This time, I have analysed and assessed an open educational project, from "English in my daily life", a project designed to work on the English contents for the first grade of secondary education. This project has been created by CEDEC (Centro Nacional de Desarrollo Curricular en Sistemas no Propietarios).
In so doing, I have made use of a checklist with the essential elements to be a Gold Standard PBL
The chosen project “My town” focuses on a particular content, as its name indicates. Moreover, since this project aims at teaching English, it is engrossed in practising the following aspects of the curriculum.
● Prepositions of place.
● Asking for directions and giving directions.
● Vocabulary concerning different places of the city.
● Comparative adjectives.
● Describing a city.
This project consists of 5 missions and a final challenge that are detailed below.
As far as the first mission is concerned - breaking the ice - students are provided with a video regarding New York City, and a thinking routine to be completed whilst watching it. I am utterly fond of the thinking routine sheet, since sometimes, when students are asked to reflect on a video, they say what they come up with, without mulling it over and structuring it. This thinking routine sheet contains 3 columns: I view, I think and I wonder - which lead to a deeper reflection and critical thinking. After completing this stage of the mission, students are bound to pay attention to the comparative adjectives, by writing 5 sentences comparing their town to New York.
In this mission, students will work on their listening and writing skills. Furthermore, they will work on their self-reflecting skills in their learning diary, after finishing the mission, which will enhance their self-evaluation skills, too.
Moving on to the next mission -working the maps- students will work on both writing and speaking skills, as they have to overcome the challenge of sorting out several questions and a cross-word about a New York’s map. Immediately, they will carry out a role play in pairs, in which one will be a tourist with the map and the other a citizen of Madrid, and the tourist has to ask for directions since he is lost, while the citizen has to indicate him correctly, taking into consideration that they have to greet themselves and then say good bye. I’m of the opinion that this kind of activity is extremely appealing, since it has a real context and it is authentic; therefore, it will be more meaningful and they will use it when travelling abroad or giving directions to a tourist here in Madrid. As a result, they will work on real problem-solving skills, and also self-management skills when elaborating the video.
Then, they will record it and edit it, by using the Wevideo tool, which I discovered when browsing this project, by the way. The fact that they have to record themselves will lead to a deeper preparation and rehearsal. Consequently, they will review the grammar point concerning preposition of places, and will interiorize them in a laid-back way. Lastly, they will publish their video alongside their learning experiences, on their learning diary.
As for the following mission - what you can find in a city- apart from reviewing the important places in a city, they will train their listening skills, as they are going to listen to a podcast concerning travel arrangements. After that, students will put into practise their speaking skills, due to the fact that they will pair up and create a presentation about important places in a city; closing their mission by writing their learning reflection in the learning diary.
Moving on the coming mission - Liverpool on a flyer - students will read a flyer about Liverpool, and carry out a series of reading comprehension activities, whilst they learn about the features of a flyer, something that is authentic.The comprehension activities hail from the British Council, which is a flabbergasting source. Consequently, pupils will have to create a flyer promoting their own town, which is going to help them practise their writing skills, as well as, collaborate with a partner. They will use the Poster My Wall tool. Finally, they will post it in their portfolio to reflect on their learning.
In the following mission - my town is the best - students are going to develop higher-order thinking skills (HOTS), since they are going to create a mind map, based on their learning about pointing out good features about the city, being their city the main knot. After that, pupils will work on their writing skills, due to the fact that they will create an explanatory/ informative text concerning the good sides of living in their city. To finish the mission they will have to go to the learning diary and think about their learning process, alongside posting the collaborative explanatory text.
Last but not least, students are going to overcome the final challenge: creating a promotional video of their town, which is bound to help them enhance their writing and oral skills. In so doing, they will make use of the Storyboard That tool to create digital storytelling, as well as Wevideo to edit it. Then, they will create a complete portfolio and include what they have learned and the artifact (the video); therefore, they will make the final product public. Finally, students will reflect on their learning diary, by conducting a self-assessment, with which they will practice higher-order thinking skills by answering a survey, as well as answering questions.
I am elated with this project, since I find it utterly interesting, useful, meaningful, authentic, engaging and creative. Moreover, it also provides us with the didactic guidelines, explaining the missions, the assessment, the timing, the resources, a mind map of the project, the content, the learning standards, and a glossary. I extremely appreciate the inclusion of the didactic guidelines, since it really helps us understand a CLIL project and serves us as a guide to create our own CLIL projects.
I would like to highlight the range of rubrics that the project contains for students to assess the different missions. I find them extremely important, since students are not accustomed to self-assessing, and it is a thinking skill that we have to encourage them to work on.
Students are also encouraged to reflect on their learning process, something that I find utterly important, since they become aware of their learning. Throughout their learning process, they will develop a sustained inquiry that they will answer by themlselves, as long as they overcome the missions.
Furthermore, I am fond of collaborative work, and this project urge students to work in pairs, which is important so as to handle management issues.
Finally, the project as a whole catches the students’ attention, as it uses both English and ICT in a useful and appealing way, and also enables students to make their own decisions when overcoming the tasks to complete the missions.
I have created a Genially to present you this project, as well as a PowerPoint presentation to complete it.
This was the first time I used Genially and I have to say that it is quite attractive and it enables you to create interactive presentations.
Hope you enjoy it !
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