Pedagogical technologies are being actively improved; developing teaching methods are gaining immense popularity. Increasingly, the term “educational project” is found among the description of teaching methods. This is a joint activity of teachers and students, which is aimed at solving a specific problem that plays an important role for all participants in the process.
Such a project can be a game or creative activity, as well as a series of educational tasks. According to teachers, it is with their help that it is easiest to introduce development methods into the learning process that involve obtaining new information based on what students have learned before.
What is a project and why is it needed?
If you ask any teacher, he will answer that an educational project is a large number of activities that together solve a whole package of problems. First of all, it is about getting schoolchildren completely new knowledge, skills. Projects can be associated not only with education, everything will depend on what goal the creators set for themselves. For example, if the goal is to instill kindness and compassion in children, then activities may include trips to shelters, orphanages, nursing homes and communication with residents of these organizations.
In some cases, a similar project is understood as a series of measures aimed at the formation of a model, system or even an entire object. As a rule, such an interpretation is used in classes requiring a large number of practical skills and abilities from students — in chemistry, physics, computer science, technology, etc. In some cases, in the formation of this set of measures, parents of students who usually dedicated to all stages of the experiment. Each project should have its own goal, otherwise it will not make sense.
How to determine the goal?
The purpose of the educational project will directly depend on what the teacher wants to teach his students. It is advisable that the set of activities developed by the teacher benefit not only the students, but also himself. In modern pedagogy, there has been a tendency to implement quests in educational activities, and an increasing number of teachers are trying themselves in this niche.
If we consider quests as an opportunity to modify the usual way of studying, then all participants in the project get new experience and emotions. Children are satisfied that the lesson is interesting, and the teacher, using a new technique, tries to fix their own perceptions of the world, as well as the feelings and emotions of their students. Based on the data received, the teacher analyzes and decides whether to carry out a similar set of measures in the future or not.
Design
Once you have decided what your school project will pursue, it's time to start preparing it. First of all, we are talking about the formation of stages through which students must go in order to reach their goals. The teacher, as a rule, does not articulate these stages, especially when it comes to developing teaching methods, where students independently come to the right conclusion based on their own scientific experience.
When the stages are formed, you need to prepare all the necessary conditions for the tasks to be completed. It is about preparing resources and tools, in addition, the teacher, before starting the implementation of the planned set of measures, must determine for himself and for all participants in the process criteria that will determine the effectiveness of the work done.
Structure: where to start?
A pedagogical educational project must have a logically structured structure, in which all the advantages and risks of its implementation must be taken into account. You should always start with an analysis of current affairs, you need to determine the problem that you will solve with the help of your set of measures. As a rule, in the course of a preliminary investigation of the situation, several contradictions are identified that require speedy resolution.
The next stage is the formation of ideas that should be implemented as part of an invented set of measures. Next, you need to decide what the general meaning of your project is, and with its goals, for this you need to answer the question - why should it be implemented? It is important that the answer to this question is very clear and understandable both for the teacher and for all its participants.
Structure: Important Points
The next stage in the preparation of the project plan is the formation of a list of tasks that must be performed within its framework, as well as a registry of the resources necessary for this. Next, you need to determine what results you expect from the implementation of the complex of planned activities, as well as how you will evaluate the fact of completion or failure. As soon as the planned results are formed into a single picture, it is necessary to think about the consequences, which can be both in the case of successful completion of the project, and its failure.
These consequences can be both educational and socio-cultural. For example, if a teacher visited a glass factory with the class, and his workers during the tour were not shy in expressions, there is a chance that the children will take them into their vocabulary. Thus, from an educational point of view, the project has been completed, but the socio-cultural consequences can adversely affect the behavior of students. The next stage is a clear plan for the implementation of your set of activities up to the time of its beginning and completion.
Finally, the most important stage begins - the implementation of the school project. It is very important to constantly monitor and, if necessary, correct all planned activities, as well as constantly diagnose the situation. At this stage, you can not let the process go by chance, otherwise nothing good will come of your project. After carrying out all the activities, you need to summarize and analyze the results. If everything went well, you can share your experience with colleagues.
How to prepare for the presentation of your development?
Teacher educational projects are created not only to conduct experiments with students, but also to exchange experiences. Preparation for the presentation is much like the creation of a diploma or term paper and consists of an introduction, theoretical and practical parts, as well as a conclusion. A written summary of the project must be accompanied by a list of references and necessary applications.
In the introduction, it is necessary to identify the contradictions found during the initial analysis, formulate a problem on their basis, put forward a hypothesis and identify ways to solve it. Thus, it is possible to formulate the goals and objectives of the project, which you will adhere to in the future.
Presenting the development: theory and practice
If you want to participate in a competition of educational projects or just share with colleagues, pay special attention to the abstract and practical parts of your work. In the first part, it is necessary, based on modern works, to substantiate the importance of solving the problem you posed from the point of view of various pedagogical methods. It is very important that the abstract (or theoretical) part of your work is a complete analysis of the scientific works on which you rely, and not their synopsis.
The practical part can be formed as a description of the activity that the teacher will carry out together with his students. You yourself can determine the conditions under which you will work, here you can also include structuring the project and a description of the methods that will be used in the work. Here you need to determine the goals of the work, the planned result and the ways in which you will achieve their implementation.
What to write in the conclusion?
The project plan assumes that the conclusion will indicate materials that relate to its implementation. It should also indicate the results of the analysis that was performed after the completion of the project, as well as evaluate its effectiveness according to previously selected criteria. As criteria, you can use the desire for creativity among students, the development of motivation and needs, project manageability, etc.
With the right design, the teacher can reveal his social, professional and substantive competence in his work. As a result, the teacher should get a detailed description of all the activities that were performed by him in the process of project implementation.
How to evaluate the presentation of such a project?
An educational project is an excellent opportunity to participate in various pedagogical competitions. To prepare as best as possible, you need to know about the criteria for evaluating these works. The most important of them is relevance, which implies the need to study the question posed for the development of modern education. To get the maximum score for this section, you need to clearly articulate the problem, argue your ideas, and justify the relevance and social significance of your project.
Another criterion is innovation. To comply with it, you must indicate the novelty of the technology that you used. It is desirable that all the ideas that you demonstrate in the project are original and accessible for further widespread dissemination. Also, the work should indicate the risks and consequences that the teacher sees when implementing his own project.
Another criterion is realism. Here it is necessary to describe the impact that the results of your project on the educational process can have. It is enough to describe the predicted result, indicate the data on the provision of resources and clarify whether your work uses developing teaching methods. It will also be necessary to provide information on whether the students themselves will be able to find a solution to the problem if you periodically throw them leading questions.
How to choose a theme?
Themes of educational projects should be chosen, guided by a number of principles. This is especially important for those students who take part in such an event for the first time. Try to choose individual topics for your students, set aside a specific time for each student and discuss their interests, aspirations and desires with him. It is important that the proposed idea for the project is meaningful for the child and modern, he should be able to be proud of his own work done.
If you have ample opportunities, it would be nice to let your students work with experts in the field. At the same time, it is necessary to help children formulate their needs and requirements in such a way that they do not take extra time from senior colleagues. Also consider the presence or absence of resources that may prevent the student from completing the work on time.
Speaking of topics, we can invite children to make new discoveries using modern technical means. For example, children can track the behavior of various biological organisms under a microscope and record the process on video. Another option is an interdisciplinary approach, namely, research at the junction of two or more disciplines. For example, one can study the letters of Russian rulers using the Old Slavonic and Old Russian alphabet for this.
Who to work with?
Work in an educational project can be conducted in a variety of ways. The teacher can only work with his students, he can also interact with their parents, he can attract outside teachers to his projects who are interested in this topic. The work options are numerous and varied, the main thing is to choose the right one.
Another important factor - if you decide to work together with fellow educators within an educational project, you need to immediately divide the roles between the participants. Each of them should be responsible for its part of the activities, and the form of control should be established quite rigid. If you are doing a joint project with your parents, the situation becomes more complicated, since they only work on your work in their free time, and it may be seriously missed. A project with children is easiest to do, it is only important to convey to them the importance of the event in a timely manner and establish control points.
Project as a form of activity
In a sense, an educational project is a form of organization of classes that allows you to gain new knowledge in an unusual way. Project activity automatically implies the existence of non-traditional forms of lessons, which include round tables, presentations, defense of independently made scientific works, role-playing games, brainstorming, etc. In this case, it all depends on the teacher and his ability to choose the most convenient form of conducting lesson based on the age of the children and the complexity of the material.
In modern pedagogy, there are several types of classes, the most popular of which are combined. At such lessons, homework is checked together with the material studied earlier, a new topic is examined, after which it is consolidated. For the educational project, the type of activity in which only the study of new material is carried out is most suitable. Components aimed at using new skills and knowledge, which are usually given to individual lessons, can also be added to this.
Pitfalls (project implementation)
If you decide to engage in the implementation of educational projects, you should be aware of the large number of difficulties that may arise in your way. First of all, this is a lack of control, and in some cases its oversupply. Students cannot be forced to take part in the project, otherwise they will not be able to understand his idea, and as a result, all of his parties will lose. Particular attention should also be paid to your colleagues with whom you created the project, if they lose interest in it, a rather large amount of work will fall on you at the most inopportune moment.
The main aspect that needs to be considered when working with children is their desires, interests and needs. If the teacher does not know what his students are dreaming of, it means that he does not have enough contact with them, which should help in the implementation of not only project, but also standard pedagogical activity. To obtain the necessary information, you can use business games, questionnaires, testing, as well as modeling situations that children may encounter outside the school office.
Conclusion
Modern educational projects are used not only in schools, but also in colleges, technical schools and universities. The teacher must be prepared for the fact that he will have to spend a fairly large amount of time on the implementation of his brainchild. The most difficult thing a teacher can face when working on a set of his own activities is failure. If this still happened, it is important to analyze the situation in a timely manner and identify the causes of failure. And, of course, it should be remembered that a negative result helps to develop and become more professional.
It should be understood that an educational project is not only a way of realizing teaching ambitions, some teachers completely forget about this, especially in those cases when it really succeeds. It may happen that the set of activities that one teacher successfully uses does not work for another, and this is normal, since the audience of the project can radically differ and have its own characteristics.