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"Educational equity means that each child receives what they need to develop to their full academic and social potential." - National Equity Project
Here at PBLWorks, we believe that all students, no matter where they live or what their backgrounds, should have access to meaningful learning experiences that help them grow. We envision a world in which race, ethnicity, and other aspects of identity do not predict the opportunities available to young people.

And we know that Gold Standard PBL, when implemented with an intentional equity focus, is one powerful way to work towards this vision.

An intentional focus on equity matters especially when we are all working hard to push against what author and activist bell hooks calls "the narrow boundaries that have shaped the way knowledge is shared in the classroom." So, over the past several years, our team has been exploring the question, "What are the specific mindsets and priorities that PBL teachers can 'leverage' to provide equity-centered and impactful learning experiences for all students?"

Now, we're excited to share 4 key "levers" that promote equity in PBL.

These levers amplify the power of the Essential Project Design Elements and the Project Based Teaching Practices, and ensure they are used in ways that reach all learners. Because equity work is an ongoing process rooted in curiosity and ongoing reflection, the levers are each supported by a guiding question.

1. Knowledge of Students
How can I learn about (and build meaningful relationships with) my students to design and facilitate projects that capture their interest, honor their strengths and identities, and meet their needs?
This lever is about the authentic ways in which we get to know our students, their families, and their communities, and how we ensure that the projects in our classrooms are relevant to students' lives and rooted in a meaningful context. It includes bringing an asset-based lens to our work with students: knowing each student well enough to be able to see and build on the unique gifts they bring into the classroom. It also includes teaching a historically accurate and inclusive curriculum that addresses the intellectual legacies of Black and Brown students: as Lisa Delpit writes, "the fact that people who look like them created much of the knowledge base of today's world."

Knowing students well includes staying curious about their needs so we can effectively address any barriers preventing them from accessing learning in our classrooms. Finally, this lever requires educators to learn about ourselves-- including the perspectives, cultural lenses, and biases we each carry with us-- and consider how our identities and experiences shape the ways we connect with our students.
What it can look like:

Building relationships with students by asking them questions, implementing activities that invite them to share what they care about, and welcoming community involvement (including project partners, guest speakers, and audience members for public presentations)

Designing projects that are embedded in students' communities, that connect to students' interests and identities, and that address multiple modes of knowledge

Using varied and frequent learner-centered formative assessments to inform instructional moves

2. Cognitive Demand
How can I hold high intellectual expectations and provide appropriate support for all students, in order to advance each student's academic mindset and cognitive growth?
Cognitive demand is about providing rigorous challenge and appropriate support to all learners so that every student in our classrooms is engaged in meaningful and complex intellectual work. It is about building what Zaretta Hammond calls "learning partnerships" with students, so that they persist through challenges and develop a sense of their own efficacy as learners. An intentional focus on cognitive demand is critical to countering the racialized disparities in teacher expectations for student learning.
What it can look like:

Designing rigorous project tasks that require students to think in complex ways about significant content

Cultivating a "warm demander" stance in our interactions with students, providing challenge and support in a way that communicates care and a belief in students' capabilities

Providing scaffolds and coaching strategically in order to help students experience "productive struggle" and to support their growth

3. Literacy
How can I provide experiences that deepen students' capacity to read, write, listen, and speak across a range of contexts and disciplines?
Literacy is an equity issue. And it's been proven that PBL, when implemented effectively, can support students' literacy development. Projects can provide rich and authentic opportunities to build students literacy skills and incorporate meaningful scaffolds that help students engage in reading, writing, listening, and speaking for a variety of purposes and audiences.
What it can look like:

Identifying specific literacy learning targets for each project, appropriate to student need, purpose, and discipline, and designing projects to support student learning of the targeted literacy skills

Incorporating authentic, accessible, discipline-appropriate, and culturally relevant texts (such as scientific journal articles, editorials, data visualizations, or first-person historical accounts) into project learning experiences, and providing appropriate scaffolds and protocols to help students make meaning of these texts

Incorporating frequent and varied opportunities for students to engage in listening, speaking, reading, and writing throughout a project, and building a culture of reflection and revision about literacy practices.

Valuing the rich and diverse language practices that students bring into the classroom. Exploring the relationship between language and power, and how context, purpose, and audience might inform our approaches to communication at any given moment.

4. Shared Power
How do I cultivate student voice, choice, agency, and interdependence in our classroom?
Shifting our instructional approach to a collaborative, learner-centered model can redistribute power in the classroom. In equity-centered PBL classrooms, we nurture "power with" rather than "power over" dynamics among students and teachers, and recognize that supporting one another's learning, growth, and belonging is mutually beneficial. Teachers learn alongside our students, and, when possible and appropriate, students play an active role in shaping how learning happens.
What it can look like:

Students and teachers co-create classroom norms and practices, and use restorative processes for addressing harm and resolving conflict

Projects include ample opportunities for students to make choices about their learning and to express themselves

Learning activities are structured to support mutuality and interdependence rather than competition and individual ranking

As you can probably imagine, the four levers are interrelated.

For example, knowing our students better can help us better support their literacy development; nurturing shared power and mutual support makes it more likely that students will persist through cognitively demanding tasks.

Hopefully, you'll find the levers useful as you think about implementing PBL in an equity-centered way. These "equity levers" are now being infused throughout our current and future PBLWorks workshops. And we encourage you to use the questions to reflect on your own practice.

Thank you to the many researchers and practitioners whose work informed the development of these levers. Our team is excited to work with our partners in schools around the world to continue learning about how to deepen the impact of PBL on the learning of all students.

References & Recommended Reading

This article includes contributions from Charity Marcella Moran, Ed.S., a member of our National Faculty, and Stanley Richards, our Director of Curriculum-Based Professional Learning, along with ideas from many current and former members of our staff and faculty.

You might also be interested in...

PBL 201 Workshop: Equity & Gold Standard PBL
This 3-day advanced PBL workshop supports experienced practitioners in aligning PBL practices with the principles of culturally responsive teaching.

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4 Equity Levers in Project Based Learning

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Each equity "lever" includes a guiding question and detailed description.

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Project Based Learning (PBL) is a teaching method in which students learn by actively engaging in real-world and personally meaningful projects.

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We believe Project Based Learning is transformative, providing students with real-world challenges and meaningful experiences that lead to deep and long lasting learning.

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Aspects of Effective Project-Based Learning - Big Deal Media

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Title: Projects Vs Project Based Learning: What is the Difference? - Students at the Center

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Found on Google from studentsatthecenterhub.org

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Sure, teachers have been assigning projects to students for years. But Project Based Learning is something completely different. So what exactly is the difference between Project Based Learning and "doing a project"?

We like to say it's the main course, not dessert!

Visit a traditional classroom, and you'll probably find that students have done "dessert" projects in at least one unit during the school year. From shoebox dioramas to hand-built models to poster presentations, students are often tasked with creating something related to the topic of the unit.

It's usually done at the end of a unit - after the main course of content is delivered via traditional lessons, lectures, worksheets, and readings.
Think you know the difference? Take the pop quiz!

Without the key ingredients of Project Based Learning, a project like this in and of itself is not enough to deliver deeper learning.

So what's the difference between a dessert and main course project?

In Project Based Learning, the project itself is used to teach rigorous academic content and success skills. Students work to answer an important question-such as "How can we impact hunger in our community?" By exploring the question over a couple weeks or longer, students become immersed in it, pursuing answers from various angles.

Through this process, they apply what they're learning in meaningful ways. Instruction is incorporated into the project, which is designed to meet appropriate academic goals and standards. The project work creates a genuine need for students to learn grade-level content and skills, while working collaboratively, thinking critically and engaging in reflection and revision.

Students see how their work has an impact in the real world.

At the end of the project, the students' work is shared publicly, beyond just classmates and teachers... Students in a STEM project might create a sustainable redesign for a public space and present it to the city council, rather than simply learning from a textbook and creating a poster for the classroom wall. Or in social studies, a student could explore historical and present-day community heroes, and present their findings in a public forum.

By making a "main course" out of Project Based Learning, students become deeply engaged in their work. They understand how what they learn in school applies to the real world. They develop the skills that will set them up for success in college, career, and life.

So do you know the difference?
Here's a little quiz!

Hungry for more? You might also like...

Get inspired with over 60 Gold Standard PBL project ideas.

Find projects

Here is a guide to lead you into the world of PBL one step at a time.

Learn more

What is Gold Standard PBL? Here's what you need to know...

More about us

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"Doing a Project" vs. Project Based Learning

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So what exactly is the difference between Project Based Learning and "doing a project"? We like to say: it's the main course, not dessert!

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What Is Project-Based Learning?

Project-based learning (PBL) or project-based instruction is an instructional approach designed to give students the opportunity to develop knowledge and skills through engaging projects set around challenges and problems they may face in the real world.

Project-based learning is more than just "doing a project," in the way you might remember from your own school days. As the Buck Institute for Education (BIE) explains, with PBL, students "investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging, and complex problem or challenge" with deep and sustained attention. ¹ ArchForKids, an organization that provides STEAM programs for young learners, puts it even more succinctly: PBL is "learning by doing." ²

Why Project-Based Learning? We Live in a Project-Based World

The truth is, many in education recognize that our modern world is sustained and advanced through the successful completion of projects. Or, as the Swiss psychologist, Jean Piaget, put it, "knowledge is a consequence of experience." ³

It's true! Your weekend chores, an upcoming presentation, or organizing a fundraising event-they're all projects. This is the spirit behind PBL, and we see evidence of its increasing popularity in things like the growth of the maker movement. ⁴ When we help students have authentic experiences, we prepare them for the real world. In its purest form, PBL prepares students to be self-sufficient, creative, and critical thinkers that can take on any challenge.

For most modern workers, their careers will be marked by a series of projects rather than years of service to a specific organization. "Solving real-world issues that matter is important to us as adults-and it's important to our students," explain Lathram, Lenz, and Vander Ark in their ebook, Preparing Students for a Project-Based World. ⁵

In short, if we are to prepare students for success in life, we need to prepare them for a project-based world. Therefore, when relating project-based learning benefits to students, we must always include examples of real-world application. This will reinforce for students the notion that they can break down future problems into their component parts, assemble and lead a diverse team of stakeholders to process the problem, and implement a solution.

What Are the Essential Elements of Project-Based Learning?

Although definitions and project parameters may vary from school to school, and PBL is sometimes used interchangeably with "experiential learning" or "discovery learning," the characteristics of project-based learning are clear, constant, and share the spirit of John Dewey's instrumentalism.

In essence, the PBL model consists of these seven characteristics ⁶:

Focuses on a big and open-ended question, challenge, or problem for the student to research and respond to and/or solve

Brings what students should academically know, understand, and be able to do into the equation

Is inquiry-based, stimulates intrinsic curiosity, and generates questions as it helps students seek answers

Uses 21st-century skills such as critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity, among others.⁷

Builds student choice into the process

Provides opportunities for feedback and revision of the plan and the project, just like in real life

Requires students to present their problems, research process, methods, and results, just as scientific research or real-world projects must stand before peer review and constructive criticism

Following fifteen years of literature review and distilled educational experience, the Buck Institute for Education identified seven essential elements for PBL that focus on project design. Collectively these elements are called Gold Standard PBL. ⁸ According to the BIE, the key elements to project design include:

A challenging problem or question

Sustained inquiry

Authenticity

Student voice and choice

Reflection

Critique and revision

Public product

All of these elements, if combined well, result in students learning key knowledge, understanding, and skills for success.

An example where all these elements come together is in the Business Incubator class at Illinois' Palatine High School. ⁹ Teams of students propose and design a product based upon a challenging need or intricate problem. These young entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to business and community leaders in an effort to gain support for launching their product. It's like Shark Tank for teens, and it's awesome!

One team of students designed a mobile app providing real-time air quality readings at locations around the world. Raising awareness about air pollution, supporting health-conscious travelers, and making global connections were galvanizing real-world catalysts for their project.

It's worth noting that while project-based learning may seem like some specific or isolated instructional practice, the lists above should look familiar. They are simply the elements of great learning experiences. You don't have to subscribe to project-based learning to incorporate elements of it in your classrooms. Having said that, there are benefits that true project-based learning provides. Let's dig into a few of the benefits of PBL now.

Benefits of Project-Based Learning

Too often, traditional learning never ventures beyond the realm of the purely academic. Project-based learning connects students to the world beyond the classroom and prepares them to accept and meet challenges in the real world in a way that mirrors what professionals do every day.

Instead of short-term memorization and summative regurgitation, project-based learning provides an opportunity for students to engage deeply with the target content, bringing about a focus on long-term retention. PBL also improves student attitudes toward education ¹⁰, thanks to its ability to keep students engaged. ¹¹ The PBL structure lends itself to building intrinsic motivation because it centers student learning around a central question or problem and a meaningful outcome. Students end up wanting to understand the answer or solution as much or more than the teacher wants to know what they know, understand, and are able to do!

Daniel Pink, in his TEDTalk and influential book, Drive ¹², says people are intrinsically motivated by three things-autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Popular terms like grit and rigor become embedded dispositions when learners sink their teeth into meaningful endeavors, like those provided during project-based instruction.

A recent collaborative study conducted by the University and Michigan and Michigan State University suggests the implementation of project-based learning correlated positively with student achievement, particularly in schools serving high-poverty communities. ¹³ This research emphasizes the importance of projects being standards-aligned and supported with research-proven instructional strategies.

Because of its focus on 21st-century skills, the PBL model also enhances students' technology abilities. Project-based learning helps students develop teamwork and problem-solving skills ¹⁴, along with the ability to communicate effectively with others. The collaborative nature of projects also reinforces the Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) programs being implemented at progressive schools around the world.

These interpersonal aspects of PBL dovetail perfectly with the use of technology in the classroom. Technology-based projects are interdisciplinary, collaborative, inquiry-based, self-directed, motivating, and address the full range of student needs and learning styles. ¹⁵ Additionally, digital literacies and digital citizenship objectives become ingrained in tech-based projects, especially when the PBL opportunity is conducted seamlessly within the friendly confines of your school's learning management system.

A quick review of ISTE's recently revised standards for students will disclose the relevance of PBL to modern learning. ¹⁶ By highlighting standards including empowered learner, innovative designer, creative communicator, and global collaborator, you would think these standards were tailor-made with PBL in mind. International standards for technology skills and project-based learning objectives absolutely go hand in hand.

Challenges of Project-Based Learning

The Intel Corporation identified several reasons why project-based learning can represent such a radical departure from what we are used to in education: PBL requires you to coach more and instruct less, to embrace interdisciplinary learning instead of remaining locked in single-subject silos, and to be more comfortable with uncertainty and discovery during the learning process. ¹⁷

For many instructors, PBL is a stark contrast to the traditional education they experienced. Change takes time and is seldom without apprehension and challenges. However, when we consider the types of educational experiences we value for our modern learners, it becomes apparent the traditional "sage on the stage" instructional model falls significantly short.

The truth is, though, you can overcome these PBL challenges. Good problems or ideas can come from your students, parents, or community members. Instead of lectures and book learning, teachers can think through the steps required to solve a problem and use those steps as project-learning activities. Instead of planning a massive project, the learning process can be made more manageable by chunking the project into smaller parts, with frequent checkpoints built into the timeline. Instead of a traditional summative exam, authentic assessments can be developed by communicating with professionals in the field regarding what a presentation would look like related to a particular project. As challenging as PBL may appear at first, it can ultimately be so freeing for educators!

Project-Based Learning Examples

In one science-based project, students begin with a visit to a zoo, learning about animal habitats and forming opinions on which habitats best suit a selected animal. ¹⁸ For this example, the project component included teams of students collaborating to develop a research-supported habitat plan that they would then present to professional and student zoologists.

While the sciences fit neatly into the PBL environment, the instructional strategy lends itself naturally to interdisciplinary learning.

In another example, one that blends English language arts and social studies, students answer the question, "What role does censorship play in society?" ¹⁹ Following introductory instruction, students select a banned book, read it, compose a persuasive essay, and take part in a censorship-related mock trial experience conducted in the presence of experts. That last part-the mock trial in front of a group of experts-is what really drives PBL. The learning is not just experiential but also frequently contains a public, real-world component.

Want a break from "drill-and-kill" math lessons? Consider developing an "escape room" activity in which students assume the role of a code breaker for the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or another federal agency. ²⁰ The outcome could be anything from decoding a message that could potentially reveal the location of a planned terror attack on the United States, ferreting out an organized crime syndicate, or any number of scenarios. As a follow-up to the initial activity, students could present their solutions on the day a professional in a related field (e.g., FBI agent) visits the class to connect the activity to a real-world experience and potential career path. In such cases, you are limited only by your professional imagination ²¹ The outcome could be anything from decoding a message that could potentially reveal the location of a planned terror attack on the United States, ferreting out an organized crime syndicate, or any number of scenarios. As a follow-up to the initial activity, students could present their solutions on the day a professional in a related field (e.g., FBI agent) visits the class to connect the activity to a real-world experience and potential career path. In such cases, you are limited only by your professional imagination.

Are you looking for more examples of PBL schools? John Larmer, Editor and Chief for the Buck Institute for Education PBL Blog, shares several shining examples of schools making a commitment to deeper learning through PBL instruction. Larmer suggests investigating schools belonging to the Deeper Learning Network . These innovative schools include the essential elements frequently mentioned in BIE's Gold Standard PBL.

Project-Based Learning Lesson Plans

The Buck Institute also provides a hub for PBL lesson plans that align to Common Core standards. They make it easy to search their database by the source of the lesson plan, the subject, and the course.

A few quick examples of the more than 100 PBL lessons include:

The Ultimate Design Challenge -Students design solutions to a current problem using mathematical models.

Lending a Helping Hand -Students become financial advisors and are challenged to make the best use of $25 in a way that impacts their community most.

-In this project, students are isolated somewhere in the world and must design a civilization that stands the test of time.

It's important to note that some of the lesson plans in this resource library are free, while others come at a cost. Many of the lesson plans that require payment do provide sample pages, so you can get an idea of how to recreate it in your own way. Additionally, the above examples and lesson plans are fully customizable and can work in either the online or in-person classroom. So whether you return to full-time in-person instruction in the fall or maintain a cadre of online or hybrid learners in your district, you'll be ready.

Now that you know what PBL is, what it looks like in the classroom, and where to find lesson plans, let's look at how you can actually get started.

Getting Started With Project-Based Learning

Every journey may begin with a single step, but sometimes that step can seem daunting. Carol Ann Tomlinson, writing about differentiation in the classroom, advised teachers to start with "small, well-orchestrated changes." They should select a few targeted goals each year and focus on doing those things well while concentrating on growth. ²²

The same concept applies to project-based learning. Dream big, but start small. Writing for Edutopia, Andrew Miller advised teachers to keep things simple by limiting the scope and duration of a project, using or renovating an existing project, and taking the time to get meaningful feedback and engage in professional reflection. ²³

You can also approach project-based learning from your students' perspectives. Begin by giving them the resources they need to understand PBL as a concept, then introduce them to the practical steps once they're engaged in the process. This is a powerful, metacognitive way to approach your first foray into project-based instruction.

Tom Vander Ark and Emily Liebtag have shared a helpful introductory framework for high-quality PBL. ²⁴ This framework includes six criteria meant to support students, parents, and educators as they embark on their PBL journeys. These criteria include authenticity, challenge, collaboration, and reflection, which are all powerful 21st-century skills.

Project-based learning is easier than you may think and well within your grasp. Still, coming up with project ideas can sometimes present an initial stalemate for students. This post from TeachThought includes resources for teachers as well as project ideas for students. How would you like for your students so they can design their own projects? You can start small, think practically, and change the way you and your students view content learning and mastery. Project-based learning benefits are for everyone.

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Project-Based Learning: Benefits, Examples, and Resources

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Project-based learning is an instructional approach designed to give students the opportunity to develop knowledge and skills through engaging projects set around challenges and problems they may face in the real world.

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Before heading out for summer break, my partner Wendy Pavlicek and I put together a pair of videos designed to drive an engineering challenge for our Grade 2 students who will be investigating habitats next year. The challenge is designed to meet the Massachusetts disciplinary core idea elements in life science and engineering:

Plants and animals depend on their surroundings to get what they need.

Animals obtain food they need from plants or other animals. Plants need air, water, and light. Plants do not eat food; instead, they make their own “food.”

Different places on Earth each have their own unique assortment of living things.

Solutions can be conveyed through visual or physical representations

The first video introduces students to the engineering challenge with the help of EcoTarium’s wildlife director, Johanna Black. She graciously offered her time on an extremely busy field trip day to set the stage for our student inquiry around different plants and animals of their choosing.

The second video serves as a tool for providing more concrete information about the main needs of living things (to be shared after students embark on their own investigation of specific habitats related to the animal of their choosing’s needs).

The videos have been designed so that any classroom or age group could potentially pick up the challenge and aim’s to blend the needs not only of the animal to be researched for the exhibit but also the needs of the EcoTarium visitor looking to learn more about the animal. It is our hope that this project might also be paired with some informational writing, possibly in the disguise of an infographic panel board that would be attached beside a full scale enclosure as seen in zoos and aquariums.

We’ve shared these videos publicly in hopes others might take on the challenge. More concrete lesson plans will be written over the summer with our summer curriculum team and will be added to this post in the future. In the meantime please add a comment below if you end up using these videos in your own classroom!

Special thanks to the EcoTarium for their time and willingness to participate in this engaging engineering experience!

About Sean Musselman

Teacher Dad and Burlington MA Schools K-5 Science and Social Studies Curriculum Coordinator. NSTA Professional Development facilitator and author of "Think Like a Scientist: Investigating Weather and Climate" NSTA Kids ebook.

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Technology Solutions That Drive Education

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In putting together a project that would allow her students to create a successful "March Through Nashville" virtual museum app, McKissack Middle School teacher Kimberly Head-Trotter relied on PBLWorks' seven essential project design principles to guide her students in "Gold Standard" project-based learning:

1. Challenging Problem or Question: How can we create a virtual museum app that will preserve Nashville's influence on the larger civil rights movement?

2. Sustained Inquiry: The process took place throughout the eight-week project, during which students continued to ask questions, seek insight from others and revise their work until they felt it best answered the original question.

3. Authenticity: Students were tasked with researching and understanding key events in local civil rights history through contact with historians and experts, primary sources and artifacts, historical videos and interviews with people who lived through these events.

4. Student Voice and Choice: Students chose which stories, facts, photos and other supporting documentation should be highlighted, and they provided their own description of the events.

5. Reflection: Students answered questions from Head-Trotter and kept journals to help them understand what they were learning, what challenges they faced in meeting the goals of the project and how to overcome them.

6. Critique and Revision: To help students determine if their storytelling was effective, Head-Trotter had the groups critique each other's draft presentations to provide suggestions for improvement.

7. Public Product: Groups worked together to present and narrate their final virtual museum application to a panel that included a historian, a teacher and an IT specialist.

To learn more about project-based learning, check out " Project-Based Learning Engages K-12 Students with Real-World Challenges."

monkeybusinessimages/GettyImages

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7 Steps to Successful Project-Based Learning in K-12 Classrooms

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In putting together a project that would allow her students to create a successful "March Through Nashville" virtual museum app, McKissack Middle School teacher Kimberly Head-Trotter relied on PBLWorks' seven essential project design principles to guide her students in "Gold Standard" project-based learning: Challenging Problem or Question: How can we create a virtual museum app that will preserve Nashville's influence on the larger civil rights movement?

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Developing Effective Thinking Strategies: Problem-Based Learning in the K-5 Life Science Classroom

“We only think when confronted with a problem,” said American philosopher and educator John Dewey. Most of us have experienced the motivating effect of a well-defined problem; problem-based learning (PBL) seeks to introduce K-5 students to the process of defining and solving messy, real-world problems. Research indicates that students learn more through PBL than through traditional educational approaches – lectures and test-taking – in part because they are more motivated.

“PBL gives teachers a way to inspire students to a deeper level of learning by making it relevant to their lives,” says Tom McConnell, associate professor of science education in the Department of Biology at Ball State University. What’s more, he says, is that “it helps students not only learn a concept, but also how the concept fits within the context of several different disciplines.”

Teaching Future Job Skills

With PBL, students are learning not just content, but thinking strategies as well. “Students learn to think in a flexible way,” McConnell says. That flexibility is likely to serve students well as they prepare to enter a future job market that’s hard for us to imagine today. “Even if it’s jobs that don’t exist yet, the way of thinking that’s represented in the PBL framework is flexible enough to be used in a variety of situations, not just math and science,” he explains.

And based on comments from the business consortiums McConnell works with, other soft skills PBL fosters, like the ability to work on teams and share information effectively, are in high demand today.

Bringing Problem-Based Learning Into the K-5 Classroom

Perhaps the biggest challenge in implementing PBL is developing a problem that strikes the right balance between providing enough information to start students on the road to exploration but not so much that they can solve it without finding additional resources themselves.

“A good problem represents science as it appears in the real world,” McConnell says. He started using PBL before he really knew what it was. “I was basing it on things that were happening in my community. I would encourage teachers to look for something locally relevant, something kids might hear about on the news or that might be happening in their own neighborhoods…something they already have questions about. Those kinds of issues or stories make great problems to base a lesson plan on.”

McConnell is co-author of Problem-Based Learning in the Life Science Classroom K-12 (see a 58-page excerpt from the book here), an in-depth guide to implementing PBL. The book explains that an ideal problem gives students a reason to collaborate to analyze the situation, ask questions, pose hypotheses, identify further information needed, and find that information by searching literature and making scientific investigations. A well-designed problem leads students through this process to jointly create a proposed solution.

What a Problem May Look Like

Problems are designed to promote flexible thinking by omitting some of the information necessary to solve the problem and by including some information that’s extraneous. “Students have to learn to ask themselves, ‘What’s the important information?’ and ‘What do we not have to think about so much?’” McConnell says.

Among the 150 pages of detailed life science problems in Problem-Based Learning in the Life Science Classroom is one called “The Purple Menace.” In the story, students learn that purple loosestrife lives in a marsh, has increased from one to 50 plants in 10 years, that there are cattails in the marsh as well, that the plants are found near boat access, etc.

Students read the story quietly as the teacher tapes three large pieces of paper to the board and labels them: “What do we know?” “What do we need to know?” and “Hypotheses.” After students have read independently, one student reads the story aloud. The teacher then facilitates a discussion that guides students toward generating information that populates the categories represented on the three pieces of paper.

Transitioning from Expert to Facilitator

McConnell and his co-authors (Joyce Parker and Janet Eberhardt) point out that in a productive PBL discussion the teacher avoids providing information that students can find on their own.

Instead of answering, “What’s purple loosestrife?” a facilitator points out that it’s a good question to add to the “What do we need to know?” sheet and asks the group if anyone knows what it is. A student asks if she can look it up.

Compare this with the teacher-as-expert role, where the teacher provides the answer, that “purple loosestrife is a plant found in wetlands across the Midwest. It grows about 6 feet tall, and spreads quickly when it gets in the marsh.”

The expert answer to the student’s question minimizes student inquiry and in this case has also fed the group a key bit of information – it spreads quickly in a marsh – that is necessary to solving the problem and which would have been a productive student discovery. (On page 24 of the Problem-Based Learning in the Life Science Classroom excerpt, you can see a table that further illustrates the difference between teacher-as-expert and teacher-as-facilitator )

McConnell warns against the misperception that PBL is hard to integrate because it’s time consuming, especially for teachers required to follow a rigid curriculum map. He points out that more than one concept can be covered within one problem, which alleviates the pressure of adhering to a curriculum. “Math is a natural part of analyzing or processing data and coming up with possible solutions,” he says, “and social studies emerges really quickly in the process of developing solutions as well. Students get practice with online research and must use their writing and reading skills throughout the process.”

Learning That’s Connected to the Real World

Getting their hands dirty with a real-world problem allows students to learn from direct experience rather than direct instruction. McConnell says, “Our research shows students retain the concept longer. With problem-based learning, concepts become a more robust piece of learning than just a rote memory.”

About Tom McConnell: Tom J. McConnell is an associate professor of science education in the Department of Biology at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana. He teaches science teaching methods courses for elementary and secondary education majors and graduate students, as well as a biology content course for elementary teachers. His research focuses on the influence  of  professional  development  on  teacher  learning  and  student achievement,  and  it  focuses  on  curriculum  development  for  teacher education programs. He is also an active member of the Hoosier Association  of  Science  Teachers  and  the  National  Association  of  Research in Science Teaching.

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Developing Effective Thinking Strategies: Problem-Based Learning in the K-5 Life Science Classroom

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Developing Effective Thinking Strategies: Problem-Based Learning in the K-5 Life Science Classroom

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At a glance

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) gives all students an equal opportunity to succeed.

This approach to teaching and learning offers flexibility in the ways students access material and show what they know.

UDL also looks for different ways to keep students motivated.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an approach to teaching and learning that gives all students equal opportunity to succeed.

To understand what UDL is, it helps to understand what it's not. The word universal may throw you off. It may sound like UDL is about finding one way to teach all students. But UDL actually takes the opposite approach.

The goal of UDL is to use a variety of teaching methods to remove any barriers to learning. It's about building in flexibility that can be adjusted for every person's strengths and needs. That's why UDL benefits all learners.

This approach to teaching or to workplace training doesn't specifically target people who learn and think differently. But it can be especially helpful for kids with these challenges - including those who have not been formally diagnosed. It can also be very helpful for English language learners.

Watch this video to see what UDL looks like in a fifth-grade classroom.

Dive deeper

Bringing universal design to the classroom

How UDL helps students who learn and think differently

About the author

About the author

Amanda Morin is the author of "The Everything Parent's Guide to Special Education" and the former director of thought leadership at Understood. As an expert and writer, she helped build Understood from its earliest days.

Reviewed by

Reviewed by

Ace Parsi, MPP served as the personalized learning partnership manager at NCLD.

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What is Universal Design for Learning (UDL)?

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Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a teaching approach to help all learners be successful. Read about UDL principals and the benefits of UDL for students.

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Bring your place value unit to life with this project based learning (PBL) experience. This place value project is designed to help your students apply their knowledge about standard form, expanded form, word form, comparing numbers, and ordering numbers through a simulation project that incorporates informational reading and research.

A digital and printable version of this resource are included making it easy to use whether you are teaching in person, using digital learning, or a combination of both.

During this project based learning (PBL) unit, your students will work toward becoming an expedition scout for Wildlife Explorers International. As part of their job application process, they must create an expedition field guide filled with information about animals from the habitat of their choice.

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STEPS STUDENTS WILL TAKE DURING THIS MATH PROJECT:
Here are the steps your students will take as they work towards being hired as an expedition scout during their Place Value in the Wild Simulation:

★ Select one natural habitat from around the world.

★ Research eight animals from the habitat of their choice.

★ Compare and order the size/weight of each animal researched.

★ Show the weight, height, and lifespan of each animal in word form, expanded form, standard form, rounded form and as a place value model.

★ Write an expository outline filled with other amazing information about each animal.

★ Create a video clip in which they reflect on the learning and growth they made throughout the project. If digital equipment is unavailable, a live presentation can also be done.

★ Complete a self-assessment of their project using a three-part rubric.

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WHAT'S INCLUDED:
★ Teacher's Guide - detailed steps for successfully incorporating this resource in your classroom. This guide includes tips on:

Implementing this project in a variety of ways

Prepping your project materials efficiently

Setting a deadline

Introducing the project through a mini lesson

Wrapping up the project in a meaningful way

Using this project with Google Classroom

★ Digital and Printable Student Guide - a printable and digital version of the student guide is included. This 34-page guide includes detailed instructions and visuals to help your students complete each step of this simulation successfully. The format of this guide makes differentiation easy. Use it as a supplement to your verbal instructions as you provide scaffolding, or let your more advanced students work through each step of the project independently.

★ Student Printables - reproducible pages that guide students through the process of selecting a habitat, gathering research about the sizes of animals that live in the habitat of their choice, comparing the sizes and lifespans of these animals, and collecting three interesting facts with supporting details about each animal.

★ Digital Recording Sheets - the student printables are also provided in a ready-to-use Google Slides files that can easily be shared with your students via Google Classroom.

★ Editable Rubrics - three 4-point rubrics students can use to self-assess their ability to apply place value skills, create a field guide, and organize the components of their project. The same rubrics can be used by the teacher to provide a score for student work. An editable version of each rubric is also included.

★ Completed Project Sample: A completed sample of the project to help you provide scaffolding to students as needed.

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PEDAGOGY:
This math project based learning unit requires the application of students' knowledge of place value. Throughout the process of the Place Value In The Wild simulation, students will have the opportunity to apply their knowledge through creative design, engage in informational research that incorporates their math knowledge, and build organization skills as they plan and execute this multi-day project.

Every step of the Place Value In The Wild learning experience is outlined in a project guide that includes clear visuals and step-by-step instructions. Rubrics and reflection prompts will encourage your students to reach their learning goals.

The format of this place value project gives students the opportunity to exercise the standards for mathematical practice, apply math in real world situations, and display understanding in unique and engaging ways.

The format of the project based learning guide makes it an ideal resource for:

★ At your seat & hands on enrichment during math workshop or guided math

★ Math center work

★ Digital learning (a Google Slides version of the entire project is included)

★ Parent volunteer or teacher's aide enrichment station

★ A focal point for a place value room transformation

★ An alternative assessment that allows you to measure student understanding on a deeper level as a culmination to your place value unit.

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BOOSTING RIGOR:
Students who have mastered the ability to read and express numbers in standard form, expanded form, word form, compare numbers, and order numbers will have the opportunity to extend their learning and deepen their understanding of place value through this math project based learning experience.

This math project will help them solidify the place value skills they've mastered through real world problem solving rather than being bogged down with worksheets or busy work.

This project also serves as a wonderful alternative assessment that allows you to measure student understanding on a deeper level as a culmination to your place value unit.

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BUILDING STUDENT INDEPENDENCE:
This project guide is designed with student independence in mind. Detailed instructions and checklists are provided for students so they can carry out their project with maximum independence.

You can guide them as needed, and pull small groups during your math block that help address the more individualized needs of your students. This allows students to work at their own pace and take ownership of their learning.

On the day of the project launch, you will take 15-20 minutes to set the scene and teach students how to navigate their project guide. After that, your students will be off on an independent math project based learning (PBL) adventure that will last for days.

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SAVING TIME:
Want to incorporate a project into your place value math unit, but crunched for instructional time?

This resource makes prepping for project based learning a breeze and makes implementation seamless. The detailed visual instructions on each page of the guide make it possible for students to complete their unique project with maximum independence so you have the time you need to teach or reteach essential place value skills to small groups.

Scoring and providing students with feedback is also when using the included rubrics. Each of the three project phases: preparation, field guide creations, and project assembly has its own rubric so students can participate in the assessment process as they demonstrate learning, and you can provide them with specific feedback about their work.

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WHAT TEACHERS THINK OF THIS PROJECT:
♥ "Love how explicit the directions are, including visuals! Such a great project that allows students to practice speaking, writing, reading, AND math standards! Awesome product!" - Teach You Howe

♥ "Wow, did my students love this! My higher achievers soared with this project. It was perfect for challenging them. I will buy more from you in the future!" - Elyce H.

♥ "This has been such an amazing way to incorporate place value and research into my math lessons. The kids love that they are in charge, and I love that we are working on such a wide range of skills. Thank you!" - Bailey C.

♥ "This was a wonderful project that really pushed some of my second grade students to master place value while integrating research and writing! My students absolutely loved this as did I! This was my first PBL experience and I couldn't be happier with this purchase. The entire project was extremely organized and all of the directions were very clear with great pictures and examples. Thank you for putting in so much time into this resource!" - Christine Y.

♥ "Project based learning is so new to me and this resource was a great first step in learning how to implement it in my classroom! Thank you for the resource." - Emily C.

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OTHER MATH PROJECTS BY CORE INSPIRATION:
★ Place Value In The Wild - Place Value PBL Unit

★ The Time of Your Life - Telling Time PBL Unit

★ Conversation Hearts & Data Smarts - Data & Graphing PBL Unit

★ Winter Wonderland Array Architects - Arrays & Multiplication PBL Unit

★ Measure-Thon - Measurement PBL Unit

★ Quadrilateral City - Geometry PBL Unit

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Place Value Math Project | Print & Digital Project Based Learning for Math

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Bring your place value unit to life with this project based learning (PBL) experience. This place value project is designed to help your students apply their knowledge about standard form, expanded form, word form, comparing numbers, and ordering numbers through a simulation project that incorporate...