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“When my students took the mClas second-grade math assessment, they performed poorly on many of the geometry questions. They recognized all of the shapes on the test, but they were confused about further qualities of shapes like the number of angles and sides.

I also know that I had higher attendance, greater excitement and focus, and decreased disruption during those math lessons than ever before. I wonder if it might not be worthwhile to focus more on giving students, especially students in so-called “high-needs” schools, the experience of enjoyable learning than to focus on scoring well on the assessments.”

No. You need to design projects that accomplish both of these worthwhile goals. Surely there are authentic, interesting projects that ask more of both you and your students than just to be able to recognize shapes correctly. Next time you plan a unit around shapes, sit down with the list of things students need to know and be able to do with shapes and make sure that the larger project includes plenty of teaching and practice of each of these skills, thoroughly.

The good news is, you definitely don’t have to fall back on drill & kill, but you do have a responsibility to each of your students that they get more than a fun, haphazard opportunity to learn this important content. The bad news is, you need to really think through what each of your lessons sets out to accomplish. It sounds to me like a ton of time was spent on arts & crafts, acting practice, etc. – which are in themselves worthwhile – but at a cost to learning the details about shapes that kids do need to know.

I would start by asking yourself if you can come up with an interesting, “fun” project that requires each and every student to grapple, repeatedly and not on a worksheet, with the question of shape names, number of sides, number of angles. Then invest the kids in THAT project.

Oooowwwch! Well, couched in all that cruelty was an interesting point: creating a project-focused environment might allow for more teacher laziness than the results-based model we see in many schools today. It is important, perhaps even necessary, for the administration to hold the teachers to a quantifiable standard in order to maintain high expectations for both teachers and students. So let me qualify, briefly, what I wrote above. It was the administrator’s job to bring to my attention the low test results in geometry, and it was natural to question my project-based unit plan. I am suggesting that an administration should (and many administrations do) recognize student excitement as a crucial aspect of elementary education. I think the appropriate administrative response would have sounded exactly like Kelly’s post (see above), in which the project is changed to address what I had clearly left out.
Parent, your concerns are crucial, and necessary for any teacher: students must not be grouped in ways conducive to distraction; the interests and needs of every student must be incorporated into the lesson plan; students must not do the work for each other. But I believe that projects can be designed that address these concerns. I found that much more boredom, distraction and disruption resulted from rug-to-workbook lessons. My kids would say “What is the point?” Projects can give all of that learning a point, and when it really clicks the learning will not feel like learning at all, it will feel like fun.

I am a high school English teacher, so I have no actual experience teaching second grade math. However, I think that a missing link between the hands-on drawing, cutting, and pasting, might be the ability to express that knowledge in spoken or written language. How about doing a mini “talk show” (interviewer and guests) to discuss the problems of missing angles or “misunderstood” shapes…Or a game show called “What’s Your Angle?” Maybe a puppet show..Small groups could work on particular presentations or scripts. Also, find out if there are any math songs that present the information, and have them sing and memorize the songs. A hundred years ago, when I was in fifth grade, my teacher used a wonderful collection of science songs, and to this day I know that..”The sun is a mass of incandescent gas/a gigantic nuclear furnace/Where hydrogen is built in helium/At a temperature of millions of degrees.” Also, a comment to the distressed parent..Don’t blame the teacher.The use of projects to (supposedly) demonstrate learning has been a brainchild of this whole “reform” movement. (Thank the mayor and all of his “experts”) On the high school level, we have been pushed and prodded to use group work instead of direct instruction. “Don’t be a sage on the stage,” say the experts..”Be a guide on the side.” The preferred model for academic classes is for the teacher to give a ten-minute mini-lesson, and then have the students break into groups to complete a project and teach each other the material. This means that the teachers, with advanced degrees, experience, and great depth and breadth of knowledge in their subject areas, are supposed to stand back and let the students (many of whom are struggling or apathetic learners) teach and learn mainly from each other. Teachers who spend most of the period standing in front of the room to present information, using the blackboard, even leading a lively full-class discussion, run the risk of getting an “Unsatisfactory” rating because the lesson was too teacher-directed. Yet, the students are still expected to work alone on standardized tests.. AND..we all know that when it comes to applying to college,the student will be judged on his or her own accomplishments. It’s a paradox; school systems want to hire highly qualified teachers, but then they don’t want them to actually teach;yet, they want the students to demonstrate their knowledge by standardized testing.

You need to distinguish between project-based learning and collaborative learning; they are two entirely different things, though can be done simultaneously.

Project-based learning is asking students to demonstrate content knowledge and/or skills through authentic tasks. To plan a project-based lesson you need to be very clear about the content or skills you want students to develop, figure out what it would take to demonstrate mastery, then create learning activities that allow students to demonstrate it. This might include direct instruction to provide foundational knowledge that you then ask students to apply or synthesize or modeling so students can incorporate their prior knowledge and experiences into developing a skill. Students can do projects individually or in teams.

Collaborative learning is asking students to learn through interaction with each other. Collaboration is a skill, which I think needs to be taught explicitly. (It’s a skill teachers generally don’t model themselves). I’m a big fan of the book Designing Groupwork: Strategies for the Heterogeneous Classroom by Elizabeth Cohen. It provides a clear rationale for when and how to use groupwork, and also provides activities to teach students how to do it effectively. Students need to know what is expected of them during groupwork, their roles, how they will be evaluated (e.g., as individuals or as part of a group). Groupwork takes considerable planning if you hope to use it for rigorous instruction, especially if students will have different roles, e.g., jigsaw learning.

Finally, while students like to have fun, they are smart enough to know the difference between fun and learning. They respect teachers who challenge them, help them see how they are growing, and respect them enough to make sure they learn what they need to be successful.