The Benefits of Project-Based Learning

This week the students have continued to work on our whole class project of putting on a musical together.  Watching the students take ownership of their own learning in this project has been a really rewarding experience.  Each morning when the students come into the class they are permitted to work on an independent project of their choice for the first 20 minutes of the day before we assemble for our Daily News routine.  This week during this time, without any prompting I witnessed how the students gathered in groups to work on their lines, create the set and design costumes.  Even my most reluctant writers eagerly wrote out the steps involved to creating the props needed on stage and how they designed their creations.