PROJECT - BASED LEARNING

 Project-based learning, or PBL, is the use of in-depth and rigorous classroom projects to facilitate learning and assess student competence (not to be confused with problem-based learning). Project Based Learning was developed by the Buck Institute for Education in the late 1990s, in response to school reform efforts of that time.^[1] Project-based learning is an instructional method that provides students with complex tasks based on challenging questions or problems that involve the students' problem solving, decision making, investigative skills, and reflection that includes teacher facilitation, but not direction. PBL is focused on questions that drive students to encounter the central concepts and principles of a subject hands-on. Students form their own investigation of a guiding question, allowing students to develop valuable research skills as students engage in design, problem solving, decision making, and investigative activities. Through Project-based learning, students learn from these experiences and take them into account and apply them to the world outside their classroom. PBL is a different teaching technique that promotes and practices new learning habits, emphasizing creative thinking skills by allowing students to find that there are many ways to solve a problem.
  
Structure
Project-based learning emphasizes learning activities that are long-term, interdisciplinary and student-centered. Unlike traditional, teacher-led classroom activities, students often must organize their own work and manage their own time in a project-based class.Project-based instruction differs from traditional inquiry by its emphasis on students' collaborative or individual artifact construction to represent what is being learned. Students can spend the entire length of the project involved or come in and out as they see fit.

Simple Creations 

Students can also be assigned to create their software materials to supplement the need for relevant and effective materials. of course, there are available software materials such as Creative Writer (by Microsoft) on writing, Kid Work Deluxe (by Davidson) on drawing and painting, and Media Weave (by Humanities software) on multimedia.

In developing software, creativity as an outcome should not be equated with ingenuity or high intelligence. Creating is more consonant with planning, making assembling, designing, or building.

Creativity is said to combine three kind of skills/abilities:

• Analyzing - distinguishing similarities and differences/seeing the project as a problem to be solved
• Synthesizing - making spontaneous connections among ideas, thus generating interesting or new ideas
• Promoting - selling of new ideas to allow the public to test the ideas themselves

To develop creativity, the following five key task may be recommended:

1. Define the task - clarify the goal of the completed project to the student
2. Brainstorm - the students themselves will be allowed to generate their own ideas on the project. Rather than shoot down ideas, the teacher encourages idea exchange.
3. Judge the ideas  - the students themselves make an appraisal for or against any idea. Only when students are completely off track should the teacher intervene
4. Act - the students do their work with the teacher a facilitator
5. Adopt flexibility - the students should be allowed to shift gears and not follow an action path rigidly.

Web-based Project


Benefits of using Web-based Project Management Software

• Mobility—With an intuitive dashboard, reporting and planner tools, web based project management software enables you to log in to your project work from anywhere in the world, thus offering a real-time view of your project.
• Easy and effective collaboration—Collaboration is an inherent component of project management. For sharing your project plans with your global partners, for delegating tasks to your offshore colleagues or for managing contractors across the country, a reliable platform for collaboration is a must. This is where our web-based project management software helps. Web project management software helps you save your work or project plan in one central location thus giving authorized members real-time access to business-critical project information. Teams can be given real-time alerts to adjust work activities to adapt with project changes or updates.
• Boost productivity—With collaboration via PM software, miscommunication is reduced, which thus paves the way to effective and quick team work and increased productivity. With web-based project management software, project managers can save time on routine operations such as collecting reports, updating plans, sending reminders to team and spend more time on more productive work. The project manager gets real-time view of each task and can evaluate and make necessary changes on the spot whenever required.
• Solid Analysis & Reporting— Web Project management software’s reporting structure gives you invoice ready data for projects. This enables you to swiftly review all time spent during a project, as well as what is due for invoicing and how much revenue is associated with each task, phase, etc.
• Flexible and salable—Web project management software unites the collaboration platform of SharePoint Server 2010 and deliberate implementation abilities to provide flexible work management results. Users get the benefit to manage scheduling, i.e. users can plan tasks with the information they have in hand or mechanically plan tasks to have project estimate dates and duration.
• Security— Security is the foremost issue that we take care of. All necessary steps to keep your data safe is taken by us. All the project management information of your is safely transferred via SSL.

The Power of Web-based Project Management

Spreadsheets can get out of control while commercial software does everything but manage your projects effectively.

A web-based, centralized project management system can help boost your productivity and make your operations more efficient. Managing time effectively within your company will help deliver projects on time, on budget and increase profits.
Many companies are looking for an alternative to spreadsheets and commercial software; especially when it comes to managing projects or jobs. The ability to keep a the pulse of each project is faster and easier with a web application. Converting your existing project management processes onto an online platform isn’t hard; in fact it’s quite easy. Once it’s up and running, all of your team members can access the necessary features of the application, such as entering expense line items, with any web-enabled device such as PC’s, Laptops, iPhones and iPads.
Web Applications have fostered the ability to centralize data so that your customers, suppliers, vendors, employees, and stakeholders can easily access and share important information, instantly, from anywhere in the world. Furthermore, centralized Web Applications have eliminated the hassle of painful software installations, upgrades, and expensive licensing costs associated with traditional software.
Not only is your data centralized with a web-based project management system, but it is accessible by anyone from anywhere with an internet connection and the correct log-in credentials.
In Summary, web-based project management can:

• Increase productivity and accessibility
• Manage projects/jobs easier
• Centralize your data (tasks, expenses, resources, financials, etc)
• Provide enhanced security through user roles
• Instantly generate valuable reports
• Allow your team to communicate with customers

1. Do the new learning theories mean we should stop memorization drill activities in class? Why?

• No, because memorization and drill activities in class can be use by the learners in real life. For, every learning process memorization and drill activities can't be avoided.

1. There are official truths or principles in such disciplines as ethics, chemistry, physics, history, etc. Do you think constructivism really want to abandon universal truths or principles? (Clue: Some beliefs result from faulty information, ancient or unscientific traditions. Primitive people believed the world was flat. Can you cite other example of untruthful beliefs?)

• No, because in constructivism the learners build a personal understanding, learning consists in what a person can actively assemble for himself and not what he can receive passively. So, it means that the learner will be able to construct new ideas and new  facts based on his experiments or base on the studies that he conducted.

1. Can personal discoveries contradict socially or culturally accepted principles or values? (Clue: revolutions are caused by those in power like despots unwilling to change their ways. What did Jose Rizal and other patriots discover about colonization of the Philippine Islands?)

• Yes, because personal discoveries can affect his principles or values about a lot of things. His personal discoveries can affect his attitudes towards certain things or ideas.

Project-Based Project

Why Is Project-Based Learning Important?

The many merits of using project-based learning in the classroom.

PBL Helps Students Develop Skills for Living in a Knowledge-Based, Highly Technological Society

The old-school model of passively learning facts and reciting them out of context is no longer sufficient to prepare students to survive in today's world. Solving highly complex problems requires that students have both fundamental skills (reading, writing, and math) and 21st century skills (teamwork, problem solving, research gathering, time management, information synthesizing, utilizing high tech tools). With this combination of skills, students become directors and managers of their learning process, guided and mentored by a skilled teacher.
These 21st century skills include

• personal and social responsibility
• planning, critical thinking, reasoning, and creativity
• strong communication skills, both for interpersonal and presentation needs
• cross-cultural understanding
• visualizing and decision making
• knowing how and when to use technology and choosing the most appropriate tool for the task

PBL and Technology Use Bring a New Relevance to the Learning at Hand

By bringing real-life context and technology to the curriculum through a PBL approach, students are encouraged to become independent workers, critical thinkers, and lifelong learners. Teachers can communicate with administrators, exchange ideas with other teachers and subject-area experts, and communicate with parents, all the while breaking down invisible barriers such as isolation of the classroom, fear of embarking on an unfamiliar process, and lack of assurances of success.
PBL is not just a way of learning; it's a way of working together. If students learn to take responsibility for their own learning, they will form the basis for the way they will work with others in their adult lives.

PBL Lends Itself to Authentic Assessment

Authentic assessment and evaluation allow us to systematically document a child's progress and development. PBL encourages this by doing the following:

• It lets the teacher have multiple assessment opportunities.
• It allows a child to demonstrate his or her capabilities while working independently.
• It shows the child's ability to apply desired skills such as doing research.
• It develops the child's ability to work with his or her peers, building teamwork and group skills.
• It allows the teacher to learn more about the child as a person.
• It helps the teacher communicate in progressive and meaningful ways with the child or a group of children on a range of issues.

PBL Promotes Lifelong Learning

Lee Shulman, president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, has observed, "Teaching has been an activity undertaken behind closed doors between moderately consenting participants." PBL promotes lifelong learning because

• PBL and the use of technology enable students, teachers, and administrators to reach out beyond the school building.
• Students become engaged builders of a new knowledge base and become active, lifelong learners.
• PBL teaches children to take control of their learning, the first step as lifelong learners.

In that pursuit of new knowledge, technology allows students access to research and experts, from such sources as first-person accounts to movies of the Civil War found on the Library of Congress's American Memory collection to online chats with NASA astronauts.

PBL Accommodates Students with Varying Learning Styles and Differences

It is known that children have various learning styles. They build their knowledge on varying backgrounds and experiences. It is also recognized that children have a broader range of capabilities than they have been permitted to show in regular classrooms with the traditional text-based focus. When children are interested in what they are doing and are able to use their areas of strength, they achieve at a higher level.

Research Supports PBL

A growing body of research supports the use of PBL. Schools where PBL is practiced find a decline in absenteeism, an increase in cooperative learning skills, and improvement in student achievement. When technology is used to promote critical thinking and communication, these benefits are enhanced.




Resource-based Projects
        In these projects, the teacher steps out of the traditional role of being a content expert and information provider, and instead lets the students find their own facts and information. Only when necessary for the active learning process does the teacher step in to supply data or information. The general flow of events in resource-based projects are:

• The teacher determines the topic for the examination of the class.
• The teacher presents the problem to the class.
• The students find information on the problem/questions.
• Students organize their information in response to the problem/questions.

TRADITIONAL & RESOURCE-BASED LEARNING MODELS

Traditional learning model	Resource-based learning model
Teacher is expert and information provider	Teacher is a guide and facilitator
Textbook is key source of information	Sources are varied (print, video, Internet, etc.)
Focus on facts information is packaged in neat parcels	Focus on learning inquiry/quest/discovery
The product is the be-all and end-all of learning	Emphasis on process
Assessment is quantitative	Assessment is quantitative and qualitative

Guided Hypermedia Projects

It is a self-made multimedia projects that you can use for your instruction or discussion. It can be approached in two different ways:
1. As an Instructive tool , such as in the production by the students of a power point presentation.
You can apply this in your discussion.It is easy for the teacher to catch up the attention of the students because they love moving letters or pictures and also sounds and the teacher can discussed well the topic because of its beautiful visual aid which is suitable for the topic.


2. As a communication tool when students do a multimedia presentation to stimulate a television news show.
It is easy for the teacher to discuss about news or literature if they have tools like television or you can use your own video clips in order to present the topic they wanted.