Student driven projects are a great option for evidence of learning in K to 12, vocational and higher education. They are increasing in popularity because projects:
- provide a practical application of skills and knowledge
- allow students to pursue activities that interest them and are relevant to them
- can be big or small
- can be cross curricula
- can be collaborative or individual (or both)
- can encourage active learning
- can connect to real life
- allow for flexibility to meet individual learners’ needs
- can produce proof of learning for assessment purposes
Projects have moved beyond the posters with glued magazine cut-outs of yesteryear (not that there’s anything wrong with them when you’re mixing it up!) to activities that can potentially have a real community impact.
Projects are not the same as project based learning (PBL). You’ll find an excellent table comparing the difference here.
About the project planning template
The template is designed to be general and flexible to allow for wide applications to many different types of projects. It has been created in Google Slides so you can change the template to suit your needs. It covers the areas of:
- project proposal
- project plan
- project review (reflection)
The template is specifically based around the Australian accredited unit VU21324 Plan and undertake a project. However, it can be used to meet many worldwide educational standards including:
- Australia
- Australian National Curriculum
- state curriculum
- VET qualifications including CGEA and Foundation Skills (FSK)
- United States of America
- Common Core Standards
- state and district standards
- Canada
- United Kingdom
- Republic of Ireland
It is fairly simply designed, with an interactive navigation menu and some instructions which should be removed when using the template.
Accessing the FREE project planning template
The link below to the template is VIEW ONLY. This means you will need to create a copy IN YOUR OWN GOOGLE DRIVE to be able to edit the file and share the file with your students. To do this use the following menu path:
File > Make a copy…
Click here to access the FREE project planning template.
Ideas for using the template in your class
- Customise the template to meet your specific purpose/outcomes before distributing to your students, e.g., add your own instructions, add and delete sections, etc.
- Split the template for group projects so that part of it is completed as a collaboration and part of it is completed by each individual student.
- Distribute it as part of an assignment/portfolio of work in Google Classroom.
- Encourage students to personalise the presentation to suit their personal tastes.
- Encourage the use of multi-media as well as text. For example, interviewing members of the project team and including the video in the presentation, photos of the project artefact, etc.
- Encouraging attempts that may fail but lead to learning that can be recorded in the project document.
- Sharing of project documents with the school community and parents and carers.
- Can be used on any platform supporting Google Slides, e.g., Chromebooks, Windows, Apple, iOS, Android, Linux.
References
Why Teach with Project-Based Learning?: Providing Students With a Well-Rounded Classroom Experience
https://www.edutopia.org/project-learning-introduction
The Difference Between Projects And Project-Based Learning