Project Based Learning

My Writing About Learning and Education

Project-Based Learning: Changing the Face of Traditional Education (PDF)
My research paper presented at the National College of Ireland for Edtech 2009 in Dublin. This paper shows how a long-running international project takes on the characteristics of a community of practice.

Ethics in Education Through the Lens of Henry David Thoreau (PDF) - I wrote this paper after visiting Thoreau’s beloved Walden Pond in Massachusetts. I read Walden and was moved to address the unethical situation that students have in education today, quite similar to Thoreau’s time. April 2010

Future Learning - An Interactive Wiki Paper: My idea of what education could look like in 2020 when kids no longer only go to school buildings to learn.

Opportunity for Leadership: Field Trip to Taiwan (PDF) - An article I wrote to call attention to the reduction of field trips in public schools, while pointing out an exceptional field trip example about taking my 4th graders to visit project partners in Taipei, Taiwan. Nov 2009

Quest Atlantis:Research Review of Games Without Guns (PDF)
My review of Dr. Sasha Barab’s work on Quest Atlantis and the concept of transformational play. Learning in a curriculum-embedded virtual environment provides opportunities for students to try on new identities in highly engaging situated cognition experiences.

Supersized Education(PDF) - a look at the question of whether American students need to be spending more time, longer days in school in order to “compete” with test scores of students around the world. Collaboration with members of my Learning Technologies doctoral cadre.

Can A Human Resources Model in Schools Result in Increased Student Achievement? - This is a short paper looking at how teachers are often mismatched with their expertise in public schools, then given no support, then held accountable per NCLB punitive measures. Maybe the kind of support found in business can result in more motivated teachers? Oct. 2009

On the Web - Articles Referencing my work in Project-based Learning:

Education Week Article; Videoconferencing in the classroom - March 2010- from Education Week magazine -
Skype is a free videoconferencing tool that has been highly successful in increasing engagement for my students to communicate socially and academically with other students in the USA and around the world.

Power of Project Based-Learning (PDF)- from Scholastic Administrator
I was included in this gathering of educators on the topic of project-based learning and how it has been implemented at elementary, middle, and high school levels in the United States.

Project Management in the Classroom - Edutopia

This article highlights one of my projects called the Monster Project, describing how project planning and classroom management are critical to successful student learning and participation.

Managing Messy Learning - Educational Leadership on ASCD

Article describing how projects help students approach learning in real-world terms.To launch successful projects, teachers must develop their own 21st century skills.