Project based learning

Group Podcast and Mapping:

Students will be creating a map of geographic landmarks in the eight geographic regions using mymaps through Google Maps to plot each location.  Once the landmarks in the national park in each region have been plotted, students will create a podcast that allows listeners to find out why they might want to visit those national parks. Before student start on their project, the teacher will explain and demonstrate ways to use the following geographic tools:  absolute location, relative location, cardinal directions, intermediate directions, hemispheres, major lines of latitude and longitude(use flocabulary and the teacherspayteacher worksheet)Explain local landforms and identify examples (mountains, valleys, hills) (teachers pay teachers worksheet again). Explain local bodies of water and identify examples (rivers, lakes, ponds, creeks) (teachers pay teachers worksheet again).  The teacher will also demonstrate how to effectively use OneNote and Teams to collaborate.

Students will use the Frayer Model to start drafting what they will include in their project. Students will need to include the latitude and longitude of their city. They will need to include why people would visit national parks in a certain geographic region, explain the importance of water and land features, and also explain why other water/land features are important to the regions. They will need to explain the physical characteristics of the area, including the surrounding areas. Students should also add what hemisphere we’re in and what geographic region we’re in and how that affects the climate of the region. Once students finish their Frayer Model worksheet, we will do a gallery walk to critique the different drafts, so students know what to add and take away to their podcast script.  The gallery walk and student collaboration will be done via Microsoft OneNote and Microsoft Teams. Students will have to answer a series of discussion questions about the gallery walk to ensure participation. 

This covers the first unit of the year.  Since this project is technology-heavy it is a good starting point for students to try and test out different technologies that we will be using in class.  The teacher is facilitating during the student work and establishing a strong online presence by actively responding to questions and making comments in real-time about student work.  This project is also cross-curricular, so other subjects are involved as well.  This allows the students to be able to interact with more than one teacher if they have any questions.  This will also allow the student to start their use of OneNote.  This will be a class notebook that contains the information for each unit and can provide discussion rooms and private collaboration pages for the students' work.  

The teacher will establish their norms during the first two weeks of class before diving into the information.  The expectations will be new, but fresh in the student's minds.  The first for student engagement will be in the form of the gallery walk.  Students will be able to look at and critique their classmate's drafts before the students move further with the project.  The expectations will be pinned to the top to the page on OneNote and the discussion board on Schoology to ensure that students are reminded of the norms and expectations.  The teacher should set a minimum and maximum character limit to make it easier for the teacher to respond to student comments and questions in real-time.  Common questions will be answered then pinned to the top of the OneNote page and schoology page so that students have an easy way to go back to any questions they might have forgotten the answers to.  This gallery walk will help engage students and have them buy into the project.  This will also help the teacher to evaluate how partners or teams are working by seeing the activity of the students within the discussion board and their contribution to their OneNote page. 

Based on the rubric provided, we will grade, look at, and listen to the maps and podcasts as a class.  Obviously the teacher will determine the final grade, but having the students take an active role in grading will help with the project buy-in.  Students will have been provided a rubric, group contract, and self-reflection rubric at the bringing of the task.  Students should actively refer back to these documents while completing the project.  The teacher should also remind students during the discussion to make sure that they are following the directions and the rubric.  As the students watch their classmate's participating, they will fill out a rubric via google forms that are done in real-time during the presentations.  This will ensure that students are actively participating during the presentations.  Students must note their takeaways from the presentations and suggestions for project improvement at the end of the google form.  

The students will also fill out their self-evaluation via google forms based on their group contract that they made together at the beginning of the project.  Having the students grade their own and other's work will eventually make them intrinsically motivated instead of extrinsically, which will make online learning easier for students during the rest of the course. The teacher should also perform their own form of self-evaluation.  They should actively reflect on the lessons and the student participation and questions and confer with peers about their thoughts on the lesson.  The teacher can also send out a student survey asking for student feedback.