On 10/21/09, Cristy wrote:
> Looks like Project-based Learning to me. Has the potential to
> be highly effective if done properly, although I think
> creating one project that spans all subject areas is major
> overkill.
>

It is certainly project-based learning. Does it have the
potential to be highly effective? Perhaps, but I think we need
to ask why it so often goes disastrously wrong in practice.
Anecdotes abound. One is the notorious example of a school with
poor academic performance having students spend dozens of hours
building a papier- mache dinosaur. I have my own example. I was
getting some pictures framed and struck up a conversation with
the proprietor of the shop. When she learned I was a teacher she
told me about a friend of hers who taught in a Catholic
elementary school. The teachers of the previous grade combined
all of their efforts on the theme of "salmon." Math, history,
language arts, and science instruction all centered on salmon.
The problem was that the teachers of the next grade found that
the students had none of the basic skills they usually acquired
the previous year. Why? I suspect it was because those skills
were embedded in the study of salmon and given short shrift. If
a parent where to ask a child what they learned about in school
that day, the answer would always be "salmon" and not fractions,
grammar, or anything else.

More criticism of the project method can be found here:

http://www.illinoisloop.org/project.html

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