Project-Based Inquiry Units for Young Children

Project-Based Inquiry Units for Young Children
Author: Colleen MacDonell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 135
Release: 2006-11-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1586833804

Set in the wider context of the project approach to learning, this book addresses the needs of both library media specialists and teachers in preschool, kindergarten, and primary grades. Educators who want to use stories and nonfiction to promote independent learning in young children will love this book. The reader will find practical hands-on activities where each sample lesson includes content, learning goals, and strategies for teaching and assessing learning. Librarians and teachers will learn not only how to guide young children through the research process, but also the important why to do this. These developmentally appropriate research lessons are ready to teach for grades preschool through second.

Keep It Real With PBL, Elementary

Keep It Real With PBL, Elementary
Author: Jennifer Pieratt
Publisher: Corwin Press
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2019-09-25
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1544369360

Plan enriching Project-Based Learning experiences with ease! The book′s companion website features an updated guide to help teachers integrate technology into PBL experiences for online and blended learning instruction. Is project-planning a project in and of itself? Does project-based learning (PBL) feel more like a pipe dream than a reality in your classroom? Dr. Jennifer Pieratt, a consultant and former teacher herself, knows just where you′re coming from. Developed from the author′s experience in the trenches of project-based learning over the past decade, this book will lead you through the planning process for an authentic PBL experience in a clear and efficient way. Project-based learning has been found to develop workforce readiness, innovation, and student achievement. In this book, the keys to implementing PBL effectively are explored in a simple, easy-to-use format. In addition to thought-provoking questions for journaling, readers will find a visually accessible style featuring • #realtalk soundbites that honor the challenges to implementing PBL • Tips and resources to support the project-planning process • Planning forms to guide you through planning your projects • Key terminology and acronyms in PBL • Exercises to help you reflect and process throughout your project plans If mastering a PBL framework is on your list, prepare to cross it off with the help of this book! Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards Winner

Project-based Learning with Young Children

Project-based Learning with Young Children
Author: Deborah Diffily
Publisher: Heinemann Educational Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2002
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780325004471

If your young students ask, "Why are we doing that?" if they wonder what school learning has to do with life outside of school, if YOU wonder how you will motivate, engage, or otherwise inspire your students to take schoolwork seriously, then read this book. Deborah Diffily and Charlotte Sassman give us pause to rethink the look, feel, and content of classrooms. They remind us that even the youngest students can fully participate in the life of their schools and their communities. And they show us just how successful children can be in conducting their own projects. The authors detail the characteristics of an Applied Learning project, a venture in which students connect school work to the real world and direct their own learning. They offer a timeline for one such project, and describe several more, with suggestions for additional project topics, research resources, and end products. Using numerous vignettes and examples from their own teaching experiences, they demonstrate that, above and beyond academic learning, children grow into contributing members of different groups by learning how to negotiate and compromise, direct their own learning, and make daily work choices that mesh classroom learning with real-world projects. As one six-year-old explained, "Projecks can be educkashional. Projecks can be fun." This book's purpose is the same: to help you understand the power, and the fun, of project-based learning. Try it and possibly change your life.

Young Investigators

Young Investigators
Author: Judy Harris Helm
Publisher: Teachers College Press
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2011
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0807751537

This bestselling book has been completely updated and expanded to help teachers use the project approach in child care centers, in preschools, and in kindergarten, 1st grade, and early childhood special education classrooms. For those new to using projects, the book introduces the approach and provides step-by-step guidance for conducting meaningful projects. Experienced teachers will find the teacher interviews, children's work, photographs (including full colour), and teacher journal entries used to document the project process in actual classrooms very useful. This popular, easy-to-use resource has been expanded to include these new features: explicit instructions and examples for incorporating standards into the topic selection and planning process; a variety of nature experiences, with examples that show how project work is an excellent way to connect children to the natural world; an update of the use of technology for both documentation and investigations, including use of the Web as well as and video and digital cameras; and more toddler projects that reflect our increased knowledge from recent mind/brain research about toddler understanding and learning.

Project-Based Learning Across the Disciplines

Project-Based Learning Across the Disciplines
Author: Acacia M. Warren
Publisher: Corwin Press
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2016-03-18
Genre: Education
ISBN: 150633508X

A turnkey and cost-effective PBL framework that is highly recommended! Are you tired of complex and costly PBL models? Support students’ academic, literacy, and life goals with the +1Pedagogy™ framework. You’ll learn to easily blend theory and practice, core standards, 21st Century Skills, and technology for a comprehensive – and unforgettable - learning experience. K-12 educators, coaches and administrators will learn to: Stimulate students’ interest across disciplines Implement a turnkey, interdisciplinary +1P framework Immerse students in authentic inquiry and real-world application Integrate college and career readiness and digital technology The book includes 9 inspiring sample units and over 30 helpful templates.

The Knowledge Gap

The Knowledge Gap
Author: Natalie Wexler
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2020-08-04
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0735213569

The untold story of the root cause of America's education crisis--and the seemingly endless cycle of multigenerational poverty. It was only after years within the education reform movement that Natalie Wexler stumbled across a hidden explanation for our country's frustrating lack of progress when it comes to providing every child with a quality education. The problem wasn't one of the usual scapegoats: lazy teachers, shoddy facilities, lack of accountability. It was something no one was talking about: the elementary school curriculum's intense focus on decontextualized reading comprehension "skills" at the expense of actual knowledge. In the tradition of Dale Russakoff's The Prize and Dana Goldstein's The Teacher Wars, Wexler brings together history, research, and compelling characters to pull back the curtain on this fundamental flaw in our education system--one that fellow reformers, journalists, and policymakers have long overlooked, and of which the general public, including many parents, remains unaware. But The Knowledge Gap isn't just a story of what schools have gotten so wrong--it also follows innovative educators who are in the process of shedding their deeply ingrained habits, and describes the rewards that have come along: students who are not only excited to learn but are also acquiring the knowledge and vocabulary that will enable them to succeed. If we truly want to fix our education system and unlock the potential of our neediest children, we have no choice but to pay attention.

Engaging Children's Minds

Engaging Children's Minds
Author: Lilian Gonshaw Katz
Publisher: Praeger
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2000
Genre: Early childhood education
ISBN: 9781567505016

This new edition incorporates many insights and strategies the authors have learned while working extensively with teachers to implement the project approach. Since the popular first edition was published in 1989, the authors have continued to help teachers around the world understand the benefits of this approach. Katz and Chard discuss in great detail the philosophical, theoretical, and research bases of project work. The typical phases are presented and detailed suggestions for implementing each one are described. Using specific examples, this book clarifies and articulates the process and benefits of the project approach. These specific examples outline how children's intellectual development is enhanced. Years of working with teachers and young children from preschool to primary age provide the authors with first hand experience for employing the project approach. Helpful guidelines will aid teachers in working with this approach comfortably in order to gain the interset of children and in order for those to grow and florish mentally.

Teaching Science in Elementary and Middle School

Teaching Science in Elementary and Middle School
Author: Joseph S. Krajcik
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 421
Release: 2014-01-23
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1136287760

Teaching Science in Elementary and Middle School offers in-depth information about the fundamental features of project-based science and strategies for implementing the approach. In project-based science classrooms students investigate, use technology, develop artifacts, collaborate, and make products to show what they have learned. Paralleling what scientists do, project-based science represents the essence of inquiry and the nature of science. Because project-based science is a method aligned with what is known about how to help all children learn science, it not only helps students learn science more thoroughly and deeply, it also helps them experience the joy of doing science. Project-based science embodies the principles in A Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards. Blending principles of learning and motivation with practical teaching ideas, this text shows how project-based learning is related to ideas in the Framework and provides concrete strategies for meeting its goals. Features include long-term, interdisciplinary, student-centered lessons; scenarios; learning activities, and "Connecting to Framework for K–12 Science Education" textboxes. More concise than previous editions, the Fourth Edition offers a wealth of supplementary material on a new Companion Website, including many videos showing a teacher and class in a project environment.

From Inquiry to Action

From Inquiry to Action
Author: Steven Zemelman
Publisher: Heinemann Educational Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780325062570

"Students learn to be active and responsible citizens by actually seeking to promote change, rather than just being-supposedly-prepared to be leaders in the future." -Steven Zemelman What really matters to your students? The issues in front of them at school and in life. When students inquire into those issues and know that their arguments will be read with a skeptical eye next week by the city council or published in the local newspaper, they're eager to research and find relevant information in nonfiction texts to bolster their claims. They become committed to write, revise, edit, and correct their grammar. They want to think broadly about what reasoning will be effective with their audience. Want that kind of engagement in your classroom? Whether you teach English, social studies, science, or math, From Inquiry to Action will show you how step-by-step. Its projects for civic-engagement help kids become not only college and career ready but citizen ready. And not ready someday, but right now Research, argument, speaking and listening, close reading, writing for real audiences and purposes, and collaboration? It's all here, growing through projects that give students choice, ownership over their learning, incredible motivation, and a sense of voice and power that only comes from focusing on and applying their learning to real-world situations. "It's not enough to just talk about change, or practice in mock legislatures," writes Steve Zemelman. "When students see adults actually listening to them with respect, that is when they begin to realize they have a voice and can make a difference in their world." Read From Inquiry to Action and find practical guidance that leads students to the heights you dream for them. After all, we all want our students to grow as engaged, thoughtful citizens in our communities. Steve blogs frequently about the ideas in From Inquiry to Action and about how educators around the US are applying them at his Civic Action in Schools blog.

From Seed to Plant

From Seed to Plant
Author: Gail Gibbons
Publisher: Lerner Publishing Group
Total Pages: 32
Release: 2018-01-01
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1430130040

"Gail Gibbons is known for her ability to bring the nonfiction world into focus for young students. Through pictures, captions, and text, this book provides a window into the world of growing things...Erin Mallon complements Gibbons’s text with a clear, clipped, and purposeful narration." -AudioFile Magazine