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How to trigger students' inquiry through projects

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How to trigger students' inquiry through projects

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There are several ways to start designing projects. One is to select among learning objectives described in the curriculum and textbooks that guide your teaching and to plan learning experiences based on these. Another is to "back in" to the standards, starting with a compelling idea and then mapping it to objectives to ensure there is a fit with what students are expected to learn. The second method can be more generative, as any overarching and enduring concept is likely to support underlying objectives in the core subject matter and in associated disciplines, too. Either way you begin, the first step is to identify a project-worthy idea.

We have condensed the project design process into six steps. After outlining the steps briefly below, we offer examples that show how one might use these steps to develop a germ of an idea into a project plan that emphasizes inquiry. Read the steps and examples all the way through before digging in to your own plan.

Step 1-Identify Project-worthy Concepts

Ask yourself: What important and enduring concepts are fundamental to the subjects I teach? Identify four or five BIG concepts for each subject.

Step 2-Explore Their Significance and Relevance

Now, think: Why do these topics or concepts matter? What should students remember about this topic in 5 years? For a lifetime? Think beyond school and ask: In what ways are they important and enduring? What is their relevance in different people's lives? In different parts of the world? Explore each concept, rejecting and adding ideas until you arrive at a short list of meaningful topics.

Step 3-Find Real-Life Contexts

Look back to three or four concepts you explored and think about real-life contexts. Who engages in these topics? Who are the people for whom these topics are central to their work? See if you can list five to seven professions for each concept.

With that done, now think: What are the interdisciplinary connections? In what ways might the topic extend beyond my subject matter? For example, if your subject specialty was math and you imagined an entrepreneur taking a product to market, the central work might involve investment, expense, and profit analyses. The project might also involve supply chains and transportation (geography), writing a prospectus for a venture capitalist (language arts), and designing a marketing campaign (language arts, graphic design, technology).

Step 4-Engage Critical Thinking

As you begin to imagine these topics in the context of a project, ask yourself, what might you ask of students? How might you push past rote learning into investigation, analysis, and synthesis? Consider how you can engage critical thinking in a project by asking students to:

Compare and contrast

Predict

Make a well-founded judgment or informed decision

Understand causal relationships (cause and effect)

Determine how parts relate to the whole (systems)

Identify patterns or trends

Examine perspectives and alternate points of view

Extrapolate to create something new

Evaluate reliability of sources

Step 5-Write a Project Sketch

Now, step back and write a project sketch-or two or three. For each, give an overview of the project. Describe the scenario and the activities students are likely to engage in. Anyone reading it should be able to tell what students will learn by doing the project. The process of writing will help you refine your ideas. There are dozens of project sketches in this book (and all are included in the Project Library in the Appendix). Use them as a guide.

Step 6-Plan the Setup

Three small but useful elements are left, and together with the project sketch, they provide a framework for the project. Write a title, entry event, and driving question for your project.

Project title.A good title goes a long way toward anchoring the project in the minds of your school community. A short and memorable title is best.

Teachers at Birkdale School in New Zealand take their projects seriously. They not only provide them with proper names but also fly a special flag in the school's entry when a new project begins. You might not need to go this far, but a good title conveys a sense of importance and helps make a project memorable. Let these project titles inspire you.

Lest We Forget-A project involving war memorials in New Zealand

Mingling at the Renaissance Ball-A social studies investigation that culminates in a celebration of human achievement

Lessons from the Gulf-A collection of collaborative projects by schools concerned about U.S. Gulf Coast devastation

AD 1095 and All That-Time-traveling students intervene to stop religious wars in medieval Europe.

Risk and Reward-Students acting as financial counselors present stock information to clients and advise on investments.

Stay or Leave?-Students examine economic factors that influence people's decisions about where they live.

YouVille-Students explore past civilizations to design their own utopias.

Entry event.Plan to start off the project with a "grabber," a mysterious letter, jarring "news," a provocative video, or other attention-getting event. As we discussed in Chapter 4, make sure it is novel (to make students alert) and has emotional significance (to make them care). Read these examples and imagine how your students might respond. Then plan an entry event for your project.

A newspaper article describes hazards associated with a clinic's use of poorly refurbished X-ray machines.

Distraught warrior king Gilgamesh appears in class and appeals to his "subjects" to help him learn why an enemy's technological prowess in battle outstrips his own.

A process server slaps student "witnesses" with subpoenas, compelling them to testify in an upcoming trial.

A letter from an elder describes her desire to capture stories before she and other storytellers are no more.

A television news story on "designer" babies kicks off an investigation about the ethical implications of genetic manipulation.

A forest owlet from a wildlife rescue center visits school bringing Owl Mail and asks students to investigate hazards to its survival.

Driving question.Kick off your project with a research question students will feel compelled to investigate. Imagine a driving question that leads to more questions, which, in their answering, contribute to greater understanding. Good questions grab student interest (they are provocative, intriguing, or urgent), are open ended (you can't Google your way to an answer), and connect to key learning goals.

Consider how to write a good question based on these "remodeled" examples (Larmer, 2009):

What are archetypes in literature? à To increase relevance, you might ask à How do archetypes inform our culture today?

What causes tornadoes? à To add context, you might ask à How can we prepare for a natural disaster in our region?

What are the requirements to sustain life? à To add interest, you might ask àHow can we design a biome that is self-sustaining?

How can we purify water? à To increase challenge, you might ask à How can we advise a village in the developing world to choose an inexpensive water purification system?

One Last Step

Workshop your project idea, especially at steps 5 and 6. Colleagues, students, parents, and subject matter experts will ask questions that will clarify your thinking and contribute ideas you might not have considered.

For more about the book, check out Suzie Boss's ISTE presentation.

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How to Trigger Students' Inquiry Through Projects

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When students engage in quality projects, they develop knowledge, skills, and dispositions that serve them in the moment and in the long term. There are several ways to start designing projects. Here are six steps that will help you get started.

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Project Based Learning Explained by Common Craft (VIDEO)

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Seven Essentials for Project-Based Learning

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Seven Essentials for Project-Based Learning

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As Ms. McIntyre walked around her high school science classroom, she plopped a packet of papers on each student's desk and announced a "project." Each student would create a poster about a water-borne bacterium that can be harmful to humans, the bacterium's effects, and disease prevention and treatment. The handouts included an assignment sheet with due dates and grading policy, a guide for designing the poster, and a list of websites and books. The teacher would display the best posters.

Sound familiar? When you were in school, did you make posters, dioramas, and models of buildings or volcanoes? If you are a teacher, have you asked students to research a topic and present information with PowerPoint slides? These are all-too-common examples of the kind of meaning-lite assignments that teachers bill as projects. A classroom filled with student posters may suggest that students have engaged in meaningful learning. But it is the process of students' learning and the depth of their cognitive engagement-rather than the resulting product-that distinguishes projects from busywork.

A project is meaningful if it fulfills two criteria. First, students must perceive the work as personally meaningful, as a task that matters and that they want to do well. Second, a meaningful project fulfills an educational purpose. Well-designed and well-implemented project-based learning is meaningful in both ways.

As educators with the Buck Institute for Education, we provide professional development to help schools set up a sustained program of in-depth project-based learning throughout a district, network, or state. In our work with teachers, we have identified seven essential elements of meaningful projects. Let's look at each element by considering what the fictional Ms. McIntyre could have done to create a meaningful project instead of handing out prepared packets.

Imagine that on the first day of the infectious disease unit, Ms. McIntyre showed a video depicting a beautiful beach, which ended with a shot of a sign reading, "Beach Closed: Contaminated Water." Suppose watching this video led to a lively (and sometimes disgusting) discussion in which students shared their experiences with suspicious water quality, discussed times when beaches had been closed and why, and talked about how much pollution bothered them. The teacher could then introduce the project by telling students that they would be learning more about ocean pollution and proposing actions to combat it.

Teachers can powerfully activate students' need to know content by launching a project with an "entry event" that engages interest and initiates questioning. An entry event can be almost anything: a video, a lively discussion, a guest speaker, a field trip, or a piece of mock correspondence that sets up a scenario. In contrast, announcing a project by distributing a packet of papers is likely to turn students off; it looks like a prelude to busywork.

Many students find schoolwork meaningless because they don't perceive a need to know what they're being taught. They are unmotivated by a teacher's suggestion that they should learn something because they'll need it later in life, for the next course, or simply because "it's going to be on the test." With a compelling student project, the reason for learning relevant material becomes clear: I need to know this to meet the challenge I've accepted.

After the discussion about beach pollution, Ms. McIntyre led students in brainstorming possible solutions, such as enacting laws, designing better waste-treatment systems, and raising public awareness about the need to reduce contaminants. Students created a driving question to focus their efforts, focusing on a specific local area: How can we reduce the number of days Foster's Beach is closed because of poor water quality?

A good driving question captures the heart of the project in clear, compelling language, which gives students a sense of purpose and challenge. The question should be provocative, open-ended, complex, and linked to the core of what you want students to learn. It could be abstract (When is war justified?); concrete (Is our water safe to drink?); or focused on solving a problem (How can we improve this website so that more young people will use it?).

A project without a driving question is like an essay without a thesis. Without a thesis statement, a reader might be able to pick out the main point a writer is trying to make; but with a thesis statement, the main point is unmistakable. Without a driving question, students may not understand why they are undertaking a project. They know that the series of assigned activities has some connection with a time period, a place, or a concept. But if you asked, "What is the point of all these activities?" they might only be able to offer, "Because we're making a poster."

Once her students' interest was piqued by a challenging question, Ms. McIntyre explained the requirements for the "Don't Close the Beach" project, which included an individually written paper, an oral presentation of students' work accompanied by media technology, and a product of students' choice created by teams. Students chose to develop media kits, public service announcements, web pages, brochures, and letters to government and industry officials, among other products.

This element of project-based learning is key. In terms of making a project feel meaningful to students, the more voice and choice, the better. However, teachers should design projects with the extent of student choice that fits their own style and students.

On the limited-choice end of the scale, learners can select what topic to study within a general driving question or choose how to design, create, and present products. As a middle ground, teachers might provide a limited menu of options for creative products to prevent students from becoming overwhelmed by choices. On the "the more, the better" end of the scale, students can decide what products they will create, what resources they will use, and how they will structure their time. Students could even choose a project's topic and driving question.

Once Ms. McIntyre's students had decided on actions that would help them respond to their driving question, they got to work. Collaboration was central to the project. Students formed teams of three or four and began planning what tasks they would do and how they would work together.

As they worked, each team regularly paused to review how well they were collaborating and communicating, using rubrics they had developed with the teacher's guidance. To boost collaboration skills, Ms. McIntyre used role-playing and team-building activities. She showed students how to use time and task organizers. They practiced oral presentation skills and learned to produce videos and podcasts. In writing journals, students reflected on their thinking and problem-solving processes, which they knew they would need to explain in their oral presentation.

A project should give students opportunities to build such 21st century skills as collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and the use of technology, which will serve them well in the workplace and life. This exposure to authentic skills meets the second criterion for meaningful work-an important purpose. A teacher in a project-based learning environment explicitly teaches and assesses these skills and provides frequent opportunities for students to assess themselves.

After their discussion about encounters with pollution, in addition to choosing a driving question, Ms. McIntyre's students as a whole class generated a list of more detailed questions about diseases, bacteria and their effects, and sources of water contamination. Questions included, What diseases can you get from water? Do you have to drink it to get sick? and Where do bacteria come from? The teams fine-tuned their questions and discussed how to find answers from the teacher, books, articles, websites, experts, and visits to Foster's Beach.

As these learners found answers, they raised and investigated new questions. Students synthesized the information they gathered and used it both to inform their individually written papers on the driving question and to help create their team's product related to that question.

Students find project work more meaningful if they conduct real inquiry, which does not mean finding information in books or websites and pasting it onto a poster. In real inquiry, students follow a trail that begins with their own questions, leads to a search for resources and the discovery of answers, and often ultimately leads to generating new questions, testing ideas, and drawing their own conclusions. With real inquiry comes innovation-a new answer to a driving question, a new product, or an individually generated solution to a problem. The teacher does not ask students to simply reproduce teacher- or textbook-provided information in a pretty format.

To guide students in real inquiry, refer students to the list of questions they generated after the entry event. Coach them to add to this list as they discover new insights. The classroom culture should value questioning, hypothesizing, and openness to new ideas and perspectives.

As they developed their ideas and products, student teams critiqued one another's work, referring to rubrics and exemplars. Ms. McIntyre checked research notes, reviewed rough drafts and plans, and met with teams to monitor their progress.

Formalizing a process for feedback and revision during a project makes learning meaningful because it emphasizes that creating high-quality products and performances is an important purpose of the endeavor. Students need to learn that most people's first attempts don't result in high quality and that revision is a frequent feature of real-world work.

In addition to providing direct feedback, the teacher should coach students in using rubrics or other sets of criteria to critique one another's work. Teachers can arrange for experts or adult mentors to provide feedback, which is especially meaningful to students because of the source.

In Ms. McIntyre's class, teams presented their analyses of water contamination issues and proposals for addressing the problem at an exhibition night. The invited audience included parents, peers, and representatives of community, business, and government organizations. Students answered questions and reflected on how they completed the project, next steps they might take, and what they gained in terms of knowledge and skills-and pride.

Schoolwork is more meaningful when it's not done only for the teacher or the test. When students present their work to a real audience, they care more about its quality. Once again, it's "the more, the better" when it comes to authenticity. Students might replicate the kinds of tasks done by professionals-but even better, they might create real products that people outside school use.

The hypothetical project described here was inspired by a real project, "Media Saves the Beach," carried out by students at High Tech High in San Diego, California. In this real-life project, students worked alongside established local groups to advocate cleaner seashores. Several government agencies eventually came through with funding for water monitoring at local beaches.

In truth, one of the products students created was a poster. What made that poster different from the meaning-lite one Ms. McIntyre assigned? The High Tech High students chose to do their poster because it was an effective way to communicate their message at Exhibition Night-and the team stood nearby to explain it. To create the poster, students engaged in an extended process of inquiry, critique, and revision. They learned important things in the process. In short, even a poster can be meaning-heavy if it's part of a project embodying the seven essential elements of project-based learning.

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Seven Essentials for Project-Based Learning

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Some "projects" border on busywork. Others involve meaningful inquiry that engages students' minds.

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What is PBL | Project Based Learning | BIE

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As a result, students develop deep content knowledge as well as critical thinking, creativity, and communication skills in the context of doing an authentic, meaningful project. Project Based Learning unleashes a contagious, creative energy among students and teachers.

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Design-Based Learning and Student Achievement

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Design-Based Learning and Student Achievement

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June 25, 2007 | Volume 5 | Number 6
Design-Based Learning and Student Achievement

Dan Laitsch

The Question

Does a project- or design-based approach to teaching about complex systems result in greater student learning than traditional instructional methods?

The Context

Problem-based learning, project-based learning, and Learning by Design are all variants of a constructivist learning model that emphasizes guided student engagement in discovery learning. Each variant seeks to present students with a complex problem or challenge, requiring student identification of and engagement in the knowledge and skills necessary to successfully solve the problem or address the challenge. Essentially, students use the scientific process of discovery (observation, theory building, experimentation, data analysis, drawing conclusions) to solve problems, theoretically internalizing knowledge to a greater degree because they have actively engaged in the learning process, rather than simply receiving the solutions and context in traditional lecture or presentations. Critics of such discovery learning worry that students will not engage sufficiently in the content of the curricular domain, and even supporters have acknowledged that such in-depth learning may result in uneven engagement with the current broadly defined curriculum. Although problem-based learning has been used extensively in medical schools and higher education, it has received less research attention at the K-12 level.

The Details

Cindy Hmelo, Douglas Holton, and Janet Kolodner conducted the study highlighted in this issue of ResearchBrief (see below for full citation). The researchers wanted to see if a design-based approach to a unit on the human respiratory system would result in greater student learning than more traditional direct instruction methods. The researchers had three specific goals:

1. Explore the extent to which a design-based approach could help students learn about the human respiratory system.

2. Examine whether the structure-behavior-function (SBF) framework of design-based learning would help students think deeply about the topic.

3. Investigate implementation of Learning by Design methods in a middle school setting.

Although goals one and three are relatively straightforward, the researchers took some time to explain the concept of "deep" learning mentioned in goal two. Because the human respiratory system is so complex, the researchers noted that learning could occur on multiple levels; for example, students might learn about the components of the system without really understanding the interrelations of the pieces or the overall functioning of the system. They noted that phenomena in biology can occur at the anatomical, biochemical, and physiological levels simultaneously, making deep understanding difficult to achieve. By using the SBF approach, the researchers hypothesized that learning could occur at the following levels:

Structural: the physical structure of the lungs within the system; the structure of the alveoli within the lungs

Behavioral: the movement of the chest or of air going in and out of the nose; more complex behaviors, such as the passage of gas from high to low concentration across the semipermeable membrane of the lungs

Functional: lungs move to bring in (or expel) air; oxygen is brought in for cells; waste is removed from cells

By creating a learning experience where students actually design an artificial lung, the researchers hypothesized that students would gain a deeper and more functional understanding of the respiratory system than would students taught with a more traditional lecture and direct instruction method. One of the challenges the researchers faced was designing a project that engaged students but also included time for substantive reflection that would support a deep understanding of the data collected through the experience. As a result, they combined parts of problem-based learning with case-based reasoning to create what they call Learning by Design (LBD), a complex teaching model that allows students to engage in true problem solving. An important aspect of LBD is its use of failure (at a task) as a learning opportunity and motivational tool: students create something, test it, gather data and get feedback, explain outcomes and anomalies, and revise expectations and try again.

The researchers studied 42 students in two 6th grade life sciences classrooms meeting over 13 consecutive class periods. The students in these two classes were taught about the human respiratory system using the LBD model, while a third control classroom was taught using traditional methods (textbook readings, lectures, and teacher-directed discussions.). The researchers conducted 20 pre-intervention interviews and gave all students a 12-item true-false test to gauge initial knowledge of the respiratory system. The classes were videotaped and observed daily, with the researchers maintaining detailed research logs. The teacher in the treatment classes was described as inventive, energetic, knowledgeable, curious, and reflective, although he had never taught using LBD before.

In analyzing the classroom experiences of the teacher and students, the researchers identified a variety of mixed outcomes. Student reflection was generally well managed throughout the learning process, and the LBD teacher successfully used scaffolding to support learning; however, the transition to helping students design and debug their models was minimal. Although student motivation was high and students were engaged, the complexity of the task (and the restricted timeframe) meant that students had limited opportunity to apply what they had learned. The researchers also noted a disconnect between students' initial research and their project designs and observed strong group-level collaboration within the groups, within the classroom, and across groups. These student interactions supported progress throughout the classroom.

In addition to these descriptive outcomes, the researchers gathered data related to specific learning outcomes. They administered 12-item pre- and post-tests measuring student conceptual understanding of the respiratory system, evaluated student illustrations of the respiratory system within the outlines of an empty human body, and conducted clinical interviews. The control class was also assessed. The LBD class showed significant improvement between their pre- and post-tests, while the control class did not. Based on analysis of the students' illustrations, the LBD students had significantly more advanced conceptual understanding of the respiratory system.

For teachers interested in implementing LBD in their classrooms, the researchers suggested that teachers take the time to introduce the process over multiple lessons to help students become comfortable with the activities. They also made seven other recommendations:

1. Present the challenge with appropriate and complete materials.

2. Engage in a prelearning activity involving related artifacts that can allow students to explore issues they are likely to face when engaged in the modeling part of the LBD activity.

3. Use regular classroomwide reflection and planning to help students broadly explore ideas, issues, and plans.

4. Allow groups to address component issues of the problem and present their findings to the class to help build a holistic understanding of the problem and design solutions.

5. Have groups regularly reflect on new knowledge and revise their design plans (sharing their thinking with the class).

6. Have students reflect and revise designs based on testing of the created models, again sharing results with the class.

7. Have students work toward final presentation, reflection, and review.

The Bottom Line

Students engaged in a hands-on Learning by Design educational experience were highly motivated by the challenge and-through extensive research, group work, and classroom discussion-reached a deeper and more complex understanding of the respiratory system than did their peers receiving traditional instruction in a comparison classroom.

Who's Affected?

The focus of this research was students in a middle school science classroom.

Caveats

The researchers were careful to highlight the fact that Learning by Design is not a panacea and is extremely difficult to implement well. The process is complex and requires skilled facilitation by the teacher to ensure the learning outcomes are adequately addressed. The researchers suggest that they should have included a prelearning activity (such as unstructured time for students to engage with spirometers or pumps) to help students bridge the gap between researching a problem and designing a solution. They also noted that the materials they provided actually limited student models because they didn't supply any filtering material (needed to represent gas exchange). Although the pre- and post-tests favored the intervention group, the pre-intervention interviews of the control group were lost due to a "technological mishap," making it impossible to compare the improvement for students in the traditional classroom on some measures. Additionally, the instruction that the control group received was not well described, making it difficult to evaluate the comparative worth of the sample. Both the control and intervention groups were small, and, as such, the results may not be generalizable to other students, classrooms, and teachers.

The Study

Hmelo, C. E., Holton, D. L., & Kolodner, J. L. (2000). Designing to learn about complex systems. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 9(3), 247-298.

Other Resources

Learning by Design
Georgia Institute of Technology

Problem-Based Learning Network
Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

Project Based Learning Handbook
Buck Institute for Education

____________

All comments regarding ResearchBrief should be sent to RBfeedback@ascd.org. To speak directly with an ASCD staff member, contact us.

Dan Laitsch serves as ASCD's consultant editor for ResearchBrief. Laitsch is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada, and is coeditor of the International Journal for Education Policy and Leadership.

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Design-Based Learning and Student Achievement

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June 25, 2007 | Volume 5 | Number 6 Design-Based Learning and Student Achievement Dan Laitsch Does a project- or design-based approach to teaching about complex systems result in greater student learning than traditional instructional methods? Problem-based learning, project-based learning, and Learning by Design are all variants of a constructivist learning model that emphasizes guided student engagement in discovery learning.