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.
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.
4. Phase IV: Put hands into action
To start emulating the project in real life of each student and teacher, they will need to look for the patterns and their relationships among the strategies made. Make their reflections on the project made and the possible improvements that can be generated after this is done.
How can students and teachers use the resources to help with their personal and environmental development using the subject learned knowledge?
Experience : Indicators and action
The indicators established in the step before will be measured in this phase. These indicators need to have an impact on the system, the step by step of how the project was made, and the emotional status of each student and teacher.
Here, the student experiments on the project and sees what went wrong or what came out well. Everything needs to be written in their journals to make sure in which step they missed something or where they can make improvements.
Students will have their self-evaluation to start getting self-conscious and self-governance in their actions.
5. Phase V: Opportunities and Self-Reflection
To self-evaluate and self-reflection on how was this process done to start doing all this process again but with a different point of view and new ideas on how can be done.
What do teachers and students need to work on to create developmental phases?
Experience I : Inner reflection
Reflecting on our thinking and emotions behind the work that has been done provides an internal development. Sharing these reflections and being examined by their peers will create new connections and a community inside and outside the educational community.
Students and teachers will design engagements that may allow them to discover and express their unique essence during this phase. Also, it will create a shared language that may create a unique culture in a regenerative system path.
Experience II : Questions and celebration
Create questions that could redesign the structure made and evolve it into a better one. This will help to continuously evolve and design new ways of work, creating innovation and methodologies that could help students and the community through time and generations.
