Why Do Project-Based Learning?

There is nothing new about project based learning. Teachers have always used projects as a supplement to their regular course of instruction. It shifts away from the teacher-centered lessons and instead emphasizes learning activities that are long-term, student-centered, interdisciplinary and integrates real world issues and practices.

PBL helps make learning relevant and useful to students by establishing connections to life outside the classroom, developing real world skills, including the ability to work well with others, make thoughtful decisions, take initiative, and solve complex problems.

It has not been uncommon to hear students say "what do I need to know that for?!" and "I'll never use that." For years students taught by the practices of short, isolated, teacher-centered lessons had a hard time finding relevance to their education and thus rarely motivated to learn. Many students who enrolled in vocational or technological studies learned by relevance; applying math or science skills in real life situations. Many of these students, as a result, continued on into higher education.

PBL allows teachers to build relationships with their students as they become coaches or facilitators discussing what learning is taking place. Projects also allow opportunity to make connections with the community; by sharing the finished project and the business community who have a stake in the students' education.

"Project-based learning is intended to bring about deep learning, where students use technology and inquiry to engage with issues and questions that are relevant to their lives. These classroom projects are used to assess student's subject matter competence compared to traditional testing."

As a middle school exploratory teacher, I have the wonderful opportunity to work with students in integrated projects, including an International Festival, International Gardens Project and a Rainforest's Project. When working on these projects, the approach has been less structured than a traditional classroom and students must collaborate and produce their own artifact to represent what is being learned.

An outstanding project is the FIRST Robotics program where students partner with adult mentors from the fields of math, science and engineering to build a robot from scratch and program the robot using technologies as professionals. Students have six weeks to design, build and program a robot to do a specific task. There is a lot of both school and community support. The year my son participate, they had to build robots that could pick up and transport large balls and deposit them into a large container. Competition is stiff with regional and national competitions.

When used with 21st century tools/skills, project based learning provides a meaningful way to investigate, collaborate, analyze, synthesize and present their learning.