A product is an artifact that represents what students have learned and the process they went through to come to these understandings. These artifacts of learning provide opportunities for students and teachers to share what was learned and how students developed during its creation. Teachers are inspired by things done and objects created by professionals to express the same content, skills, and mindsets learned through the project. The teacher is intentional in selecting a product that is an authentic representation of what a community partner contributes to the local community.
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ALICIA TROUT:
What can students make do or build? In project-based learning, students answer this question with real work.
FERNANDO VEGA: That connects the real world. Making a robot, field work, writing a play
PAT HOLDER:
So when there’s authenticity and purpose in the product they’re creating it gives a lot of meaning to why they would be doing it and so the creation of projects invites sustained critique, revision, inquiry throughout the entirety of the process.
DEBINI:
But even if you fell you have to like kind of think of like a way to fix that because it’s not really like a failure it’s kind of like a redirection to learn from your mistakes. I feel like I’ve done that multiple times in the process like there is times I didn’t get the result I was like going for but because of that I was able to like learn a new skill and fix it and turn it into like this whole new piece of art.
PAT HOLDER
So products connect to learning goals they create a bunch of teachable moments and they also situate the work in the real authentic situations.
ALICIA TROUT:
You’re creating a product that is gifted to a community partner or someone in the community that they can use obviously that would be the main goal but also something that is memorable has a home or as functional.
STUDENT:
We actually had a video call with Darren & Toby our two project partners the President and Vice President of the SoCal beat ball Association and after that I feel like oh man this is like super important to the community
BLAKE:
When they told us that there was an equipment shortage and that not many new players could play I figured out that this project was so much more because we’re actually helping the community out
PAT HOLDER:
So yes we are working towards final products when we do projects but that means we have to go through a process that involves all types of things like critique, revision, multiple iterations. skill building, collaboration and all the things that will help us grow our skills to be able to produce really high quality work.
HOCHI:
If we design a something for other people think about the design front so many perspective you just bring more like question to us so we can have like we just need to way more discussion and way more like talks to finalize the design.
PAT HOLDER:
So in my class the main goal is not for students to learn to work with tools or become a carpenter it’s for them to recognize that if they have an idea there is a plan or a process that they can thoughtfully put into place to achieve it. And that lets them do things that they didn’t believe they could do at the outset of their work.
FERNANDO VEGA:
So as long as it’s authentically done by a student every product tells a story about the students learning.
