The Power of Projects

I have been writing for awhile now about my journey in education and sharing my thoughts and experiences. I am by no means and expert and struggle with the term master educator when people sometimes refer to me as such. I prefer the term life long learner. I am always learning new things especially from those new to the profession who have the gift of being shown the latest research in educational practice. It is also nice to see them come into the profession fresh and excited to teach. I am learning to check myself as a veteran teacher in telling them things to avoid and things to try as was done for me. I want to encourage them to try out what they know and see what works for them. I am doing this with a new member of my staff who is new to my department and school. I am also trying to learn from what they are doing and trying out rather than "showing them the ropes." I am also trying to learn from a fellow teacher who is what I could consider to be in the middle of their career. I am hoping to glean from both teachers more about their knowledge and mastery of having students do projects.

Every year when asked what kids will be doing in my class I tell people that we are changing it up from years past because I like to "drive my principal nuts" (he loves this by the way as I know he is watching/listening). This year was no different as I decided to delve into my past as a middle school student and bring back the experience of "shop" class. We started out the year learning about classroom procedures and then a month on the engineering process. After that I gave students a menu of projects they could work on and turned them loose. My expectation is that complete 1 project a month for a total of 3 projects. This is on-top of the 20% time project I have students work on throughout the semester. I was a little nervous in starting this endeavor as I though 1 project a month would be too much. However what I am finding is quite the opposite that 1 project a month may be too little. Also I am finding that when I give students the ability to work not constrained by a set "curriculum" their creativity start to flow a bit more. It is this creativity that I hope to stoke more and see what they may come up with down the road. I will admit I am struggling to keep up with the demand of sending projects to 3d print, vinyl creations to cut out, and feedback to give but I am managing.

In the managing of projects this is where I could use some help. In the past I have had students work on 1 project and all the same project usually through a set curriculum. It was easy for me to manage and students did ok but quickly got bored as they completed the steps ahead of others or were so far behind felt they couldn't catch up. As mentioned before I am the one trying to play catch up but in a presently surprised way. This is where I hope to learn more from our new teachers and those with experience in managing students working on multiple projects. 

Use this link to listen to a podcast version of this blog post.
The music in the podcast is protected under creative commons licensing. Attribution information is below:
Music from https://filmmusic.io
"Fearless First" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)