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=Welcome to Your Custom Wiki Created for Salem City Schools= Building Learning Communities 2013

About This Workshop
====Today we experience a step-by-step model for successfully engaging all learners in effective inclusive classrooms. In planning this workshop Cathy Sanor, Director of Curriculum & Federal Programs, and Sean Kirkland, Junior High School Principal, identified expanding the Inclusion model as a primary goal. A wide variety of technologies and tools are available for integration across a range of curriculum areas. It is important that all students are motivated and engaged in dynamic curriculum activities. Sanor and Kirkland express goals for infusing tools in a meaningful way in order to build a successful inclusive community.====

====Although there are a myriad of considerations, effective differentiated learning models seem an appropriate place to start during our time together at the Building Learning Communities 2013 conference.====

One Effective Strategy - Project-Based Learning
====Experts indicate that "project learning can be more effective than traditional instruction in increasing academic achievement," ... applying and retaining information, building skills such as critical thinking and collaboration, and communication. "Students who work on projects show increased motivation and engagement in their studies."====

Consider the many ways technology tools are integrated in this short video introducing project learning from Edutopia, the George Lucas Educational Foundation website. <[]>
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===="Engaging and worthy problems or questions of importance, in which students must use knowledge to fashion performances effectively and creatively. The tasks are either replicas of or analogous to the kinds of problems faced by adult citizens and consumers or professionals in the field." -- Grant Wiggins -- (Wiggins, 1993, p. 229).====

===="When PBL is used with 21st-century tools/skills, students are expected to use technology in meaningful ways to help them investigate, collaborate, analyze, synthesize and present their learning. Where technology is infused throughout the project, a more appropriate term for the pedagogy can be referred to as iPBL (copyright 2006, ITJAB), to reflect the emphasis on technological skills as well as academic content." - Retrieved from Wikipedia, June 2013====

About this Wiki
====This wiki is designed with the resources needed to implement project-based learning strategies as an inclusive learning technique. Not only will you find the step-by-step guides used in our mock project, you will also find follow-up information on both project-based learning as well as authentic assessment.====