Creating Meaningful Questions-"CFQ"
The activities in the module have definitely made me think differently about project-based learning. I believe I had about 3 different drafts of my essential question for my unit. Creating meaningful questions is essential to the whole frame of my project-based unit. I learned that the best way to make my project meaningful was to think about the students in the community and use open-ended questioning. The Interactive Learning Program helped me identify the correct types of questions I should have. In my unit plan, I have the following categories of curriculum framing questions (CFQs).Essential Question
Of all the CFQs, this was by far the most difficult for me. Creating a meaningful essential question reminded me of how scientists must question things. In the scientific method, a purpose for the experiment must be established from the very beginning. Creating this lesson is no different. There must be a purpose to the students learning. I learned that creating this type of question should be open-ended, but at the same time it needs to be specific to the learner.Unit Questions
Unit questions are much easier for me to brainstorm and many of the drafts for my essential question became my unit questions. Still, these questions are open-ended and are created to help answer the essential question. In my unit plan, I have four unit questions so far. Again, it is still difficult for me to create open-ended questions that are meaningful to students. These questions are still very important to frame your project and base activities around.Content Questions
I consider these questions the "Need to know" for students to be successful in their project. These questions can be answered with definite answers, unlike the essential or unit questions. Some examples of these for my projects are:
What is an ecosystem?
What are the effects a disease may have on a
species?
What are factors that could be fragile in an
ecosystem?
In what biome is the
ecosystem located?
Keeping Learning Focused and Structured
As a second year teacher, I find it difficult to connect a learning goal to the students' interests. A major goal of mine as a teacher is to make learning more engaging and motivating for my students. I believe this module has taught me the two major aspects of project-based planning that will help me reach my goal. Without good questioning, the students are limited to where they can take a project. Also, without an appropriate assessment, students lose the motivation to continue learning.Finding Appropriate Assessment for My Unit Project
I mentioned before that I wanted to learn more about assessment in projects and throughout projects. This module has helped me brainstorm some strategies that I will definitely use in my unit plan.My training on reading strategies reminds me of the way we develop assessment strategies. When planning my project, I have to think about ways to assess students before, during, and after the project. There are so many different strategies found here at intel.com. I feel like my project will be much more developed with these strategies in place.
I have always heard of summative and formative assessment, but I have never really understood the difference. I learned that in project-based learning, formative assessment occurs before and durning the project and summative assessment is your end-product assessment. Knowing this has helped me grasp the idea of assessment throughout the project, not just at the end.
This week has been a busy one, but I have gained so much useful information on how to question and how to assess. I am looking forward to creating a complete and meaningful unit that I can use this school year!
