Project Based Learning Reflection

I looked for some potential ideas for a math project based lesson and here is a potential activity that students could perform.

Math Project

I can see project based learning helping with student engagement, as long as the project was something of interest to a student. I also see how it would help integrate technology into a lesson and help students be more connected with the material.

The essential question is the driving force behind the project, so it will greatly impact student interest and engagement in the lesson. It also sets up the types of assessments that students could complete to show mastery of a particular topic, which impacts the quality of assessments that students return.

Problem Based Learning

The activity "A Bad Day for Sandy" reframes my understanding of PBL in that I see it leaves a lot of open ended questions for the students to investigate. Without really requiring a lot application of formulas or specific skills, students can work on answering questions and focus on defending their answers with reasons.

A unit project would be quite an undertaking. If you could find ways to start units with guiding questions and problems that students progressively answer as they move along a unit, then I could see incorporating problem based learning in for students. My guess, though, is that this is a time consuming and difficult practice to pull off.