DJE #6

1. The Dominant Paradigm that is showing signs of wear refers to the traditional teaching approach where teachers main source of knowledge that students gained was through textbooks, lecturing, and reading.  Today however, we have learned that is not the best way to prepare students for the real world.  We have learned that its crucial for teachers to teach all learners through differentiated instruction.

2. Project-Based Learning has many benefits that support learning better than traditional approaches.  Students are able to explore real-world problems and developing curriculum skills within small collaborative groups. Benefits include:

-Opportunities to develop complex skills, such as higher-order thinking, problem-solving, collaborating, and communicating (SRI, 2000)

- Academic gains equal to or better than those generated by other models, with students involved in projects taking greater responsibility for their own learning than during more traditional classroom activities (Boaler, 1997; SRI, 2000 )

-Access to a broader range of learning opportunities in the classroom, providing a strategy for engaging culturally diverse learners (Railsback, 2002)

3. Problem-Based Learning is when students learn through the process of solving a problem and are active in creating the problem. Benefits include:

-PBL, by definition, helps increase students’ problem solving skills. Students must use the skills that they have and expand on them by exploring, questioning, and investigating. When using problems as the center of learning, a shift takes place from “doing” the activity to “thinking” about relationships among mathematical ideas and how they connect to help students make sense of these ideas (Trafton & Midgett, 2001). The teacher can only be a guide; students must learn to direct themselves.

- Creativity is the high-dimensional human ability or skill to think up something new, and has drawn much attention in every field of education that attempts to cultivate the fundamental power of thinking and reasoning (Kwon, Park, & Park, 2006). When a problem is posed that does not have an immediate solution, students are forced to think creatively. Different types of problems also expand creative thinking; the more variation in problems, the more variation in thinking. 

- Since students are not given all of the information, like with lectures, they must draw upon what they know and find connections in order to make progress. At every step along the way, students must pose questions, look for patterns, and make connections between the current problem and the mathematics they have learned in previous units (Alper, Fendel, Fraser, & Resek, 1996). Students can also make connections between mathematical ideas that are familiar to them by solving new problems in a variety of different settings (Erickson, 1999).

4. Learning by Design is a kind of instructional approach where students learn through creating something. Having students design and create an artifact that requires understanding and application of knowledge is an example of learning by design. Benefits include:

-Helps students develop understanding of complex systems, noting that the systems can be presented as a united whole whose structure is adapted to specific purposes (Perkins, 1986).

-Design projects led to better learning outcomes such as showed strong evidence of progress in learning targeted science concepts where students were able to apply key concepts to their work (Fortus and colleagues, 2004).

- Learning by Design has also shown a positive effect on motivation and sense of ownership over designs among both individuals and groups (Fortus and colleagues, 2004).

5. These three approaches are very similar and might even sound the same to someone who might not have much knowledge in the Education curriculum, but there are some differences. Project based learning is after a student learns specific content, the student then will apply the content in a new or abstract way. Its different from problem based because when i think of problem based I think of teaching content using real world problems, students feel engaged to investigate and solve the problem. Learning by design is different from project based learning because students are making an artifact just like project based learning but in Learning by Design the students finds ways of presenting new knowledge by designing or implementing it in such a way.

6. I believe all three approaches are equally beneficial for students because they are all authentic in some way.  Working in groups is a great way to implement any content material to students and they all engage students. Project based learning is probably the most common approach and I myself have taught a project based learning lesson and it had great results. 

Resource:

Darling-Hammond, L., Barron, Bl, Pearson, P., Schoenfeld, A., Stage, E., & Zimmerman, T., et al.  (2008).  Powerful learning:      what we know about teaching for understanding.  San Francisco, CA:  Jossey-Bass.