Reflection 3

The big ideas are the main points of the project.  In the text it discusses it in terms of the curriculum.  In relevance to our project, it is also the main points.  When it comes to our project, the main points or big idea would be promoting healthy eating, active lifestyle, and our celebration.  The celebration will be our 5k run.

21st century skills are skills that go beyond subject mastery.  They are related to important skills, attitudes, and habits.  It is also important to imagine how your project plan can involve these skills.  Some of the skills are analyzing, evaluating, and creating.  Some examples of analyzing would be examining, explaining, and investigating.  Some examples of evaluating are judging, selecting, and justifying.  Finally, some examples of creating are adapting, anticipating, and combining.

When discussing any type of 21st century learning it is important to question whether we are preparing the students for the world beyond school.  21st century literacy goes beyond just being able to read and write.  The main points of 21st century literacy are digital-age literacy, inventive thinking, effective communication, and high productivity.

The main idea of learning inside and outside the classroom is effectively finding ways to have students learn outside of the classroom.  With new items of technology such as mobile phones and mp3 players have increased the probability of students doing this.  Students now have plenty of new opportunities for deep learning with things such as websites.  Students tend to learn better when things are visible and discussable.  One way to make things more visible and discussable are things such as mind maps.  Mind maps and objects that are similar are more popular with things such as Google Earth and Visual Thesaurus as representation tools.  Students expressing themselves has become more popular than it has ever been.  Now that the internet is at our fingertips it is very simple for students to share ideas on sites such as myspace or facebook.  Collaboration among students can become more prevalent when group projects are implemented.  Research is now also very simple for students to access.  The web makes it very simple for students to do quick research about anything imaginable.  Project management really allows students to develop time management, work, finding sources, and hear feedback from others.  Reflection can be highlighted by reconsidering or thinking of ideas to make acceptable work , masterful work.

The students in my group should be using all of the essential learning functions during our project.  The essential learning functions will allow us to become better learners and teachers, but also allow us to finish our project successfully.  It is also important to use 21st century learning while doing our project.  Doing so will allow us to develop skills that are useful beyond the classroom.