First Science Project of the Year. That first project is always exciting and a little nerve wracking... even for the teacher. You never know how it will turn out. You create the guidelines and then let the students go. The best description of good project work someone once told me was, "It's fluid". You have to let it seattle into whatever shape it will. If we control it too much as teachers we are limiting what the students get out of the project. The lessons learned it a project should far exceed the curriculum goals; we are not teaching students to become books or some vessel to hold information. We want students to synthesize information, but also create new knowledge and critically assess what they are reading. We DO want students to argue and disagree with their groups, because that is real life and we are preparing them to handle disagreements responsibly. Students need to extend what they are reading and make connections. They need to organize their information, not just sorting it into the teachers graphic organizer. Students want real world problems and to understand how this impacts the world; what is the purpose behind what they are doing.
And we as teachers need to step back and trust that students will make mistakes, but if hey are engaged that they will go back and correct their mistakes. They will challenge themselves and each other. As a teacher it's hard to step back and more importantly to know how far back to step. We must still conference with students and give feedback, but that also means allowing for students to go back and revise. Why does every mistake need to result in a C or a D? Who hasn't made a mistake at work? Fear of failure results in just more failure than if we just tried. Let kids play and explore the content, but be there to support them and guide them back when they get too far off the path.
This was my passion filled rant on projects and if I failed and made a million grammatical errors, I'll go back and hit edit later.
