investment into their learning.
As one can imagine, this type of teaching and learning takes engagement and investment of the teacher prior to that of the student. This is the type of teaching and learning I believe in, where students and teachers have respect for each other and the rigorous process they are going through together.