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Our Job

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An Example

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The Process

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For the Student

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How To

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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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Ideas

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In a recent eSchool News study, 89% of educators said it was very important or important for students to lead their own learning. That's telling - as is the fact that not a single respondent considered student-led learning unimportant.

It's also just another indication of the growing wave of teachers who are committed to giving students a bigger say in how they learn. These innovators are fighting the misconceptions that surround student-led learning and seeing what can happen in their classrooms when they step to the side.

Are you ready to make the shift, but need some ideas to get started? Maybe you've been teaching this way for a while but need a few new ideas for your toolkit? Beginner or veteran, check out these 11 student-led learning activities to try in your classroom:

1. Brainwriting

Next time you want your students to generate ideas, don't brainstorm - instead, try brainwriting. This method can be done in a few different ways, but at its core it's about giving students time to consider their thoughts on their own before sharing with the group. It's an easy way to amplify the voices of even your shyest learners.

2. GENIUS HOUR

Genius hour (also known as 20% time) encourages students to dedicate significant chunks of time to self-directed learning. It's engaging and motivating, plus the skills students learn while planning, executing and sharing their projects permeate the rest of their learning. Need help fitting this approach in while also covering the basics? Watch this edWeb webinar.

3. Constructive feedback

Students can be each other's best teachers, so it only makes sense to equip them with the tools they need to give constructive feedback. Teaching students to communicate effectively with each other means the thread of learning can move from student to student and back again - without you having to always act as mediator. Here are some sentence starters to get students going.

4. Wall of questions

Wondering is powerful. A chewy question can turn a student from passive to empowered. But there's data to support the scary fact that students actually become worse at posing big questions the longer they're in the school. To help reverse the trend, try creating a questions wall - with paper sticky notes or a digital alternative like the Nureva™ Span™ system - and encourage your students to write and post their inquiries - and then work to solve them.

5. "I wish my teacher knew"

A couple of years ago, a teacher posed this simple question to her students - a way of getting beyond the superficialities of day-to-day classroom life to what was really going on. It became a phenomenon, giving teachers all over the world a launching pad for giving their students more voice and choice in their learning.

6. SIMPLE MAKERSPACES

I've seen some amazing dedicated makerspaces in schools. But simple makerspaces are just as well suited to classrooms, helping students engineer, design, invent, tinker and finesse. Get more ideas for your first classroom makerspace.

7. Design thinking projects

If your students work on projects, have you tried design thinking? It puts students in the driver's seat by taking them through five stages of activity: empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test - and it's not just for STEM anymore. Find six project ideas to get you started.

8. School design improvements

Your students spend a lot of time at school - they probably have some rather strong opinions about what works and what doesn't. Rather than just complaining, harness their convictions to get them involved in making improvements. They could reorganize your classroom, implement a better school-wide recycling program or design a Lego wall - the possibilities are endless.

9. Connections to experts

It's becoming easier every day to broaden students' horizons by reaching out to the community. Get students to identify a larger problem that needs solving and then help them make the expert connections they need for knowledge and perspective. Here's how one school spent time with community organizations as they tackled the problem of how to eradicate homelessness.

10. Blogging and beyond

Blogging has become increasingly popular in classrooms, for good reason. It helps gives students three crucial ingredients for student-led learning - purpose, audience and real stakes. And for more ways to get students creating and reflecting on a regular basis, check out these blogging alternatives.

11. Self-advocacy

An ELL teacher I know has many goals for her students - and one of the biggest is for them to find supporters and advocate for their own learning. For many students, self-advocacy doesn't come naturally. Teaching students how to ask for help, through role playing or other guidance, can return huge rewards, especially when students leave secondary school.

Looking for more help? When it comes to making the shift to student-led learning, there's some truth behind the old cliché: two heads really are better than one.

Try pairing up with another teacher on a project or activity. While one of you puts out fires in the larger group, the other is free to provide distraction-free guidance to small groups of students. Here's how two teachers in Arkansas combined their classes on a student-driven bakery design project.

What are your favorite ways to get students leading their own learning? Add them to the comments below.

Free eBook

Are you looking for new collaborative learning ideas? In this eBook, you'll find more than 20 activities you can try in your classroom right away.

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11 activities to increase student-led learning in your classroom

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In a recent eSchool News study, 89% of educators said it was very important or important for students to lead their own learning. That's telling - as is the fact that not a single respondent considered student-led learning unimportant.

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But Why

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Democratizing Education - Rachel Roberts

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My DAP

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In the video above, a teacher uses graduated guidance (GG) to teach a student to wash her hands. GG is a prompting procedure that can be used to teach gross and fine motor skills by providing physical assistance. When implementing this procedure, use your best judgment on a moment-by-moment basis as to how much physical assistance is required by the child.