Edutopia’s latest newsletter (June 23) offers examples from King Middle School of how to select a topic or field site for a visit and how to plan a project in six steps. The planning is designed for middle school age range but would be very suitable with little adaptation to projects at the upper elementary age too.
http://www.edutopia.org/maine-project-learning-how-to-plan-a-project
http://www.edutopia.org/maine-project-learning-questions-before-starting
The “five questions before starting” article offers an example of evaluating the usefulness of a field visit before going ahead with planning. The same questions could apply to the selection of a project topic.
http://www.edutopia.org/maine-project-learning-six-steps-planning
In the “Six Steps for Planning a Successful Project” article the steps described can be related to planning work for each of the three phases of a project as described in the Project Approach.
The first step applies to the selection of the topic and the teacher’s preliminary planning in developing a topic web.
“Develop a compelling topic that covers state standards, has an authentic connection to the local community, and provides opportunities for every student to do meaningful, independent research.”
If these criteria are not met then the topic web will not be easily developed to include at least 100 words of categorized and topic focused vocabulary.
Steps 2 and 6 refer to the third phase of the project where the teacher visualizes the sharing of final representations of what the students have learned and the importance of sharing the results of the investigation.
Step 3 refers to the importance of community involvement and the sense on th epart of the students that they are investigating the real world and have important roles to play in doing so.
Steps 4 and 5 are about field work and how this can be done in the most authentic ways. It also refers to the the important work of students meaningfully representing what they have learned.