self-directed learners and differentiation

Providing means to early success seems to be one key to the self-system that Marzano describes. I believe this is especially true for special needs students. Ensuring the student has adequate background knowledge to begin the project is important for early success, otherwise the student might quit before they begin.

Sample's stimulate creativity. 'Uncreative' student may never have been asked to think out of the box. After showing them the sample, brain storming in small groups may stimulate this underdeveloped skill.

What other technique do you use to stimulate creativity?

student centered assessment

It has been my experience that most students will be more critical of their own work than their teacher would be.

Technology and student learning

How can technology be used most effectively to support and assess student learning? Technology can enhance student learning in a number of ways. Applications that can be used to develop and communicate the product, free or help students with the work of organizing and refining ideas, and creating a 'polished' result. Also, student self-assessment and peer review are assisted by particular web applications. Finally, data mining allows students to research more and better content than they could possible do without the web.

Internet Insanity

Everything can be found on the internet...everything. Apparently, it is not always obvious that it is inappropriate. I'm actually thinking about reviewing that tree octopus site. It could be true!? It is obvious that we need to reinforce the pitfalls of 'mining' the internet.

I'm glad the district provides the elearner site so that we can at least avoid some of the problems associated with blogs and wikis.

Lastly, it is also important to review the AUP oneself and with your students.

A logical approach to driving content?

It seems natural that the standards and an initial formative assessment should drive the content of a particular course or project. The formative assessments act as 'student location beacon' or starting point for a course or project. A place where the students are coming from. The standards are the conclusion, target or ending point. A place where the class will eventually end up. If you want to go on a journey, it seems natural that you need to know where you are and where you are going. I guess the difficult part comes in the middle. Additional formative assessments and corrections to the classes 'course' based on these is a way to ensure that students get to the finish line.

Part of what concerns me is the 'buy in. I want students to be interested and enthusiastic about my course and science in general. Creating problems that produce this enthusiasm does not seem to be very predictable. I guess that's where the CFQs come in. These help broaden the focus to a degree that pulls in more students.

Instructional Designer

The idea of using the project model instructional technique represents a logical step to providing my students with a rich experience that includes the opportunity for 'deeper learning' and increased enthusiasm for my chosen field of expertise.

I am having trouble identifying all of the student and teacher expectations. This is what I have so far:

Student Responsibility:
Manage project timeline and meet deadlines
Pose thoughtful questions to peers and teacher
Journal
Research
Collaborate
Maintain enthusiasm
Take advantage of technology resources.

Teacher Responsibility:
Maintain Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills Alignment
Define expectations
Produce and provide a reasonable project timeline
Assist students in time management
Pose thoughtful questions
Facilitate product testing
Provide technology resources.

Parent Responsibility:
Assist student in managing time and meeting deadlines
Pose thoughtful questions to student
Review student work and provide thoughtful feedbackProvide technology resources (where feasible.)

Can you suggest additional responsibilities?