Project-Based Learning
Tools for Project-Based Learning: The Landscape Today
The spread of access to low-cost devices holds great promise for giving more students high quality project-based experiences, but tech has yet to become a panacea for the challenges of PBL. In this post, we look at the recent history of PBL-oriented edtech, and draw some predictions about where it’s headed.
HQPBL Case Study: Liceo Pablo Neruda
In a number of locations across Chile, several organizations and schools have embraced PBL—and officials in the country’s Ministry of Education are gearing up to implement capstone project experiences in the last two years of high school.
Designing Projects so Students Have High Quality Project Based Learning Experiences
PBL and CBL are related at the very core, because they both involve active student-centered learning. Whatever the project format, the six criteria outlined in the recently-released Framework for High Quality Project Based Learning (HQPBL) -- Authenticity, Intellectual Challenge and Accomplishment, Public Product, Collaboration, Project Management, and Reflection -- can help teachers create and implement successful student-centered learning projects.
HQPBL Case Study: Albemarle County Public Schools
The walls are covered with products and classrooms are buzzing with voices and sounds of collaboration. Students are working on integrated projects tied to passions, interests and real-world causes. This is a common scene found in most classrooms in Albemarle County Public Schools, located at the base of Shenandoah National Park in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Agency and High Quality PBL
In addition to supporting deep learning and the 4 C’s, the 6 criteria of High Quality PBL hold the ability to support another critical outcome: Student Agency, the tendency and ability for students, of their own volition, to improve or extend their own learning.
HQPBL Case Study: The MET School
Projects at The Met are connected to individual student goals, and each project includes specific skills students need to address. How does it work, exactly? Students are grouped in small cohorts (or essentially small communities), each with a bonding name like Unity or Liberty. Cohorts collaborate to tackle problems, support each other, and collaborate on projects.
High Quality PBL Meets Mental Health
My students recently decided that they wanted to start one of Idaho’s first mental health awareness campaigns. Their goal was to educate their community, reach out to schools, provide informational seminars and fundraise for local non-profits--and that’s just what they did.
HQPBL Case Study: School21
Through high quality Project Based Learning, students are developing robust and deep subject knowledge that is both cross-curricular in nature and can easily be applied to real-world problems and challenges.
7 Real-World Issues That Can Allow Students To Tackle Big Challenges
How can we creatively collaborate, critically think and communicate in ways that will make our world a better place to live? Letting our students practice thinking about and working on these seven big issues can present hundreds of relevant challenges that can be a big step toward that future.
Scaling PBL: 3 Steps for Defining Quality With Your Staff
By: Jenny Pieratt. The undertaking of scaling PBL is akin to a marathon, and we need be sure that our teachers will make it to the finish line by way of sustainable practices that uphold deeper learning along the way. Here's my take on designing these types of experiences.