Bruner Scheets Ch 8 RR

Building Connections and Branching Out

To have a well planned, thought out project for your class, it is important to go beyond the normal classroom, taking unconventional methods for the students to learn. Since almost everyone has access to technology, using it in your projects makes it simple for students to share their work with their parents, community leaders, and other students around the globe. It is important to allow your students to connect with experts to enhance their learning experience. If you are studying government, have them talk to local politicians; if it is about marine biology, find a local biologist or even try to set up one over Skype, so your students have a chance to discuss the topic with people that are doing it everyday. By expanding your students' learning circles to other peers around the world, you are allowing them to see a different perspective and lifestyle that will enhance not only their learning, but their cultural awareness as well. Another amazing opportunity for students is to find something that they don't like or something that is wrong with their community and having a project to raise awareness for this to make the community better. They are able to meet with community council members and speak up for something that they believe in. This will give them confidence to go out and do great things, and their only children at this time!
An important part to project-based learning is that you, as the teacher, create a scaffold or a mold for the students and then you let the students lead. This builds their self-confidence, communication skills, and teamwork abilities, all needed for the real world outside of school. By extending the benefits of these projects (keeping a website up after the project is done for anything new to be added to) is a great way to make the students feel like they are a part of something bigger. This also gives the chance for the community to get involved, even if school is not in session.
For our project, this chapter helps us by telling us that we, the teachers, don't have to be experts on everything. We have experts that we can lean on, while enhancing the education of our students. We could bring in local news workers or even try to arrange for our students to go to them and experience what it is like on a news station. How does the weather man/woman figure out their information? What is it like to be on site of something happening? This could be an amazing experience for our students and by broadening the possibilities, we can make their education memorable.