Semistructured Projects

"Semistructured projects are defined and organized in part by the teacher and in part by students" (110).  This is what I plan on utilizing every year in my classroom, when doing projects.  I feel that structured is too one sided towards the teacher's vision and doesn't consider what the students are interested in, what is relevant to them, or what their needs are.  We as teachers in any subject have the responsibility to assess our students' needs, whether that be because they are behind in something, have a disability of some sort, or need more of a challenge.  The structured projects do not do this.  Unstructured, I feel, gives students too much freedom.  They don't always know what is best for themselves, nor what the teacher's objective is, so they could easily miss that and the purpose of the project.  However, it is interesting to think what a very motivated class would do with this, where they would take it and how well they would do on their own.  With this semistructured project, I feel that a performance based project might be the most beneficial to use.  What immediately came to my mind was an experience I had that is a good example of this.  I've had several teachers facilitate debates in the classroom where students are split into two groups that represent a position.  They don't choose the side they are on and must do research on their own representing and supporting their position.  Although they are spitting out statistics and factual information, this process leads to students coming to an understanding of their position, the other side, and the situation as a whole all on their own.  They are able to interpret that information and respond in a debate about a real world situation that is important and relevant to the class.  This teaches students a variety of skills that they are able to get to mostly on their own through the research and debate.  I think this is a great project and will use it in the future.