Project Must-Haves

In "Catch a Fire" (Henderson, 2019), Laura Sims, PhD, writes about "essential project-based learning design elements" (p.79). She says, according to Larmer et al. (2015), that every project should include the following:

  • Challenging problems or questions (p.80)
  • Sustained inquiry (p.80)
  • Authenticity (p.82)
  • Student Voice and Choice (p.82)
  • Reflection (p.83)
  • Critique and revision (p.84)
  • Public product (p.84)
This project will include all of these elements in the following ways:
  • Challenging problems or questions: I will begin this project with the questions I am wondering about. Through my experiences teaching, I have often started an inquiry project with "What do you know?" and "What do you want to know?", or a KWL, as we call it. I will follow this process for my own project.
  • Sustained inquiry: Sims says (according Larmer et al., 2015), "Different "sources" can be consulted and incorporated, such as doing traditional research through literature, and doing field-based interviews involving experts, service-providers, and users" (Henderson, 2019, p.81) I will be doing my own research as well as interview experts to answer my questions, and then from there, create my running program. 
  • Authenticity: This will be authentic in the way that I will use it in the fall, when the baby comes
  • Student voice and choice: The basis of this project is a "passion-project", so my choice to do this project has already been made and my voice will come throughout the project.
  • Reflection: I will reflect of the process as I go
  • Critique and revision: The nature of child-birth and individual people means that the answers I find will vary. I must take what I learn from "experts" and think critically - just because that's what happened to them, does not mean that is how it will go for me. I may also need to revise my learning outcomes as I go, maybe more questions will come up. Or, maybe things I thought were important, actually are not.
  • Public product: I was trying to think if I wanted to make this a printed guidebook for myself or something public and I decided to make it a public blog, so other women can use and access it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to my blog about training for a marathon post-childbirth.  My name is Alice Sherwin. I am a runner and teacher from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Running is my passion. It keeps me happy and balanced in my personal and professional life. I have run 8 full marathons (Personal best 3:00:47) and 20+ half marathons (Personal best 1:23:36). I have been running competitively since 2007. I am currently expecting my first child, due in early September and I am uncertain what that will mean for my future running. I am certainly not the first runner to have child, so my goal is to speak with other runners and medical professionals who might be able to weigh in on how the best is to return to running post childbirth. Most of the advice online is aimed towards recreational runners, but  I would like to create a step-by-step guide of how to get back to a competitive marathon in a healthy way. This is a project is based on my personal interest and I will use it to motivate m...
Read more

Putting It All Together - The Running Program

This is a tentative running plan, which means that there is room for flexibility and change. When making this program, I used previous running plans that I have used when coming back from injury. I feel that I have given myself a lot of time to ease back in to training, although I am prepared to slow it down even more if needed. In previous marathon training cycles, I have worked with my coach (my awesome husband) to come up with a plan, schedule, and workouts. I have used our regular marathon mileage and schedule in the second half of this program. I am also planning to work with my midwife, doctor, pelvic floor physio, regular physiotherapist for other issues (knees, back, shins, etc.), and massage therapists throughout this journey. When training for marathons previously, I have followed the schedule of running one long run, one interval workout, and one tempo every week. I also usually take one day off per week to allow for recovery. The other running days are negotiable. In the pa...
Read more

In Conclusion

Image
This project became a lot more extensive than I had planned. In retrospect, I think I could have interviewed my running friends OR done all of the other research, made the running program, etc. Throughout the production of this blog I have found myself in a state of "flow" several times. "Flow" refers to high levels of intrinsic motivation, concentrated effort, and positive mood  (Mehta & Fine, 2019, p.262) . It's the feeling you get when you are really excited about what you are learning, and you don't want to do anything else. I have been enraptured with this topic that I have been sharing my findings with running partners, co-workers, and family members. I feel that I have only touched the 'tip of the iceberg' when it comes to how it's going to be to have a child in September. Although I have spent [many] hours on this project, I think it will be useful for me to read and follow in this next chapter of my life and I hope it may also help s...
Read more