Milestones Along the Project
Now that you understand the four phases of learning along the project path, you may be wondering how much time and attention to spend on each phase. How will you know when your students are ready to move on to the next phase?
In the project plan you downloaded, notice how learning is chunked into several “milestones.”
Each milestone focuses on a specific question that students are likely to be asking at this point in the project, with suggested learning activities and resources to help them arrive at answers. One milestone might last for a single class period or multiple sessions.
Anticipating milestones helps you structure the project in a logical way. Milestones are more detailed than the phases of the project path, but not as specific as a calendar or daily lesson plan. These are opportunities for you to assess progress, invite more student questions, and make necessary adjustments to keep learning on track. Focusing on the learning goals for each milestone will also help you plan for technology integration. See an example of milestones below.
Each milestone represents a stage, or chapter, in the story of the project. Milestones can vary in duration, and include a series of actvities that guide students inquiry forward.
Example
Milestone 6: How can we continue to develop as historians?
Students share their tour with others and reflect on what they have learned.
Estimated Duration 2-3 days
Assessment(s): Historical marker (team), Survey analysis based on feedback (whole group),
Key Student Question: How can we continue to develop as historians?
Activities
Activity Title: Launch the tour.
Description: Guide the class in creating a survey for feedback on the historical tour.
Have the questions in the survey reflect the tenets of the collective oath from Milestone 5. In other words, have the survey serve as feedback for students regarding the extent to which their project reflects their oaths. Use a consensus-building approach, which can help students identify the most important questions for a survey. Consider whether surveys will be qualitative, quantitative, or both. Have students invite family and other communities to participate in the tour. Ensure that participants have access to the surveys whether they are physical or digital.
After guests have had a chance to respond to the survey about the tour, have students analyze the data to reflect on what elements of the tour were particularly successful and which they could improve
Celebrate a job well done.
Take a moment for each student to share out a highlight from the project. Have students identify and share one thing they are particularly proud of regarding their work. Consider using a graffiti board, which is an effective way for students to share their thinking while creating an artifact that can be used later in the year.
Revist the collective historian's oath.
Based on their experience in creating the project and the feedback they received from visitors to the tour, have students revisit the collective historian's oath to determine if there is anything
Turbo Boost With Technology
Review the project plan that you selected and consider where you would place each of the milestones along the project path. You may find that some of the phases have more than one milestone.