A Project-Based Learning Teaching Philosophy for Middle School English Class

 

Morgan Scully

In this blog post I chose to share my personal teaching philosophy that I created at the end of this course.  It is very much a compilation of knowledge gained throughout this course and through my self directed learning projects.  If I were to have my own middle school classroom these are the practices that I would follow given the knowledge that I currently have. 

My teaching philosophy that will be detailed below is meant to serve as a comprehensive example of a way to run an English program for 6-8th grade middle school students.  I will describe below my methods, based first and foremost in project-based learning research, using only developmentally appropriate practices, staying flexible as the teachers and individualizing teaching practices as often as possible, using informal assessment methods, and promoting a classroom environment where students and the teacher can work together and give each other feedback to create the best learning environment possible.  This teaching philosophy will outline in detail the practices I will follow in the class and relevant theories and practices will be addressed as they are appropriate.  

http://zulama.com/resources/project-based-learning

First I would have the school year broken up into units, with each unit focusing on a different type of writing.  For example, the first unit would be poetry, followed by short stories, followed by memoirs, etc.  There will a maximum of four units per year so that there is time to really delve into the material and follow a project based learning format where the students will be able to really investigate the type of writing, produce their own work, and present it.  We will begin each unit with a few days of a more traditional classroom set up where we will introduce the unit.  We will spend a few days learning about the type of writing we will be focusing on.  We will do this through reading examples.  At the beginning of each unit the students will have access to books and will be asked to find examples that they find interesting and share them with the class.  This will not only promote a sense of autonomy and self-direction in their school work, but it will also allow them to work on their communication skills as they present their findings to the class.  After the instructive portion of each unit the students will create their own original works of writing.  This will be the beginning of the “project” of each unit.  There will be no prompts for the writing as long as the student stays in the genre that is being studied.  Students will be encouraged to write about what they know, love, or are interested in.  The students will go through a “professional” process of writing that is as self directed as possible.  They will set their own timeline for the completion of their piece of writing.  They will write a draft, revise it, seek peer or teacher conferences, edit it, and type up the final draft that is ready to be “published.”  Students can work at their own pace.  For some students this means creating many pieces of writing over the unit, and for some this will mean creating one piece that they are proud of.  The process is the most important part.  The goals of project based learning are to ensure the students are working on a bigger “project” in which there are multiple steps that they have to work through and in which learning occurs along the way.  The final part of project based learning is that there is a final product produced that can be shown to the community.  At the end of the unit there will be a day in which the students can present their original work.  Since some students may not be comfortable with this they may opt out.  The class will also produce an anthology of all of their writing that will be sent home to the students families.  

https://gembawalkabout.com/2013/02/19/t
he-case-against-performance-appraisals-and-pay-for-2/

Using this project based learning method I will also be able to incorporate the Three C’s of motivation set forth by Alfie Kohn.  The three C’s are content, choice, and collaboration.  If students are given class content that seems important (such as producing their own writing) they will hopefully be more motivated to enjoy it and do it well.  Choice relates first and foremost to intrinsic motivation.  If students are given choice and autonomy in class they will be far more likely to do work that they are interested in and feel more intrinsically motivated to do it.  This choice component will come in through what the students chose to write about.  They will be encouraged to write about what they know, love, and are interested in.  This will encourage not only academic growth, but self growth and they will hopefully gain a better understanding of who they are as individuals.  The collaboration portion will come in when students have peer conferences about their writing.  These sessions can be for editing help, content help, brainstorming, etc.  Students will be encouraged to work together to produce work that is greater than what they could do individually.  This will also encourage social learning and communication.  Ultimately, the hope of this english program is teach the students not only core concepts, but develop skills they need to be effective writers and effective peers.

The students will be assessed using an informal evaluation method.  This will be the assessment method of choice so that students aren’t concerned with testing or number grades and are more concerned with the quality of their work.  This will hopefully allow them to take more pride in their work and they will ultimately learn more through putting more care in their work.  We will use self-evaluation methods where the students will be asked to write their answers to various questions such as what is your favorite piece of work this unit and why, what is the most interesting thing you learned this unit and give an example of where you used it in your own writing, what do you wish you had done differently this unit, etc.  Core course concepts will also be integrated into these questions so in this way their knowledge of the material is being measured.  This way the students are reflecting on their own actions throughout the unit and how they affected their classroom work.  Through treating the students as mature young learners and allowing them autonomy not only in their work but their assessment too, it is my hope that they will invest a lot of time and effort into it.  As a supplement to the self-evaluations, students will also create a portfolio of their writing at the end of the unit.  This formality will hopefully show them that their writing is important and special and should be treated with as much care as went into writing it.  

My effectiveness as a teacher will also be evaluated informally, primarily in conferences with the students.  Since the goal and role of the teacher in this teaching method is to be a tool for the child to use and help them achieve more than they would be able to on their own, the teaching assessment/feedback should come from the children as much as possible.  Since testing will not be used, it will not be possible to measure teacher ability by test scores.  Instead, teaching will be assessed by the students.  The conferences will be informal and conversational in nature and the teachers will ask questions such as, “are there any things that I don’t do in class that you wish I did?” “What do you think I could have spend more time on?” What do you think I could have spend less time on?” What there anything in class that you really didn’t like?”  “Do you have any ideas for the improvement of class time?”  This way the feedback is coming directly from the students and students are given the chance to have control over their own academic experience.  Teachers should also have the option for anonymous suggestion submissions so that the students that are too shy to say things don’t feel like they lose their voice.  

My teaching philosophy that was described above is intended for 6-8th grade English class, as was briefly mentioned in the introduction.  I have chosen this age range of 6-8th grade middle schoolers because they would fall into the age category that Piaget described as Formal Operational which begins around age 11.  If the method of teaching english that I will describe is to be effective the students students will need the ability to think abstractly (when reading poetry, short stories, prose, etc.) to understand and interpret meaning as well as then be able take concepts from the works they are reading and be able to apply it to their own work.  If this method were to be used in students younger than 6-8th grade it may no longer be a developmentally appropriate practice and they may not be able to flourish in this teaching style.  

The goals of this method are to teach english class and creative writing in an way that students are highly involved in their own learning process and get to apply their learning immediately in the classroom so that they are able to understand it better.  I hope that it will be a tool for middle school english or language arts teachers who are looking for alternative or less traditional ways to teach this subject.  It can be used as a comprehensive method, or bits and pieces can be adopted as they may fit into existing teaching practices.  

Want to learn more?

Follow these two links to learn more about project-based learning and how to implement it in
the classroom:
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/4753
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/project-based-learning-getting-started-basics-andrew-miller

Follow this link to learn more about Kohn's 3 C's of Motivation and intrinsic motivation
follow this link:
http://marenschmidt.com/2006/02/the-three-cs-of-motivation/

Or of you want a longer read, try Alfie Kohn's Punished by Rewards
http://www.alfiekohn.org/punished-rewards/

If you want to test your knowledge of intrinsic motivation and the opinions of Alfie Kohn in
the context of "The Office," watch this video "Alfie Kohn vs Dwight Schrute"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G59KY7ek8Rk