Lesson 8: Higher Thinking Skills through IT-Based Projects

   Key Elements of a          Constructivist Approach:

a) The teacher creating the the learning environment.

b) The teacher giving students the tool.

c) The teacher facilitating learning.

       Now let us see four IT-based projects conducive to develop higher thinking skills and creativity among learners. 

                I. RESOURCE-BASED PROJECTS

      The teacher steps out of the traditional role of being an context expert and information provider, and instead lets the students find their own facts and information.

The general flows of events in resource-based projects are:

1. The teacher determines the topic for the examination of class.

2. The teacher presents the problem to the class.

3. The students find information on the problem/questions.

4. Students organize their information in response to the problem/questions.

Traditional and Resource-based Learning 

Traditional learning model	Resource-based learning model
Teacher is expert and information provides	Teacher is a guide and facilitator
Textbook is key source of information	Sources are varied (print, video. Internet, etc.)
Focus on facts  Information is packaged  In neat parcels	Focus on learning inquiry, quest, or discovery
The product is the be-all and end-all of learning	Emphasis on process
Assessment is quantitative	Assessment is quantitative and qualitative.

               II. SIMPLE CREATIONS

          In developing software, creativity as an outcome should not be equated with ingenuity or high intelligence. Creating is more consonant with planning, making, assembling, designing or building.

                 Three kinds of skills/abilities:

1.Analyzing
             Distinguishing similarities and differences/seeing the project as a problem to be solved.

2.Synthesizing
          Making spontaneous connections among ideas, does generating interesting or new ideas.

3.Promoting
                Selling of a new ideas to allow the public to test the ideas themselves.

              The five key task to develop creativity:

1. Define the task 
                     Clarify the goal of the completed project to the student.

2. Brainstorm 
             The students themselves will be allowed to generate their own ideas on the project. Rather than shoot down ideas, the teacher encourages ideas exchange.

3. Judge the ideas- the students themselves make an appraisal for or against any idea. Only when students are completely off check should the teacher intervene. 

4. Act
         The students do their work with the teacher a facilitator.

5. Adopt flexibility
         The students should be allowed to shift gears and not follow an action path rigidly.

   

        III.GUIDED HYPERMEDIA PROJECT 

    The production of self-made multimedia projects can be approached into different ways:

1. Instructive tools
          Such as in the production by students of a power point presentation of a selective topic 
.

2. Constructive tools
         Such as when students do a multi-media presentation (with text, graphs, photos, audio narration, interviews, video clips, etc.) to simulate a television news show.

                IV. WEB-BASED PROJECTS

            Students can be made to create and post web pages on a given topic. But creating new pages, even single page web pages, maybe tool sophisticated and time consuming for the average student. It should be said, however, that posting of webpages in the internet allows the students a wider audience. They can also be linked with other related sites in the internet. But as of now, this creativity project may be to ambitious as a tool in the teaching-learning process.