Getting Started with Project-Based Learning
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Many educators, faced with the demands placed on them by the NCLB, feel that projects are a luxury for which there is no time.  However, a growing number of teachers would like to implement project-based, interdisciplinary, thematic units in their classrooms - but are unsure of how to begin.  Knowing about some of the common misunderstandings regarding project-based learning can help.  Follow these links to learn more:
From Pre-K to Physics Ph.D. - Project-Based Learning

Common Myths about Project-Based Learning

Links to other PBL web sites

 

Getting Started with PBL - unit planning

Attend a workshop: 

Fall Unit Themes

Other Theme Ideas

On-Site Professional Development

More to come.  We will be adding details for how to plan units, etc.  To request additional information please email us at PBL@21stCenturySchools.com

 

 

From Pre-K to Ph.D. -

Some educators seem to think that project-based learning is just for younger children, and by the time you get to the middle schools and high schools projects have all but disappeared.  Read what Pete Border, physics professor at University of Minnesota, had to say about project-based learning:

My department (physics at the U of MN) uses PBL for the students it really cares about, which is to say senior grad students working on their Ph.D.’s. Ph.D. candidates are the students the Department has decided to educate as well as possible regardless of cost, and the education they receive is entirely based on apprenticeships, designing and solving projects, long conversations, extended relationships and mentoring. Advisors guide and consult, suggesting new avenues of research and listening as much as talking. This is what the Department does when it has decided to ignore cost, and to go for the finest education possible.

I find it very interesting that there are no tests, bubble-sheets, drills, skill-tests, lectures, worksheets or curriculum standards in the Ph.D. candidate program. Even my Department knows, at its heart, that the finest education comes from long, involved, projects, and this is the best way there is to educate people!

It is true that Ph.D. candidates are an extremely unusual lot, and are many sigma into the tails of all distributions, but it is interesting that the project-apprentice-mentor-PBL model is used by all Ph.D. programs I’ve ever heard of, and that it always has been… Could it be because it’s the model that really works?

June 1, 2006

Pete Border taught physics at the university level, and was involved with 4 PBL-based courses, three of which he designed. One is a class on “Visualizing Physics” at MCAD (a local Art School) and the other three are classes in the UMN Physics Dept (Freshman Seminar on “Physics for Game Designers” , an online class on Game Design, and the labs for their Honors Physics sections). 

Also see -  Peter M. Border, a physics instructor in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Minnesota reported on an experimental physics class which taught elementary mechanics by having students design computer games. The students learned physics by programming agents to move, roll, and collide in a physically correct manner, which required them to understand the physics behind the motion. The students created approximately one videogame each week and even though students needed to learn the programming associated with making videogames, the instructor was able to cover the material of a typical first-year physics class. Student engagement and learning was reported to be very high.  (From NASA’s Advanced Technology Applications for Education Benchmark Study http://learn.arc.nasa.gov/benchmark/4.1.html )

 

Common Myths:  If we implement project-based learning . . .

1.  . . . we will do projects all day long.  - False!  Time spent on projects may vary.  I recommend a class period of 90 minutes to 2 hours per day to work on the projects.

 

2.  . . . our students' scores on standardized tests will fall.  False!  An increasing body of research reveals that student scores on standardized tests actually go up!

 

3.  . . . we will have no skills lessons.  False!  Doing project-based learning does not mean you will do nothing  but projects.  The difference is that you will teach the skills AS NEEDED and WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF the project.

 

4.  . . . we will have to incorporate every single discipline into every single unit.  False!  Some units are based more on social studies and related concepts, whereas other units/themes may be more  based upon math and/or science.  It depends on your theme.  You should outline your themes for the year so that all the required  standards are taught that year, but you certainly don't want to try to teach them all at once.  See themes.

 

5. . . . I will have to have a total, interdisciplinary project planned to start.  False!  You can begin with small projects that are limited to one discipline and grow from there. 

For example, when a team member and I decided to start implementing projects that would motivate our students we began with something very simple.  Our class was reading the book, Ramona the Great, by Beverly Cleary (4th grade).  We began with having the students re-create some things Ramona did.  For example, her teacher required them to interview an older person in the neighborhood about what they did for fun as children.  Ramona interviewed an older woman who told her about making tin-can stilts.  Ramona then made a pair and clanked around the neighborhood on them.   We had our students each make a pair of tin-can stilts (using large tin cans saved for us by the nice cafeteria ladies), and then they played on them, had races, etc.  Even the principal participated!  We grew from that point to bigger and more serious research-based projects.

 

6.  . . .   I will lose control of my class.  False!  Even the most challenging of students (as far as behavior is concerned) will amaze you with how focused they are when they are excited about a project.  In my own classrooms, in classrooms of teachers with whom I have worked, and what research tells us . . . student motivation soars and student discipline problems disappear.

 

More to come on Myths About Project-Based Learning.

 

See our links to other info on project-based learning.