Talk:Project-based learning

On 22 Mar 2005, this article was nominated for deletion. See Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Project Based Learning. Rossami (talk) 04:57, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC) I am writing extensivly on this topic now. I am basically dog tired exhuasted at the moment, but I will recover sometime soon. Then I will straighten out grammar errors, and insert supporting links.

About Project Learning

Project learning is highly constructivist; the best book on the topic, What Children Bring to Light by Bonnie Shapiro, describes it that way, and further more shows how education is beneficial in ways similar to therapy. Constructivism is not unique; it is similar to Synergy from Benedict and Maslow, and also self-acutalization from Rogers and Maslow.

I immediately felt that project learning can be called "project science" or "group learning," with my preference being "project science." Project science does not exclude art; both in independent or group modes, the creative facilities work mentally to create conceptualizations, or collaboratively to create an actual project. These efforts are either imaginative or social: the key components of the "art of life."

Since I first contributed to this article, the above ideas have become my life in education. I worked in a teenage homeless shelter, and in an autistic school, and applied my learning as best as I could in the short times I worked in those places. I am likely heading back to autism where I will try to apply my extension of these ideas in my own way: "empathy as emotional communication."

I have been trying to find a position in a school that would propel me through to my masters and licensure, and then through to my doctorate. From my various "letters" I created a short paper describing my experiences. In every environment I successfully helped my students, but I was at constant odds with management. Empathy in education and therapy: My learning and experiences

Key components of science learning through projects are knowledge construction, along with the questioning of its components, and community: a new and more social version of the scientific method. Social revision of the scientific method

Project science and group learning are the polar opposite of didactic learning, especially top-down learning. I have learned that facilitating innovative learning is nothing new, it predates structured learning; it is tribally native. Benedict derived Synergy from successful Native Tribes, and it could be that the power that the US has had has been native all along.

Having said that I do not personally oppose testing, just the type of social engineering of the "high stakes testing" or the NCLB. I do not even oppose rote learning, such as with arithmetic drills, as long as it includes group participation. I do believe that project learning with a specific responsibility to the community has to replace didactic learning, and that didactic influences need to be resisted.

From Middle School Science on Wikiveristy

The word "project" from project Science is loaded.

I think I can put the issues that inspire project Science in bullet form:

• kids develop a relationship with the world as they become more aware of it
• as they begin to socialize and interrelate, this relationship develops into a shared conception
• when they get to school, and teachers try to straighten them on certain misconceptions,
• they think the teachers are crazy

Kids will tell you what you want to hear, but they think they are really being taught patience with elders. As soon as they back with their friends, the misconceptions are restored, and all is well from their perspective.

The project, or group, science, strategy is to allow them to discover the realities of science on their own by providing them with much the same equipment that our early scientists had, such as prisms, telescopes, microscopes. Their misconceptions are not actually wrong so much as "intelligently wrong," and often the entire community holds the same misconceptions. Here is were the true value is; as the students develop scientific technique and learn how things really are, they go back home and tell their parents what they did. In this way the entire community gets educated -- now that's value.

Science today is seeing a rise in the social science; as we apply scientific technique to social situations, we are far better able to get from these situations the kinds of results we are looking for. When kids do this, they can better experiment with life and conclude earlier what it is that they are good at, and what they like to do. This gives them factors better chances of getting the highest potential out of life, of self-actualizing.John van v 23:12, 2 August 2007 (UTC) PROJECT BASE LEARNING IS A WASTE OF TIME GEES 21ST CENTURY LEARNING MY ASS TO HELL WITH PBL