The question repeatedly comes up about how one teacher can possibly manage a class-full of students working on a class-full of different projects. The answer is the teacher can’t and shouldn’t!
Authentic projects should come from a student’s own experiences and interests, but should be based on a common starting point and common curriculum goals.
For example, if you are chartered to teach a curriculum objective about how our economy works, and what can impact it, you will most likely have some students do a project about Taylor Swift, while others might pursue a project about football (and coincidentally, both are intertwined at the time I am writing this). Others might explore interest rates, time of year – there are so many things that impact our economy – that’s the point.
I would somehow manage to make my project about figure skating – that would be hard to show how this sport impacts the economy – but that is part of authentic learning. Maybe at the end I will find out there is limited to no impact. That’s fine, I learned something, didn’t I! (And mentioning figure skating in this blog allowed me to finally post a photo I took of my favorite figure skaters!)
The teacher keeps presenting lessons about how the economy works, based on age-level and curriculum objectives. Then the teacher directs traffic, offers suggestions, and assists with problem-solving. ”Assists” being the key word.
So, the teacher plans the lessons about how our economy works, and then sits back, listens, and drinks coffee. Seriously, the more engaged your students are, the more time you have to listen, really listen, to your students – and drink coffee. By listening, you are getting ideas for future lessons, and by drinking coffee you are super energized and excited about their projects! And they are super excited as well, as they are learning the concept through research that excites and engages them. Engagement soars, learning soars, learning is retained, curriculum goals are met.
The Educational Journey 