GUIDE TO CREATING A PROJECT-BASED LEARNING PLAN IN A REGENERATIVE WAY

How can teachers develop the student's purpose and personal development, using the learned subjects as a project-based learning experience?

The Goal:

To create a Project-Based Learning Experience to lead students in a deeper level of learning outcome in calculus to enrich their performance in these subjects. Developing their critical and systemic thinking during the project.

Attributes Gained:

The skills and knowledge will be obtained through the process. First of all, taking into consideration the inner motivation of each student to engage them in this learning task and being persistent during the whole time. This internal process of looking for their inner motivation and personal agency will help them for life to look for it every time they feel lost and with no sense of belonging.

They will start to notice how they can apply this knowledge in real-life situations that could help their surroundings. Also, the student will be centered and active learners approaching the knowledge given in their interest, understanding the outcomes that might get from the project experience.

Creating indicators is another skill that the students will get. Through the indicators, the project will be evaluated, taking care of the process.

During the whole project experience, reflection and self-feedback must be needed in each student. This allows each person to see if there are things to be modified, how the project could affect the surroundings and how they put the knowledge given in the project.

Formative Evaluation Process:

The reflection is a way to assess how the project worked. Making daily questions about the impact of each project on their surroundings, and in the individual could start creating a self-reflection and self-governance in the development plan. Questions are intended to create a self-reflection on how the world is and how people are dealing with all the problems.

This could be made by creating a journal of the process made in each stage. In the beginning, might be difficult because people are not used to creating this kind of journal, but it will be common once it is started. This evaluation process will be an internal measurement of how they feel and act in their daily life.

Apart from this personal assessment description, creating a journal with the project experience plan is important. Each project will have its indicators which will be divided into different phases. The creation of an image of how the project will be when it is finished will help the teachers and students set up these stages and indicators.

1. Phase I: Mapping the potential

To explore the inner motivation and potential in students to integrate them with the subjects they are dealing with, starting to create their purpose and path in their lives.

How can students start creating their narratives regarding the exploration of their inner motivations and potentials?

Experience I : Discovery

The teacher's task is to guide the student to discover their inner motivation, to learn, and encourage them to engage in these learning experiences. In this first step, the student will start creating their journal, considering what they like and why they like them. They need to pay attention to details when they are doing their regular life, studying, watching TV, reading a book, spending time with friends, and with the several activities they might have inside and outside the class.

Also, they need to write how they are feeling about the different activities they are doing. How do they react to some issues or problems they are dealing with and what they are doing to solve this. They will be creating a motivational measurement in their journal and a self-feedback.

Experience II: The engagement

During the class, the teacher will provide the curiosity and the things that students like and are motivated on, which can be related to the calculus subject. The teacher can introduce fun activities to make them realize how the subject learned can be expressed in a lot of different contexts.

Also, a good way of engaging students is to make teams and start exploring and investigating how this subject learned to be found in their motivations and the things they like. Here, they will start creating their critical thinking by investigating where and how the subjects learned can be found in their desires and interests.

2. Phase II: Explore the creativity

Examine and research what project students want to realize, creating different strategies that will contribute to the class's learning objectives.

How can students demonstrate their capacities development through a project, transferring their knowledge and skills into it?

Experience I: Research

The teacher will give the students examples and objectives on how and where they can use the subject learned in real life to develop their projects and make teams regarding their interests.

In this stage, students will be investigating the subject and its implementation. The teacher will be facilitating this research and accurately guiding them on the application.

Experience II: Analyst and start small

In this phase, the student needs to analyze the situation of the project they will be creating. This analyst may include a description of the current situation and a description of the desired situation. This will make them visualize how the project will be, once it is finished and the consequences this might have regarding their surroundings and the system they are immersed in.

It is needed to emphasize that the project will start with a small prototype and experiment with it in the environment and system-related. For example, if the students are interested in cars and engines, probably the best is to start with a bicycle and a small motor engine that gives the impulse and velocity in the bicycle.

3. Phase III: Incentive the community and co-design

To co-design the project learning-based making students teams regarding their research and motivations. Creative initiatives are fundamental for human beings and their evolution. The teachers should foster this creative thinking in their students. This needs to be done with responsible measurements and structured work.

How can students work together as a team instead of unevenly dividing the work or unloading all of the responsibility onto one team member of the group?

Experience I : Nature and its patterns

Discovering the tools that the teachers and students have in their surroundings. It is significant to look for natural models (organisms and ecosystems) that could address the project they want to create.

Here we will talk about natural patterns and how nature works to create projects with biomimicry samples. This knowledge will give them a different perspective of how work can be done and with the vision of a systemic system.

The context of how the project is realized needs to be analyzed because the students can start creating a project that might help their community. They need to think about how these subjects can be integrated into real life and the consequences they might get at the implementation.

Experience II : Explore possibilities

In this phase, the students need to explore the possibilities and the knowledge needed to create the project. Now that they know what to do and the team they will be working with, it is important to visualize the whole context. The indicators need to be established at this step, making the project in different phases and measurements.