Brooke Bias, an English teacher at John I. Burton High School, challenged her English students to complete and present vocabulary projects each week, as opposed to completing a vocabulary packet and taking a traditional quiz. She added vocabulary projects to her English courses after NCS began to implement Project Based Learning. Mrs. Bias's English 12 and English 11 students were assigned 10 vocabulary words each week during the first six weeks period. Some project options from the first six weeks period included creating a rap, a short story, or a PowerPoint slide containing all ten of the vocabulary words. The second six weeks project options now include creating a recipe booklet, writing and performing a skit, or writing a paragraph about another subject of study; each of these projects also has to contain all ten assigned vocabulary words.
Mrs. Bias's English 11 class has the same project options as the 12th grade class, but the classes do not have the same vocabulary terms. Juniors have vocabulary practice sheets that they work on every Monday, and then on Tuesday they pick a project to complete. Juniors present their projects every Friday. The 12th grade vocabulary assignment was originally structured the same way; however, testing completed by Mrs. Bias's students at the end of the first six weeks revealed that most of the seniors struggled to recall a significant number of vocabulary words and their meanings. Mrs. Bias has since altered the work her seniors must complete; the seniors are now assigned 10 vocabulary words for every two week period. During that time period, they complete an extended practice packet, which lets students continuously see these words used in context. Then, they complete a project which is presented every other Thursday. Finally, on Friday of the second week they complete a more traditional 10 question quiz. Mrs. Bias said she believed implementing projects would help her students tremendously, but pointed out that it seemed to help her juniors more than the seniors. Mrs. Bias attributes this difference in success to the more reserved nature of the students in her senior class, as well as a student tendency to rely on synonyms.
Nonetheless, Mrs. Bias feels that implementing these projects can enhance the soft skills of students. Students focus on presentation skills and their social skills as they work closely with their peers. Mazzy T., and J.T., juniors, said they have enjoyed doing projects because they enjoy seeing what other groups have completed throughout the week. Mazzy said her favorite project was the rap her group prepared and performed because they had the chance to relate their vocabulary words to their life.J.T.'s favorite part was the art project where he got to cut out pictures from a magazine that related to the words and glue them onto computer paper. Both of these students hope to continue with these projects because it helps them learn the words better than taking quizzes.
Written by: Tori F.