Project Learning to Improve the Performance of Students Coursework

Introduction

A teacher plays a number of roles to ensure that students have a serine environment to study in. These roles range from using up to date teaching techniques and methods to observing, controlling and influencing the attitudes and perceptions of students towards education.

In the course of decimating information to students, teachers need to stick to the school curriculum and come up with ideas and innovations that may improve the performance of students or amend the current school curriculum to meet the present needs and requirements of students (Mathes at al, 1998).

It is evident that different students have different capabilities when it comes to learning (Abdulkareem, 2001). This is because every student is unique in his/her own way. As a result, every student has a different capability with regards to education or any other activities that he/she may be involved in.

Due to this fact, there is a high diversity of students within a class or a school in terms of their abilities and capabilities. It is therefore the role of a teacher to identify the diversity of his students and use it to their advantage.

Diversity within a classroom can arise due to the difference in the ethnic background of students, their academic capability, athleticism, religion, behaviour, culture and beliefs. Teachers should embrace the fact that students are diverse and use it to enhance their attitudes, perceptions and performance. As a result, all the students will benefit from the programme.

Theoretically, this sound simple and easy. However, for it to work out perfectly, a teacher has to use one or more peer learning activities to ensure that the advantages that arise from the diversity of his/her students are tapped. These peer-learning activities advocate for cooperation among a heterogeneous group of students. A heterogeneous group of students is composed of students who have different abilities or advantages.

While working together, they will have a chance to share ideas and learn to work together as a team through cooperation to achieve a common goal or objective (Baker et al, 2000). To ensure that their abilities are effectively tapped, it is critical for a teacher to have in place a peer learning project that the students will be working on.

Working on a project will give the students a chance to put their theoretical skills into practice in order to solve real life situations, work together through cooperation and aim at achieving one common goal.

This activity will give them a chance to explore their different abilities and ideas, bring them together and find a solution to the current problem. This will not only improve their class performance, but it will also improve their socialization skills thus they will accept one another regardless of the differences may exist between them.

This document is thus a learning summary of project learning that I used to improve the performance of my students. It will focus on the design that I used to implement the project to promote student learning, its evaluation and reflection and the experience that was gained through summing up all the conditions that led to the project being successful.

Design

Project learning provides students with the chance to apply their knowledge and skills to solve real life problems that the world is currently facing. Students normally achieve this by employing critical thinking and collaboration. They therefore work together as a team to achieve a common goal or objective.

By achieving the set goals and objectives of the study, these students would have all benefitted at the expense of each other (Rohrbeck et al, 2003). This is because they will have a chance to utilize their diverse abilities and skills to solve the problem that have at hand.

To achieve this with my students, I designed a simple project that would enable them to use their diverse skills and capabilities to complete. Through this project, I was able to maximize their abilities and skills. The project gave them the chance to learn and gather new knowledge and skills from the research that they conducted.

This assisted in enhancing their leaning abilities and improving their confidence. In addition, the project gave me a chance to identify their interests and potentials. In doing so, it will be easier to come up with methods to enhance and maximize them (Schunk and Zimmermann, 1994). This will give me a chance to explore their full potential hence enhancing their performance.

To ensure that the outcome of the project is as per my expectations, I decided to choose the topic of the project that the students worked on and the research design and methods that they employed. This ensured that there is uniformity in the manner in which the students carried out the project. In doing so, it was easier to measure the abilities and potentials of different students who were involved in the project.

Working on the same project was as a benchmark of measuring the contribution, abilities, potential and interest of the students (Fullan, 2006). As a result, it will be easier to know the kind of attention that will be given to each student once the project has been completed.

To put their abilities and skills at work, the students had to work on a project that focused on alternative sources of energy. This topic focused on a current issue being faced in the world. The world is currently facing a serious energy crisis. The available forms of energy are expensive and bring about a lot of harm to the environment.

At the same time, most of these energy sources are not renewable and yet they are widely applied for various uses in the domestic and industrial sectors (EEA, 2011). As a result, such sources of energy have become very expensive.

This has led to the increase in the cost of production; a factor that has a ripple effect on the economy leading to the high of the cost of living and economic recession that is being experienced in the world at the present moment. Oil is a good example of an energy source whose prices have hit an all time high.

The students therefore had to research on the status of the worlds energy requirements. They were also supposed to focus on the energy crisis that the world is currently facing and come up with theoretical solutions that to this predicament. The second phase was to design an alternative source of energy that was renewable in nature.

For uniformity, they had to choose from water, wind or waste materials/products as their source of energy. For simplicity of their project, they had to design simple energy model that could be applied in domestic households as an alternative form of energy. This would reduce the costs that families face in trying to acquire energy and at the same time prevents environmental degradation (National Academic Press, 2006).

This project is multidisciplinary in nature. It requires research skills to gather the information concerning the energy crisis that the world is facing. It also requires planning and execution skills in coming up with the project idea, putting it into practice and achieving the desired results.

At the same time, the project involves a mix of mathematics, science and art and design to execute. This will give the students a chance to put their diverse skills and abilities in practice (Bulls and McCalla, 2002).

This was done to cater for the different student diversity within the class. To achieve maximum results from project learning, the students had to work in groups. To ensure the heterogeneity of each group, the students who composed a given group had different abilities and skills. For them to achieve the goals and objectives of the study, they had to cooperate and work as a team (Bennet et al, 1984).

Heterogeneity of the group also enhanced sociometry. It was thus easier to identify the contribution of each group member in the project, their social positions, acceptance and structure within the groups and the classroom in general (Fantuzzo et al, 1989).

The last thing that i had to consider before creating the project groups was the comfortability of these students in various groups. I had to ensure that in every group, the group members were comfortable with one another.

This will ensure that there is cooperation amongst them hence increasing the chances of them achieving the goals and objectives of the study. It will also guarantee maximum learning and the development of their skills and abilities.

Finally, to ensure that the students work according to the rules, standards and guidelines that I had formulated, the students had to attain three objectives by the end of the study. These were:

1. Task completion.
2. Instructional goal.
3. Knowledge building goal.

Considerations of Peer Learning, Reflection, Assessment and Evaluation

The methods that are used in peer learning can vary on several perspectives depending on the context in which the programme is designed and the goals and objectives that it is expected to achieve (Graham, 2002). In this respect therefore, different peer learning activities have different objectives, target groups and outcomes (Hargreaves and Fink, 2006).

Studies that have been conducted recently reveal that peer learning has evolved in their operation by aiming at equally involving all the participants in the project irrespective of education level, background or abilities of different individuals. The need for reciprocal tutoring has also increased.

This has ensured that all the parties that are involved benefit from the study. This has reduced any element of social diversity and has ensured that there is continuous participation from all the parties that are involved in the study enhancing the sustainability of the project.

To ensure that the above considerations are involved in my design project, the application of Toppers 12 considerations of a project was necessary (Topping, 2005). These include:

1. Context.
2. Objectives.
3. Curriculum area.
4. Participants.
5. Helping techniques.
6. Contacts.
7. Materials.
8. Training.
9. Process monitoring.
10. Assessment o f students.
11. Evaluation.
12. Feedback.

Integration of all these considerations coupled with high level of thoughtfulness and integrity resulted to a high success rate that was experienced from the project. Each of these factors played an important role in ensuring that all the rules, guidelines and considerations for the project were followed.

They also ensured that the project was conducted as per the expected requirements and standards that were required to achieve the desired results.

The context of the project was within and outside the classroom. The activities that the students were involved took much of their time. Due to this fact therefore, there are some of the sections of the project that were conducted within the classroom and some that were conducted out of the classroom.

Due to this fact therefore, students interacted with each other even outside the school setting. This enhanced their sociometric exercise through the increased level of interaction (McLeod, 1992). As a result, the students stood a higher chance of succeeding in their projects.

The objectives of the project were clearly stated. The students were clearly informed about the scoop of the project, the expected outcome and the criteria that was used to evaluate the project. This was done to ensure that the students stick to the set rules and guidelines of the project in order to achieve the desired results (Mendez, 1992).

The study had two different set of objectives, those that had to be achieved by the project of the students and the overall objectives of the study. In their projects, the objectives of the students were:

1. To identify the causes of energy crisis that the world is currently facing.
2. To come up with an alternative source of energy that can be used to supplement domestic needs.
3. To formulate solutions to the energy crisis that the world is currently facing.

The overall objectives that the study wanted to achieve were:

1. To ensure that all the students complete the task at hand.
2. To ensure that the students stick to the instructions of the project.
3. To ensure that the project builds and develop the knowledge and skills of all the students.
4. To promote the performance of students through peer learning.

Having clearly set goals and objectives ensured that all the students and me as their teacher worked together to ensure that we achieve the goals and targets of the project within a stipulated time period.

Objectives also acted as the guidelines that measured the progress of the project and its viability. By the end of the project, all the groups and hence all the students had attained the objectives of this study. This thus showed that the study was a success.

The topic of the project that the students were to work on was on current affairs. This ensured that almost all the subjects and disciplines that the students study were covered on the project. However, the project laid a lot of emphasis on mathematics, sciences and art and design.

This was due to the high diversity of knowledge and skills that the class contained with regard to these subjects. The project therefore gave them an opportunity to explore on their various subjects of interest, gather new information and share their ideas and skills amongst each other (Gumpel and Frank, 1999).

The project was conducted in groups. This ensured that the students could interact with one another, share their ideas and skills and work together as a team to achieve the goals and objective of the project (King, 1998). This ensured that the students would learn to apply their individual skills and at the same integrate together as a team to find solve the problems that they may be facing, at the present time and in future.

The project also had several helping techniques. the main learning strategy that the project focused on was research and application. Students were expected to apply their research skills to identify the causes of energy crisis that the world is facing, the effects it has on the economy and possible solutions to alleviate the problem. The model of alternative source of energy was just but one of the many solutions that they had identified.

The project was to last for eight academic weeks. During this time, students had the time to gather ideas for the project, collect the required information, started working on the energy saving model, finalised their projects and did the presentation. All these activities were done in phases; each being analysed before they moved to the next. The teachers assistance was always provided whenever the students needed the help.

The resources that were required for the project included books, cardboards and stationery. Any additional materials or resources that were required by the students were supplied to them.

Before the commencement of the project, the students were given a handbook that contained the rules and guidelines of the project, its purpose, expectations and outcomes, and their duties and roles. Students were also trained on the various techniques amd methods of gathering information and designing project models. This ensured that they were well equipped before they commenced the project.

Strict monitoring was conducted during the project. Each group had a group leader who monitored the activities that the other students were engaged in. As their teacher, i monitored the progress of each individual student and the overall progress of the group. When irregularities were noticed, corrective measures were put in place to ensure that the project is on track (Plank, 2009).

Normative assessment was applied to measure the progress of the project. This method involved the assessment of the group process, individual progress and group progress. The assessments were conducted after a regular interval to measure the rate at which the project was progressing (Wu and Short, 1996). While assessing the students the key components that were considered were:

• 1. The extent to which the students understood and executed the research topic.
  2. The development of their research questions & hypothesis.
  3. Methods of enquiries that they utilized.
  4. Limitations of the design that they chose.
  5. Time line & division of labor among the various individuals of the group.

This was the criteria that was used for assessment. The group leader also had to keep a work schedule that contained the details duties of all the group members, their daily activities, the problems they encountered and the methods that they used to solve them.

This information was essential as it made assessment to be much easier and effective (Murphy, 1998). other factors that were considered while assessing the students was participation and contribution of all the students in their respective groups, their cooperation, communication methods, critical thinking and problem solving techniques and the level excellence of their projects.

Evaluation was the last step that was involved in the project. By this time, all the students had completed their project (the model for alternative energy and the report write up). each group had 30 minutes to present their project before the entire class, defend the theories that they had come up with and answer questions from their peers.

Their work, mode of presentation and how they handled and answered questions formed the basis of evaluation. From here, final marks were awarded for each group.

the final step was to determine the impact the project had on the student. This was done to ensure that the main objectives of the project were achieved.

This project aimed at promoting peer learning among students thus by the end of the project, students should have increased their knowledge and skills, identified and worked on their interests, shared their ideas and developed skills in critical thinking and problem solving (Lindsay, 1997).

Impacts of the project on student learning

This project brought about a lot of improvements in the performance of the students. As a result, the grades of most of the students in the class went up. This can be attributed to the fact that the project gave them a chance to expand their knowledge and skills on various aspects of curriculum (McLuckie and Topping, 2004).

The project that the students were involved in was multidisciplinary, this ensured that they integrated their knowledge, skills and capabilities on various subjects to achieve a desired result.

The students also developed analytical and critical thinking skills in the course of the project. This will be useful especially in their further studies when they will be required to carry out sophisticated studies and researches. In addition, the project developed cooperation among the students.

This was achieved through working together to achieve a desired outcome that was beneficial to all the parties that were involved in the project. Working in groups also developed the participation, social acceptance, social positions and social structure in all the students.

Experience Gained from the Project

After working on the project, I realized that it is necessary as a teacher to identify the student diversity that is present in a particular class, identify the strength and weaknesses of individual students and then formulate a project-learning project that will aim at improving the performance of all the students.

Project learning is an effective and efficient method of improving the performance of students and boosts their skills, knowledge and capabilities. While working in heterogeneous groups, students get the chance to utilize their capabilities and share ideas. This leads to an overall development of all the students, impacting positively on the performance of the students.

As a result, the grades of all the students will improve. Therefore, project learning project is the best means through which one can improve the performance of all the students within a short time period (Bellon and Beaudry, 1992).

Conclusion

Over the years, project learning has been used as one of the tools that aim at improving the performance of students who have diverse capabilities. This has been achieved through engaging students in projects that cover either one subject or several subjects that they learn in class.

In the process, students get the chance to put their knowledge and skills in practice to solve real life situations. In the process, they read wide, share ideas, come up with new ones, critically analze the situation, and come up with solutions. Project learning should therefore be used by teachers to improve the performance of their students.

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