My students finished their first project last week. Upon reading their personal reflections, it seems that they quite enjoyed the project. The most common reasons why students reported enjoying the project were:
1. working with a small group - easier to develop ideas when you can talk them out with others
2. getting to choose the topic of their project
3. learning something new about the world
4. using various texts and videos to make meaning from a topic - reading and viewing information then making it into a presentation helped reinforce understanding of the concepts
To make improvements to their project work, students reported the need to stay more focused during their group work time. This is an important observation as this is one of the most challening aspects of working in a group. Even adults are challenged to focus on the task at hand when working with a group, but training people at a young age to be effective team players will reap rewards in the future.
The mini-project took a little longer than I expected, but the students seemed to enjoy it and it helped them to meet and make connections with others in the class. From this project, I've also gained valuable assessment information about their reading comprehension, group work, and written and oral communication skills. This information will be helpful for planning future activities.
I'm currently planning my next mini-project, which will include students demonstrating problem-solving skills to determine where a new community centre (or something like that) should be built in Winnipeg using resources on the Statistics Canada website.
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