Make it Real!
A Jesuit priest once told me that "the greatest sin against the Holy Spirit is being boring." The Make it Real! project was designed to protect teachers from boring students and protect students from boring teachers.
Make it Real! Project
Description:
At the heart of this project is the creative application of students’ knowledge of course content. The idea is to move beyond—and add to—the traditional teaching and learning models of lecture, note-taking, memorization, and testing. As content knowledge is acquired and assessed, students should apply knowledge through experiences that allow for: creating, problem-solving, building, investigating, debating, critically thinking, developing theories, and in general being actively engaged in the material in meaningful ways.
Assignment:
Identify, find, or create at least one of the following:
- One major project per semester that satisfies the above criteria.
- An ongoing class practice in each semester that satisfies the above criteria.
- (Or one of each)
Guidelines:
Effective assessment/evaluation: the project/assignment/activity (hereafter referred to simply as “project”) should represent a worthwhile and effective assessment of the course content at hand and should be appropriate to the level being taught.
Active engagement: Imagine a roomful of students sitting silently at their desks, facing the front of the room, blinking in unison while the teacher talks to them for 47 minutes. During the course of your Make it Real! project, the room should BE THE OPPOSITE of this: students discussing, debating, creating, laughing, asking questions, investigating, problem-solving, writing, plotting, etc. The teacher, too, should be actively engaged in all students’/groups’ processes: facilitating, answering questions, adding suggestions, giving feedback, and guiding students to success.
Creativity: the project should reflect the creative efforts of the teacher and allow students to be creative in some way.
Instructions:
Once you have identified your project, write a one-page description to submit in Google Classroom by Monday, September 19th, 2016.
Descriptions should include: Name of project; course content/unit of study being assessed; purpose of project; brief description of process/expectations; anticipated date of project. (The descriptions may be similar to the assignment sheet that you would hand students.) You may include any additional handouts, materials, or artifacts related to the assignment if you choose.