Yesterday, my son and I sat down and did some work for a project based learning unit I am working on. It was an amazing experience and helped me see how vital it is for schools to challenge students to think creatively, solve problems, and most importantly articulate what they have done.
We are working on a 6th grade interdisciplinary project where we will be using standards from social studies, language arts, and math as we create and build the ancient Chinese city Chang’an and use that as a platform to take learning to a whole new level. We have a massive idea with so many options, but for now we are focusing on the initial phases of the project titled: Building Chang’an
We have a long way to go in the project, but we should have everything ready to roll when school starts. I share this update because my son and I made two screencasts and to me this was extremely powerful in helping me gauge my son and his ability to share what he knows. It was powerful for me as a parent and educator.
I learned so many things yesterday actually doing the project and actually working with my son(student). Another blog post will be coming on these key things, but for now I will focus on the project.
First, we moved everything over to OneNote . It is so much easier to organize and scaffold lessons, projects, and ideas.
Second, my son and I made two screencasts to practice. He has never done this before so it was good for us to do it together. The screencasts are more practice than anything else, but we want to document our building and construction journey so we can help educators realize it can be done and it is not difficult.
You can check our two screencasts below.
Great idea and screen casts!