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Katie Martin | Informed by Research, Inspired by Practice

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Project-based Learning: Are You Focused on the Project or the Learning? | Katie Martin

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As the Gallup poll and countless others have pointed out, many of our students are increasingly less engaged in their own education. Much of this is a result of a focus on short-term, extrinsic rewards to coax kids through low-level tasks and provide technology as games or rewards to motivate learne…

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A project is a multistep activity undertaken by an individual or group to achieve a particular aim. With that broad definition there's a lot of project-based learning happening in schools these days. Some is better than others and there are a lot of variations: some thin, some deep; some teacher-led, some student-driven; some with clear deliverables, and some very open-ended.

In an effort to help educators select a strategy appropriate for intended outcomes, this post is an attempt at providing a framework for variations on project-based learning (PBL) and part of our project-based world campaign.

Gold Standard PBL

Buck Institute for Education (BIE) defines project-based learning as "a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an engaging and complex question, problem or challenge." Their Gold Standard PBL Essential Project Design Elements include:

Key Knowledge, Understanding and Success Skills. The project is focused on student learning goals, including standards-based content and skills such as critical thinking/problem solving, collaboration and self-management.

Challenging Problem or Question. The project is framed by a meaningful problem to solve or a question to answer, at the appropriate level of challenge.

Sustained Inquiry. Students engage in a rigorous, extended process of asking questions, finding resources and applying information.

Authenticity. The project features real-world context, tasks and tools, quality standards or impact. Or it speaks to students' personal concerns, interests and issues in their lives.

Student Voice & Choice. Students make some decisions about the project, including how they work and what they create.

Reflection. Students and teachers reflect on learning, the effectiveness of their inquiry and project activities, the quality of student work, obstacles and how to overcome them.

Critique & Revision. Students give, receive and use feedback to improve their process and products.

Public Product. Students make their project work public by explaining, displaying and/or presenting it to people beyond the classroom.

We think that is a good and useful set of design principles. Most of it applies not only to project-based learning but also to a group of related instructional strategies. We see seven key dimensions (design variables) for projects and related learning activities:

Outcomes: Clearly defined up front or open-ended

Directed: Teacher designed or student designed

Scope: Narrow or integrated

Steps: Short problems or extended multi-step project

Approach: Individual or team

Manager: Teacher managed or student managed

Combinations: PBL combined with other strategies

Each of these dimensions offers a series of tradeoffs. The continua presented below aren't a range of bad to good, they are a series of instructional strategies that should be consciously selected for a set of intended outcomes.

Outcomes: Clearly Defined Up Front or Open-Ended

Projects typically have a set of desired outcomes and defined deliverables; often knowledge, skills as well as dispositions. Desired outcomes are often incorporated into a rubric assessment and clearly communicated up front.

Learning experiences with less well-defined content outcomes (although they may be quite specific to a particular skill set) include:

Inquiry-based learning focuses on questioning, critical thinking and problem-solving. "The idea behind true inquiry-based learning is to ignite your students' curiosity, the spark that motivates them and makes them want to learn more," said Chicago teacher Georgia Mathis. She identifies three or four lines of inquiry explored simultaneously over a five-week period allowing student voice and choice in production of something that demonstrates acquisition of knowledge and understanding. With well-defined lines of inquiry and guidance in research and production, inquiry-based learning is very similar to project-based learning.

Applied learning emphasizes hands on experiences. Like Project Lead The Way courses, they may be a series of teacher-led activities or more open-ended projects.

Maker education is only bounded by the materials, tools, and creativity of teachers and learners. It's a design and tinkering experience based on a particular challenge and/or set of resources (see 18 part makerspace series by Lindsey Own).

Exploration-based learning includes virtual science environments, virtual reality expeditions, and outdoor learning experiences. Pathways may be limited, directed, adaptive or open-ended.

Creative play, such as the Global Cardboard Challenge, lets children explore their interests and passions through open-ended activity but can be relatively specific about desired outcomes including creativity, critical thinking, resourcefulness, perseverance and teamwork.

Directed: Teacher Designed or Student Designed

Project topics and deliverables can be defined by a teacher as they are at most New Tech Network schools.

Project topics and deliverables can be defined by a teacher as they are at most New Tech Network schools.

Teachers at Katherine Smith Elementary in San Jose ( a New Tech affiliate) use driving questions to scope projects (like the primary geometry project right). Student products may be similar but not identical.

At Harmony Public Schools, projects are co-designed by students and teachers. Project Director Burak Yilmaz adds, "Learning looks fun and engaging in Harmony thanks to our unique PBL approach." (See STEMSOS.com for more info on the model.)

Senior projects often share a common deliverable framework but leave the topics wide open. Examples include policy projects at Chavez Schools and Catalyst research projects at Singapore American School.

Moving to the right on teacher-versus student-directed continuum increases voice and choice and it increases variability of topics and outcomes and could lead to learning gaps (what some critics call the "swiss cheese" problem).

Scope: Narrow or Integrated

A project can be narrowly defined or covering multiple subjects. Schools in the New Tech and High Tech High networks help students frame projects that integrate typical (e.g., social studies and English) and surprising (e.g., math and art) subjects. Students in Harmony's Learner-Centered STEM model are required to complete long-term interdisciplinary projects that connect STEM to the Humanities.

The 9th grade STEM class at El Paso High (right) combines software design, physics, math and a little carpentry (and is in Spanish one week, English the next).

Most real world problems are multidisciplinary in nature but supporting them in school requires collaboration across departments and schedules. In addition to content knowledge, even narrowly defined project typically teach research, self- management, communication and often collaboration skills.

Steps: Problem or Project

Problem-based learning is usually confined to a subject (like math) and includes short tasks or lines of inquiry. The product or proposed solution may be expressed in writing or a presentation.

Projects typically require more steps including independent inquiry and require creation of a complex product for presentation to a public audience. (See John Larmer's discussion of Project Based Learning vs. Problem Based Learning vs. XBL).

Approach: Individual or Team

Projects can be assigned to individuals, pairs or teams. Team projects teach important lessons about collaboration but can give rise to a free rider problem where some team members don't make an equal contribution. A common solution is identifying and assessing individual contributions to the team effort.

Manager: Teacher Managed or Student Managed

In business, a project manager is responsible for timeline, staffing, resources, budget and deliverables. She may have to negotiate all of these with an executive sponsor. In schools, timelines and budgets may be smaller and teachers are likely to control approach (individual or team), but there's still the question of who manages time and deliverables.

Ron Berger, EL Education, encourages continuous assessment in a project-based environment. "If the teacher isn't assessing all along the way then the final product will not typically show the high quality of success," he explains. "You don't want to undermine the quality of the final product by taking away the scaffolding, but you want a sense of individual student levels of understanding throughout that flow." Ron suggests, "Don't wait; check along the way."

However checking in can turn into management, where a teacher is directing each step. The key to building student agency and project management skills is requiring student project managers to make adjustments in their approach, schedule and work product. If a teacher manages every step of the way it may lead to better deliverables, but students lose the opportunity to learn valuable project management lessons.

Leaders at Harmony Public Schools, a PBL network that prioritizes deeper learning, are very intentional about training teachers to recognize new roles as co-project managers with students. At Harmony, this means a " strong system of on-demand support."

Combinations: PBL Combined with Other Strategies

Even well-known "wall-to-wall" project-based schools like Bulldog Tech in San Jose use a variety of strategies. For example, Bulldog math teachers use problem-based learning: short activities that don't result in a public product.

A new generation of schools are combining the benefits of personalized learning with project-based learning. Thrive Public School founder Dr. Nicole Assisi said there was no risk of learning gaps at Thrive given their approach to blended and personalized learning. While blended learning rotations fill in content gaps, "project-based learning is necessary to engage learners, to build enthusiasm and support authentic work and exhibition," said Assisi. She added, "If school is just skills building and no application, where's the joy?"

In addition to personalization strategies in a blended environment, projects are often combined with both more prescriptive strategies such as whole group instruction and lab experiments as well other inquiry-based strategies including Socratic Seminars and literature discussions.

Project-based learning is a high engagement strategy that can lead to powerful learning outcomes, if well designed and combined with supports that ensure that all students are prepared to benefit and enjoy the rewards of a quality public product.
This blog is part of "It's a Project-Based World" series. To learn more and contribute a guest post for the series, see the Project-Based World page. Join in the conversation at #projectbased.
For more, see:
Stay in-the-know with all things EdTech and innovations in learning by signing up to receive the weekly Smart Update . This post includes mentions of a Getting Smart partner. For a full list of partners, affiliate organizations and all other disclosures please see our Partner page

Bonnie Lathram is a student advocate and former teacher. Follow her on Twitter: @belathram

Tom Vander Ark is author of Better Together, Smart Parents, Smart Cities and Getting Smart. He is co-founder of Getting Smart and Learn Capital and serves on the boards of 4.0 Schools, eduInnovation, Digital Learning Institute, Imagination Foundation and Charter Board Partners. Follow Tom on Twitter, @tvanderark.

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Project or Activity? Project-Based Learning and Cousins

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A project is a multistep activity undertaken by an individual or group to achieve a particular aim. With that broad definition there's a lot of project-based learning happening in schools these days. Some is better than others and there are a lot of variations: some thin, some deep; some teacher-led, some student-driven; some with clear deliverables, and some very open-ended.

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13 Brilliant Outcomes Of Project-Based Learning
by Terry Heick

Project-based learning isn't a 'trend' any more than mobile devices are a trend.

Mobile devices-smartphones, for example-simply provide a (physical) framework to host hardware (e.g., iris scanners, cameras, etc.) and software technology (e.g., an operating system, apps, etc.) These devices in and of themselves aren't as much of a 'trend' as are the things that they enable. Project-based learning is kind of like that.

As the name implies, project-based learning is simply learning through projects. What is being learned and how that learning is being measured isn't strictly dictated by the project and any products or artifacts within that project. Rather, the reverse should be true: the desired learning objectives should help dictate the products and artifacts within the project.

For example, instead of wanting students to plan a garden as the core of the project, then deciding which learning objectives and academic standards fit that idea, planning backward-looking first at the learning objectives and academic standards, then brainstorm project ideas and components of that project (audience, purpose, duration, etc.) This can be useful in making sure that in the course of completing the project, they are actually learning what you want them to learn. That is, you can help align the work of the project with the desired learning outcomes and objectives.

(To further complicate matters, there are also different types of project-based learning.)

For whatever reason, PBL is widely misunderstood-which is why I was happy to see the following graphic from John Spencer, who allowed us to share it with you along with our other PBL resources. The graphic clarifies 13 potential outcomes of well-designed project-based learning. Obviously, not all are true every time for every student in every project in the same way that not every app on a smartphone works well, nor does every bit of hardware function the way it's intended to.

It's all a matter of design and quality.

Interested in learning more about quality teaching project-based learning? You can contact us about bringing this learning framework to your school through our professional development for project-based learning.

For now, on to Spencer's outstanding graphic. For each potential outcome of PBL, I added a tip or strategy to help increase the chance that this potential is realized. Add any tips of your own in the comments below, and let us know what future PBL content you'd like to see that would help you as a teacher.
13 Brilliant Outcomes Of Project-Based Learning 1, They learn project management.
Strategy: Use a project management board-even one used primarily by adult professionals-to help students manage individual or team projects. Trello is a great example, as is Redbooth.
2. They grow more empathetic.
Strategy: Begin project-planning with a specific audience with a specific and pressing concern.
3. They become hackers and rebels.
Strategy: Let students design their own projects. Or require that projects iterate or counter existing cultural trends and patterns or that address compelling social concerns (e.g.technology addiction).
4. They become systems thinkers.
Strategy: Use concept-mapping before, during, and after the project is completed.
5. They become explorers.
Strategy: Design projects that require students to combine both a physical and digital presence and physical and digital 'behaviors' and contexts. For example, a social media component combined with a local, community-based outcome.
6. They become problem-solvers.
Strategy: Use problem-based PBL-that is, projects based around a problem that requires critical thinking to solve.
7. They become wildly and unabashedly different.
Strategy: Give 'points' or other encouragement mechanics to reward students who deviate in some way that improves the quality of the work. For example, add a 'free letter grade' increase for students who take risks or develop 'non-traditional' solutions to otherwise 'traditional' social problems and concerns.
8. They are more engaged in the learning process.
Strategy: Create checkpoints in the project's life-cycle-or better yet, have students suggest their own checkpoints, then be responsible for that checking in, what kind of feedback that would be useful and from whom, etc.
9. They are ready for the creative economy.
Strategy: Give students the opportunities to use their specific gifts, skills, and backgrounds in completing the project.
10. They engage in iterative thinking.
Strategy: Use model-based learning that allows students to identify and transfer existing ideas into new contexts and applications. For example, allow students to take an idea (Amazon's platform business model) and apply it to family businesses, recycling programs, or creative efforts like music and art.
11. They think divergently. (Thinking outside the box by thinking differently about the box.)
Strategy: See #3 and #7. Make 'deviation' a core tenet, then model and reward it.
12. They make deep connections between ideas.
Strategy: Use cross-curricula planning-projects that include multiple content areas. This complicates the planning, but it also makes it more immersive academically. And like #4, concept mapping is a useful way to help students see the relationships between ideas.
13. They learn to take creative risks.
Strategy: Help students brainstorm the opportunities for creative risk-taking at the beginning of a project. Sometimes they're not even aware of the kinds of risks that can be taken in PBL-from the scale of a project and its audience and purpose, to kinds of collaboration partners brought into the project and their talents and skills.

Also, give them a chance to change course if things aren't working out as they thought they might.
13 Brilliant Outcomes Of Project-Based Learning

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13 Brilliant Outcomes Of Project-Based Learning -

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13 Brilliant Outcomes Of Project-Based Learning by Terry Heick Project-based learning isn't a 'trend' any more than mobile devices are a trend. Mobile devices-smartphones, for example-simply provide a (physical) framework to host hardware (e.g., iris scanners, cameras, etc.) and software technology (e.g., an operating system, apps, etc.)

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7 Questions To Guide Your PBL Implementation Plan
by Drew Perkins, Director of TeachThought PD
Grow your school with TeachThought PD Project-Based Learning Workshops
It's that time of year again where the students are walking out the door for the summer and the gears of next year start accelerating.

Spring and late summer (in the United States) is when we get the most inquiries for professional development, and without a doubt, recently PBL is our number one most requested area of growth.

Just like most things, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing well and that means being intentional about the process. We love the cultural shifts that can come with PBL and strongly advise leadership to engage in implementation planning sessions that focus on long-term sustainability instead of a just one-off workshop.

With all of our work we strive to be sure our work is aligned with your mission and vision but also seek to engage stakeholders in the deep considerations about your educational ecosystem that are necessary for long-term success.

We think the best way to do this is through the lens of inquiry and actually using the PBL process. While mission statements are often hollow platitudes taking up wall space in some office, they don't have to be. We like to turn those into mission questions, similar to how we might use a Driving Question in PBL, and then unpack the "Need to Knows (And Dos)".

Sometimes this leads to further reflection and revision on the mission statement before going forward but assuming it's in good shape, the questions that arise as we attempt to answer that mission question serve as a blueprint or road map to meeting that challenge. Similarly we like schools to use their vision statement to really dig into what their ideal school looks, sounds, and feels like. What are those characteristics and traits we want and how do we get there?

Ideally this kind of work does not occur in a vacuum, isolated from those stakeholders like teachers, students, parents and community members who will be engaging in this pedagogical shift. As much as possible we encourage those folks to be a part of this process and if you're truly looking to support and empower your staff and students, it's important to engage in reciprocal accountability.

We're not talking about high-stakes accountability, but the kind of professional norms and expectations where you expect to be asked tough questions like those below.
7 Questions To Guide Your PBL Implementation Plan 1. Why Questions
Why should we engage in PBL? What are the benefits and what is the evidence that supports this kind of shift?
2. What Questions
What exactly is PBL, especially in our school? Can you show me examples of where it's been done effectively? Will we have access to quality professional development both externally and internally over a sustained period of time?
3. 'How' Questions
What are our next steps and where do we go from there? How do we know this won't be replaced by something else, sooner rather than later? How do we implement quality PBL?
4. 'When' Questions
When will we be starting and when will we have time to work to develop quality PBL? What does it look like in year two, three, and beyond? When will we be provided opportunities to refine our teaching craft in the context of PBL?
5. Guiding Questions
What questions will help us stay focused on growing teaching and learning with PBL? What questions are we trying to answer?
6. Quality Questions
How will we know we're doing quality PBL? How will we know we're getting better? What does the growth trajectory look like?
7. Assurance Questions
What will happen if we struggle? How do we balance PBL with things like testing, accountability, curriculum, and pacing? How will you help us be successful?

Related: Ep. 34 Growing Better Professional Learning Communities With Dr. Richard DuFour

To be clear, these kinds of questions should be asked and considered for any major professional development initiative. The thinking behind the questions draws heavily on the work of the late Dr. Richard DuFour's last book, In Praise of American Educators, in which he discussed successful PLC's.

Reciprocal accountability can feel intimidating as you open your thinking to critical questions. It's this sort of democratization, however, that not only empowers others but actually grows true leadership while increasing the efficacy of the work in your school.
image attribution: Wee Sen Goh

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7 Questions To Guide Your PBL Implementation Plan - TeachThought PD

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7 Questions To Guide Your PBL Implementation Plan by Drew Perkins , Director of TeachThought PD Grow your school with TeachThought PD Project-Based Learning Workshops It's that time of year again where the students are walking out the door for the summer and the gears of next year start accelerating.

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Crafting Questions That Drive Projects — Learning in Hand with Tony Vincent

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Not only does project based learning motivate students because it is an authentic use of technology, it facilitates active learning, critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity. Projects begin with a driving question–an open-ended question that sets the stage for the project by creating interes

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5 Characteristics Of Project-Based Learning That Works - TeachThought PD

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5 Characteristics Of Project-Based Learning That Works - TeachThought PD

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5 Characteristics Of Project-Based Learning That Works
by Drew Perkins, Director of TeachThought PD

As I've written before (What PBL Can Do For Your School...And What It Won't) project-based learning can be an amazing tool for student, teacher, and school growth but only if you're getting great thinking and learning as a result. It's not enough to just have students making something or doing hands on, experiential work.

Quality PBL takes advantage of built-in and designed levers of quality that helps the teacher as facilitator align the thinking and learning we're after in our students. As the graphic above shows, it's these 5 Levers of Quality working in concert that elevate the desired thinking and learning whether that be content standards, skills, or both.

Aligned Thinking and Learning

The project is intentionally designed to solicit thinking around desired standards, content, & skills students need to know.

When planning for project design what thinking and learning do we want our teaching to align with? While this certainly can be and most often is focused on content and standards, that may not necessarily be the case with all projects. In fact there's a great case to be made for a very healthy balance between content and skills and perhaps even focusing on thought to more deeply learn content. The big emphasis here though is that there is intentionality in planning on the part of the teacher/facilitator about the thinking and learning, whatever that may be, that students will need to know and demonstrate understanding of in order to complete the project and challenge.

Rich Inquiry

The project provides multiple opportunities & need for high level questioning by students & teacher.

Good facilitators/teachers plan good questions to ask learners, great ones plan for scenarios from which great questions grow from everyone. Throughout a project we want to see opportunities and the need for students and teachers to ask questions both planned and organically. Starting with an open-ended Driving Question aligned with the desired thinking and learning, students might have questions for an outside expert, questions for fellow students around a text or other resources, questions to help lead the thinking of others or just clarifying questions. Moving from a classroom where answers are the norm, rich inquiry yields profound thinking and creativity as one idea builds upon another.

Authenticity

The project challenges students to create products for real world purposes & audiences.

Students (and teachers) need to be clear about the product, purpose and audience in a project and this is closely linked to authenticity. Connecting the product to an authentic purpose and audience allows another leverage point that is missing if the work is just "for school". Instead of asking how many points they earned or what their grade is, authenticity shifts those inquiries to asking if and how well the work is serving the purpose and needs of the audience. While we do want to use the process and the products of PBL to measure learning, the addition of authenticity helps to increase student interest and engagement and can empower them as they do real, meaningful and purposeful work that transcends traditional schoolwork.

The project provides opportunities for student voice & choice in the process & product.

As Daniel Pink notes so eloquently notes in Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, if you want commitment and engagement, not just compliance, self-direction is better. As teachers and students grow in a PBL environment this is a culture shift where teachers are increasingly releasing "control" and becoming more of a facilitator. This autonomy can show up in a number of ways including allowing for increased student inquiry and choice over what to investigate, how to uncover the necessary learning as well as the ways in which they will show they know and understand.

Meaningful Assessment

The project guides teaching & learning using purposeful formative and summative assessments.

Ask most students how they feel about assessment and you're likely to get a less than positive response but this doesn't have to be the case. Using assessment as a tool to inform next steps and needed areas of improvement can be exciting, especially when the work is authentic, meaningful and purposeful. Meaningful assessment can come in many forms including formal and informal and may in fact be questions, not always just answers. It can also originate from multiple sources including self, peers, outside experts, and of course teachers.

Craftsmanship

The project provides opportunities & reason for students to create craftsman-like products.

We want students to produce high quality work and thinking but how often do we provide them with authentic challenges that they see as worthy of refinement and improvement outside of pursuit of just a grade? Quality project-based learning empowers students by engaging them in processes of reflection and revision as they seek to improve their products to meet the needs of an authentic audience instead of just playing school.

Interested in learning more about how to leverage great thinking and learning using authentic project based learning?
Schedule a TeachThought Professional Development PBL Workshop For Your School >>
*this blog was originally published at TeachThought.com

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5 Characteristics Of Project-Based Learning That Works - TeachThought PD

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5 Characteristics Of Project-Based Learning That Works by Drew Perkins, Director of TeachThought PD As I've written before (What PBL Can Do For Your School...And What It Won't) project-based learning can be an amazing tool for student, teacher, and school growth but only if you're getting great thinking and learning as a result.

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PBL -They can’t take them away from you (Human Rights)

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#PBL #CLIL @cfievalladolid teachers @educacyl working very hands on and creating a unit project step by step.

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#PBL #CLIL @cfievalladolid teachers @educacyl working very hands on and creating a unit project step by step.

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Integrating Project-Based-Learning (PBL) in a bilingual classroom fosters foreign language learning by engaging students in real-world projects and having students use Spanish and English knowledge, skills, and abilities to complete the work. PBL integrates all four language skills ( listening, reading, speaking, and writing) incorporates collaborative team work, and challenges students to use the foreign language in different capacities inside and outside the classroom.

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PBL Workshop Tools and Resources - TeachThought PD

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PBL Workshop Tools and Resources - TeachThought PD

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PBL Workshop Tools and Resources - TeachThought PD

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Creating Digital Workflow For Efficiency and Transparency