RR #2

     1)   The focus of learning communities is for you, and also your community to grow in learning. Through this shared growth, your communities overall goal will be achieved. Also by helping your community achieve a goal, in turn you may also be able to complete the many goals of your own personal classroom.

     2)   The benefits of a learning community are virtually endless to both the teacher and the students. Some common benefits of learning communities include:

a.     Decreased teacher isolation

b.     Shared work responsibility

c.      Increased commitment of all teacher to the overall mission

d.     Power learning for both teacher and student

e.     Systematic change

     3)   Learning communities are a very positive experience for the teachers that are apart of them. It allows the teachers to feel less confined and isolated in a traditional classroom setting. It allows the teacher to be able to bounce ideas back and forth of colleagues that are part of the community itself. It also allows for the support of fellow teachers to help you reach a goal.

    4)   These learning communities are especially important for the children in the classroom. It allows them to receive an overall fuller learning experience from both their teacher and the teacher’s peers. It allows the children to also learn about shared responsibility and teaches them to be able to handle their share of the workload. Communities also expose the kids to real life learning experiences that they may not have had in a traditional classroom setting.

     5)   The components of the shared vision are simple within the learning community. The teachers shared vision is to work together to complete the common goal or goals at hand. This will also help promote this concept to the kids within the classroom. If they see their teachers working toward a common goal, then they in turn will follow suit.

     6)   This relates directly to our PBL project that our group is doing. As a group, we are creating a community this semester. We are all striving for the same goal, to complete our project. 

Chapter 2 Reflection

1. Learning Communities are implemented to help those in the community reach a common goal by learning to learn together. This is especially important for a classroom environment because it helps everyone within the classroom grow. 
2. There are many benefits for utilizing Learning Communities many of which include decreased teacher isolation, increased commitment to the mission, shared responsibility, more powerful learning, and a higher likelihood of fundamental, systematic change. These are are very important skills for every student in every classroom.
3. Learning Communities allows teachers to use other teachers as a resource for success. This also means that teachers must fully support the PBL experience, if they don't fully support the experience then it will be a failure. 
4. These communities help students learn to work with others, give and receive constructive criticism, collaborate with others, hold shared values and beliefs, learn to improve themselves constantly and see themselves as life long learners. 
5. The components for the shared vision in the learning community are the same as for any group working towards the same common goal. They follow the general guide lines of an average group project where every person in the group must work towards the same general goal. They must also communicate properly to each other. This allows students to learn how to do this same type of activity in the real world. 
6. This relates fully to what we are doing in our own project. We all have our own portion to work on to make the work load even, yet we are all working together to collaboratively come up with ideas and make changes to the general plan.  

Chapter 2 reflection

1. The focus of learning communities is to grow your class or community. This is to help your community become better than it already is. It also can help you better the community to be what you would like it to be. 

2.Learning communities can help to allow students to co-construct knowledge, while being able to learn about other types of people. It allows for growth within the school and the community, to make it a better place. 

3.I think to have a well-functioning learning community we will need to have strong teacher student relationships. The teacher can help to encourage the communities to take a more PBL approach. The teacher can also help the community to make connections outside of the classroom and step back from the students work allowing them to be accountable for what they are doing. It also allows for collaboration between teachers. 

4.Through learning communities students will be able to take many different approaches to their role in the project. A critical thinker, a teacher, a learner, and a supporter.

5.These components for shared vision in learning communities are very similar to a basic team project. I say this because the goal is a shared vision. This helps students to learn accountability, and learn to take different approaches to solving a problem. 

6. Our project uses a lot of community involvement and will encourage the students to better their own skills, and maybe spark some new food related projects that could better the community. 

Website evaluations

Post your websites here under your name so that we can make sure no one is doing the same one!

Nick - Nutrition
http://www.healthychildren.org/English/healthy-living/nutrition/Pages/default.aspx
http://www.helpguide.org/life/healthy_eating_children_teens.htm
http://www.superkidsnutrition.com/

Jen - Safety
http://kidshealth.org/kid/watch/house/safe_in_kitchen.html#
http://www.cyh.com/HealthTopics/HealthTopicDetailsKids.aspx?p=335&np=288&id=1685
http://www.parents.com/baby/safety/food/toddler-kitchen-safety-basics/

Sarah - Culture
http://www.simplebites.net/11-childrens-books-that-help-build-a-healthy-food-culture/
http://www.ehow.com/way_5229180_multi_cultural-food-children.html
http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/food.html

Maps

We will be using Japanese food for our people to bring into our class in relation to cooking safety, as well as healthy eating, and culture. It helps to bring students understanding of this culture much higher than it was before. They will be able to learn recipes that their pen pals have given them from the professionals in these restaurants.
 Click here to see our Google Doc for more information!

Reading Reflection One

1. As you start the journey to Project Based Learning you must keep in mind that it is just that, a journey. You must be flexible and willing to rethink how the classroom was originally set up to function. As teachers we must also remember that the students have more knowledge in this area. Therefore we must be able to learn from our students as well as teach them. 
2. The advantages to PBL are numerous. Students are engaging in real-world activities and practice the strategies they will be using in the real world. They also are learning to work collaboratively, technology is integrated, projects are the centerpiece of curriculum and most importantly students can work with others across geographic boundaries, bringing together new ideas. 
3. For the students the benefits of PBL are plenty. They develop communication skills to break cultural misunderstandings to find an understanding, broaden their abilities to inquire, and learn to be flexible with their working hours to meet deadlines for others. Students may also gain a further understanding of how the world works and may even feel as if through communication and understanding of other people, individuals can do something about changing the world. 
4. However, there are a few issues with the PBL approach. A major problem is getting the educational community and parents to agree. For the education community some older less willing to change teachers may fight the changes. They may feel as if PBL is not going to teach students as well as traditional lesson plans. As for parents, they may have issues with students using technology in the classroom for they may view technology as a negative or as a toy. 
5.  New Technology High is an example where PBL is the cornerstone of the curriculum. This is allows students to use technology just as easily as pen and paper in the classroom. This allows students to learn with PBL as the main teaching method in the classroom.  

Reading Reflection 1

   1)   One of the major things that a teacher that is new to PBL needs to remember is that they are no longer the content experts for their students. The students that they are teaching have now shifted into the content experts in the field. The teacher must also adapt to the students formulating their own questions to pursue, as opposed to the teacher being the one to propose the questions for the children.

   2)   There are many benefits for students who engage in PBL. First, students are engaging in real world problem solving, not just book work. Second, students get the chance to work in collaboration with other students. Finally, they are introduced to forms of technology that they may have not know before, and learn how to be proficient with it.

   3)   As students participate in PBL, real world problem solving strategies are the main thing learned throughout this process. The PBL approach allows students to broaden their horizons in ways that traditional curriculums wouldn’t allow.

   4)   One of the key issues when discussing PBL, especially with technology in use, is a student’s parent. In order to successfully integrate technology into PBL the parents need to be on board. At first parents may see it as video games or web surfing, but once they see the benefits their children will reap from using next technologies the possibilities are endless.

   5)   New Tech High is putting PBL into effect as a cornerstone of their curriculum. Students are selected by lottery to attend the school and participate in heavy project based learning. This new type of teaching has showed positive benefits to the schools students, and is giving them real word skills that jobs are looking for.  

Reading Reflection Chapter 1

1. I think we need to keep in mind that this is not the traditional approach while we take this journey through project based learning. We are so stuck in the "this is how its always done" mentality and some of us are not good with change. This will also shift our teacher role and that is okay, we are still the teacher and they look to us but we don't have to be the content expert anymore. 
2. I think a huge benefit of PBL is authenticity. It has very authentic assessment and learning taking place. It helps us to never stop learning, even us as teachers can continue to learn more things through PBL. A huge benefit of PBL is it plays very well into differentiated instruction, which means each student can take it and make it their own. This in turn will make learning much more fun. 
3. Project based learning is known as the 21st century approach. I think that it will teach students 21st century skills, and we all know that those are very different than what they were. It helps students learn inquiry, critical thinking, great communication skills, and something we all need to work on... public speaking skills. 
4. I know that there will always be those teachers who teach towards the test, looking at the way PBL is set up, I think that those teachers will struggle with it. They will be more interested in the material rather than creating 21st century students. Knowing myself I am OCD about time and how much time something takes to do, I think for people like myself, we will struggle with how much time will PBL take up in our classrooms. 
5. For New Technology High PBL is the centerpiece for their learning, the culture of the school accepts and supports the approach. I really like how students always have their computers within reach, this is something I know my high school would have never trusted us with, for me this creates a great deal of trust between teachers and students. I also think that having the research behind the creation of the school really validates PBL and shows that this is a great method for students to learn. 

Concept Map

Our final project is a classroom cookbook that our students will create with all of the prior knowledge. When looking at our concept map you start at safety and move in a counterclockwise direction, that will be the way the students build knowledge for the final.

HELLO SALTY KIDS