Making projects or using PBL seems to be a good way to give students, individually or as a group, multiple ways to engage the content. Not only can this develop skills pertinent for outside of the classroom (planning, building, perseverance, and collaboration) but it also allows the students to use all of their senses to construct their learning.Get the students outside! We want to assess students about content they may have never seen or heard before in their lives. Why would we not find a way to assess the students on what they can see or hear within their lives?"Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, working together is success." - Henry Ford
I want to try and build cohorts within the classroom that would stay together for an elongated period of time for my classroom. I do not know if this would work or if it would be successful, but I feel like collaboration is being human. If the human element of collaboration can innately exist during the learning process, then maybe the learning for the students could become more engaging? Why do we collaborate so often as educators in PLC's with the same group/department but do not afford that same experience to students?
Now you can teach me what you have learned! Students having the ability to assess themselves with their own portfolios, organized in their own way, and demonstrating mastery driven from them can add an element of personalization beyond a letter grade given by me.
