Project Based Learning

Stage 1 Fluency Example: The Menu Project

Figure 1.6. The Big Picture of a Design Approach

Traditional education is failing to engage many students as they enter their middle school, high school, and college years. The culture clash between formal education and interest-driven, out-of-school learning is escalating in today’s world where social communication and interactive content is always at our fingertips. We need to harness these new technologies for learning rather than distraction.

Young people learn best when actively engaged, creating, and solving problems they care about, and supported by peers who appreciate and recognize their accomplishments.

“When am I ever going to use this stuff in real life?”

With project based learning, the content is baked inside of a long-term project, a real-world problem students need to solve in a creative and authentic way. In the process of solving the problem, students also meet required standards, but this work is integrated into the project, not separate from it.

Careful, though: The “project” in many cases is often something like a poster that merely regurgitates the facts students were taught in the unit.

How will we know if stu-dents have achieved the desired results? What will we accept as evidence of stu-dent understanding and their ability to use (transfer) their learning in new situations? How will we evaluate student performance in fair and consistent ways?

What should students know, understand, and be able to do? What is the ultimate transfer we seek as a result of this unit? What enduring under-standings are desired? What essential questions will be explored in-depth and provide focus to all learning?

s. The teacher as designer is similarly constrained. We are not free to teach any topic we choose. Rather, we are guided by national, state, district, or institutional standards that specify what students should know and be able to

ts learn and understand the desired knowledg

The classroom culture should value questioning, hypothesizing, and openness to new ideas and perspectives.

A project should give students opportunities to build such 21st century skills as collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and the use of technology, which will serve them well in the workplace and life

Teachers can powerfully activate students' need to know content by launching a project with an "entry event" that engages interest and initiates questioning.

But it is the process of students' learning and the depth of their cognitive engagement— rather than the resulting product—that distinguishes projects from busywork.

But it is the process of students' learning and the depth of their cognitive engagement— rather than the resulting product—that distinguishes projects from busywork.

closes the achievement gap for underserved populations, improves understanding and retention of content, and increases motivation for all students.

Project Based Learning is a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging and complex question, problem, or challenge.

Project-based learning typically is grounded in the following elements: Role-playing Real-world scenarios Blended writing genres Multiple reading genres Authentic assessments Authentic audiences Real-world expertise brought into the classroom Units that assess multiple skills Units that require research and comprehension of multiple subjects Student choice Collaboration Multiple methods of communication (writing, oral speaking, visual presentations, publishing, etc.)

Collaboration was central to the project. Students formed teams of three or four and began planning what tasks they would do and how they would work together.

In this Edutopia video, we get a good overview of how PBL is different from the kind of instruction most of us are used to.

videos and podcasts

"entry event"

A classroom filled with student posters may suggest that students have engaged in meaningful learning. But it is the process of students' learning and the depth of their cognitive engagement— rather than the resulting product—that distinguishes projects from busywork.

Risks of Problem-Based Learning

“It’s gotta be fun. The more fun the project is, the more interested they’ll be, the more they’ll learn,” he said. “In fact, I have parents say, ‘I’m really concerned. My kids really like school. My kid’s having too much fun.’

. Projects, as a means to make schooling more useful and readily applied to the world, first became popular in the early part of the century within the United States

Why Project Based Learning (PBL)?

PBL is the ongoing act of learning about different subjects simultaneously. This is achieved by guiding students to identify, through research, a real-world problem (local to global) developing its solution using evidence to support the claim, and presenting the solution through a multimedia approach based in a set of 21st-century tools.

PBL is the ongoing act of learning about different subjects simultaneously. This is achieved by guiding students to identify, through research, a real-world problem (local to global) developing its solution using evidence to support the claim, and presenting the solution through a multimedia approach based in a set of 21st-century tools