Preparing our students for the real-world

"If we wish to prepare a generation of students who can solve real-world problems, we must give them real-world problems to solve"

 

Today it can be seen as hard to meet the needs of each and every students, it can also be said that we are not doing enough to prepare our students to take on the world. One way we can fix this is by using more project based learning. Do you know what project based learning is? It can be defined as students learning new material through a project, not students reviewing material to create a  project. The difference between projects and project based learning is sometimes gray but we can help define this line as well as help our students see the clear difference and the advantages of project based learning.

Edutopia is one of my favorite sites hands down, they honestly have a blog and post about everything education! Here they talk about project based learning through a school's farm, students manage the animals and decided what actions to take based on what is actually happening to their farm! Now these students are training to become farmers, they are training to become problem solvers- so a fence breaks how do we pay to repair it, do we do the labor? 

Its very important that as leaders in our field of agricultural education we emphasize them importance of project based learning. We can do this through many ways shapes and forms and the possibilities are endless...now you may ask why is project based learning so important that I am writing a blog about it, well here are the facts 

• Students often find school as boring- here is a new way to engage them
• Student remember more by researching the project, working on it, completing it and than presenting it
• The 21st century workplace requires more than just spitting out facts, it requires its workers to be handed a problem and than solve it
• Students are able to take knowledge to the next level, by developing the skills used in project based learning they can apply those skills to other areas other than the classroom
• Modern technology is often a key role in project based learning

• Teacher are better able to work one-on-one with students and give the proper amount of attention needed

 There are many types of problems we can give students to solve, and other teaching techniques play a role in project based learning as well including scaffolding. It is important to remember not to give the student to much so that he or she is overwhelmed and  discouraged but at the same time you need to challenge the minds of your students. There are three types of structure for problems ranging from well structured to ill structured  I belive it is important to only provided well structure problems.

Its important to remember not to use projects as desert but use project based learning as the main course