Chapter 8
Building Connections and Branching Out

Once the students have created their Project then they are able to seek other ideas or inspirations for improving thier learning. It could either be by adding new concepts or ideas from the project or seeking guidance from others.  When seeking guidance from others you must pertain to what is significant to the project, what types of teacher facilitated blogs are available for the students to use, given that the learning is based on the project the students are creating. Sometimes when the teacher is guiding the students learning you sometimes forget what students are thinking and what inspires them to think of why they are using that idea in their project. When the teacher gives the students different choices but guides them in their learning you can be inspired to what your students come up with in their projects. When the teacher is trying to find an expert on the topic the students are trying to understand there are different ways to approach them.

• The teacher can contact the expert from making phone calls, e-mails, mail and any other communication process available to have a different voice to speak to the classroom about the  project.
• If the teacher is able to find an expert you must create an introduction on the topic of discussion, try to get the expert to give you some helpful hints or learning experiences to help the teacher guide the students learning toward the project.
• If the communication process then is successful and the teacher has communicated with the expert, then try to create a way to have the expert to try to communicate to the classroom. 
• If the expert agrees to communicate with the classroom, have the expert know the grade level of the students, have specific information of the project and try to make the expert feel comfortable with talking to students. 
• If the teacher has been able to set a day for the students to talk to expert about their project remind them that the expert can help facilitate the experience of the project since they are experts, have the students understand that the expert has limited time to talk to the students and if the students need questions answered and there is no time left then we can set up another session that the expert can speak with the students.

Once the expert has talked to the students about the project then communicate with the students if they have a different understanding of the project. Let the students know if the expert has challenge their thinking to what understanding of the project they can capture or if they need a different challenge to help with the students expectations.