[etni] Re: project work - home/school work
- From: "Bari Nirenberg" <bnirenberg@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: laurenmadeline@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:39:44 +0300
I should have made a few points clearer. First of all, I was only
referring to my five point students. For my other students
(3-pointers this year), I let them try to find information on their
own, but I also bring them articles that I've found and printed out.
When your students are working in groups, this isn't so hard to do,
because there aren't as many projects.
As for Internet access, I have to point out that I do NOT work with
"privileged" kids -- I work in a comprehensive high school in Beer
Sheva and many of our students come from families with financial
problems. However, I've found that most of them DO have computers and
Internet access and when they work in groups, at least one or two of
the group members always has access to the Internet (this was NOT the
case a few years ago). In addition, I will let my students go to the
library or the computer room during class time if they need to.
I've found that when I devote too much class time to project work,
some of the groups spend more time goofing around than they do working
and others finish and end up with nothing to do. I should point out,
though, that they are not required to hand in their projects on the
last day of project work in class. The only thing I ask them to do by
then is let me see their rough drafts so that I can correct them.
Once everything has been handed back to them, I give them another week
or so to get their projects ready at home (this is more "busy work"
than anything else -- typing, designing a cover page, doing any
creative work that I've required and planning their oral presentation
if they haven't done so already).
I don't know what "worthwhile" really means. I expect my students to
hand in a project that has met all of the requirements laid out by me
and is four to five pages long (the body of the project, not including
the cover page, table of contents, introduction, conclusion or
bibliography), with each student contributing one to two pages.
Again, this is for a five point class. I require less of my weaker
students, of course.
Although I started out doing projects that included research questions
(What is the connection between x and y?), I now try to do "lighter"
projects on topics that the kids find more interesting. One of my
favorites was the project that my five-pointers did on sports last
year. They each had to pick a major sporting event and then "cover
the event" as if they were there. The project included the history of
the event and/or the sport, an "interview" with a famous athlete (they
didn't actually interview anyone -- they wrote the questions and
answered them based on the information they found), a section on
injuries common to the sport and a description of the sport itself,
any equipment used, etc. The kids enjoyed doing the project (yes,
even the girls -- one group of girls did their project on Wimbledon
and it was excellent, as was their very creative oral presentation)
and it was even fun to read. This didn't take any longer than two
weeks in class (not including oral presentations) and it got the
students reading and writing. In short, it achieved its purpose
without demanding an unreasonable amount of class time.
Bari
On Wed, Jun 25, 2008 at 9:29 AM, laurie ornstein
<laurenmadeline@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> In response to Bari's comments about having kids do their Internet
> research at home...
>
> This is fine if the pupils have Internet access at home and or access to a
> good library. Another point to consider is if they are capable of gleaning
> the information on their own.
>
> I've found that I must devote a lot more time to the projects, and in
> class, if I want to see worthwhile results. Some of the work we do in the
> computer room. Not all.
>
> Laurie
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