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1. 2. Collaborative learning in a flexible classroom

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1. 2. Collaborative learning in a flexible classroom

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I am an English teacher without a special classroom for English lessons. Most of the sitting arrangements in the classrooms I use do not encourage collaboration and are not equipped with the appropriate technology to facilitate collaborative learning. Therefore, whenever i want my students to do a collaborative task I urge them to change the sitting arrangement. In most classrooms I use my own computer-laptop where students - in turns-  contribute their answers in the collaborative tasks.

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4. How can teacher collaboration facilitate collaborative learning? 

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4. How can teacher collaboration facilitate collaborative learning? 

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Getting feedback
Design a project together
Challenges
Time to collaborate
Timetable

Numerous tools that we can use
Build in opportunities  outside of school day

Collaboration across themes

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1.3. Collaborative learning through project-based learning

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1.3. Collaborative learning through project-based learning

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I very often involve my students in collaborative projects. I have always dedicated some time for m students and me to reflect and discuss the positive and negative aspects of our work in the projects. I strongly believe that this has developed their reflective and social skills

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1.4. A foreign language teacher’s experience of collaborative learning

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1.4. A foreign language teacher’s experience of collaborative learning

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I totally agree with the ways mentioned in the video! I have often used online tools to promote self and per assessment. I think they are appropriate for the age and interests!
Thus, they receive it better and appreciate it!

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1. 5  A History and Geography teacher’s experience of collaborative learning

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1. 5  A History and Geography teacher’s experience of collaborative learning

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The most difficult thin to achieve when doing collaborative projects is the contribution of all participants and the coping with the feelings of frustration that may arise

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Low level collaboration: Subject cards
Students made cards with the topics they have at school, coloured them and decorated the walls.

High level collaboration: European School Newspaper
Students worked together to publish a collaborative newspaper. They decided on the topics the issue would have, the amount of articles and the pictures or puzzles it would have.

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Module 2: How can you design collaborative learning in the classroom

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Module 2: How can you design collaborative learning in the classroom

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2.2 Embedding collaborative learning into lesson design

Key skills
communication
collaboration
Collaboration is a skill that we can develop and learn. Of course it does not depend on the activities only or on our wish to enhance our students to collaborate. It is determined by certain personal characteristics of every student. Therefore, in "difficult" groups we may need to do many activities to facilitate collaboration.

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Type of quality o the collaboration

Are they working together?

work in pairs or groups

Do they have shared responsibility?

common product , common design, common response
Learns must collectively own their work and be mutually responsible for the outcome

Do they make substantive questions together? About...

The content ------ the process  --------- the product

Is their work interdependent?

All of them are so crucial!
They are not easy to do and they need careful planning. It is difficult even or the teachers

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Dream

Explore

Map

Make

Ask

Remake

Show

Collaborative learning
Personalized learning
Flipped classroom learning
Subject specifics scenarios
The template is ideal ! I have used in many projects

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3: How can you assess collaborative learning? 

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3: How can you assess collaborative learning? 

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Answers to teachers’ questions on assessing collaborative learning

Self assessment is very important because it helps learners reflect on their skills d promotes metacognitive knowledge. Peer assessment is equally important. Yet students need to be taught to use proper language and to think positively and in favour of the group when they assess their peers.

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4.5 Skills and conditions needed for teacher collaboration

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4.5 Skills and conditions needed for teacher collaboration

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Knowledge
Attitude skills
Skills
Motivation
Personal skills, communication
Emotional skills
Psychological skills
Leadership skills
Shared responsibility
Move beyond the sharing!
Value what individual brings to the group
Value needs to be clearly seen
CONDITIONS
Rewards/incentives
Shared goal/responsibility
Take on different roles
Curriculum space for collaborative planning
Time for TEAM building skills,
GETTING to know
BUILDING trust
THE IMPORTANCE OF LEADERSHIP
Teacher training modules=== designed collaboratively---team taught
Lead by example

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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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Lin,  Y -  S.  (2011).    Fostering  Creativity  Through  Education:    A  Conceptual  Framework  of Creative Pedagogy.  Creative Education2(3):149-155

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Lin,  Y -  S.  (2011).    Fostering  Creativity  Through  Education:    A  Conceptual  Framework  of Creative Pedagogy.  Creative Education2(3):149-155

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lohynova@gmail.com by lohynova on Genially

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Discover more about lohynova@gmail.com ✌️ - Personalized

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Project-based learning ( PBL) is a student-centered pedagogy that involves a dynamic classroom approach in which it is believed that students acquire a deeper knowledge through active exploration of real-world challenges and problems. Students learn about a subject by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to a complex question, challenge, or problem.

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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.

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

In Project Based Learning, teachers make learning come alive for students.

Students work on a project over an extended period of time - from a week up to a semester - that engages them in solving a real-world problem or answering a complex question. They demonstrate their knowledge and skills by creating a public product or presentation for a real audience.

As a result, students develop deep content knowledge as well as critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and communication skills. Project Based Learning unleashes a contagious, creative energy among students and teachers.

And in case you were looking for a more formal definition...

Project Based Learning is a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging, and complex question, problem, or challenge.

Watch Project Based Learning in Action

These 7-10 minute videos show the Gold Standard PBL model in action, capturing the nuts and bolts of a PBL unit from beginning to end.

This project features teacher Rayhan Ahmed at Leaders High School in Brooklyn, NY, with his 11th grade chemistry class.

This project features Kimberly Head-Trotter of McKissack Middle School, in Nashville, TN, with her 6th grade ELA/History class.

This project features teacher Cheryl Bautista of Katherine Smith Elementary School, San Jose, CA and her third graders.

How does PBL differ from "doing a project"?

PBL is becoming widely used in schools and other educational settings, with different varieties being practiced. However, there are key characteristics that differentiate "doing a project" from engaging in rigorous Project Based Learning.

We find it helpful to distinguish a "dessert project" - a short, intellectually-light project served up after the teacher covers the content of a unit in the usual way - from a "main course" project, in which the project is the unit. In Project Based Learning, the project is the vehicle for teaching the important knowledge and skills student need to learn. The project contains and frames curriculum and instruction.

In contrast to dessert projects, PBL requires critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and various forms of communication. To answer a driving question and create high-quality work, students need to do much more than remember information. They need to use higher-order thinking skills and learn to work as a team.
Learn more about "dessert" projects vs PBL
The gold standard for high-quality PBL

To help ensure your students are getting the main course and are engaging in quality Project Based Learning, PBLWorks promotes a research-informed model for "Gold Standard PBL."

The Gold Standard PBL model encompasses two useful guides for educators:

1) Seven Essential Project Design Elements provide a framework for developing high quality projects for your classroom, and

2) Seven Project Based Teaching Practices help teachers, schools, and organizations improve, calibrate, and assess their practice.

The Gold Standard PBL model aligns with the High Quality PBL Framework. This framework describes what students should be doing, learning, and experiencing in a good project. Learn more at HQPBL.org.

Yes, we provide PBL training for educators!

PBLWorks offers a variety of workshops, courses and services for teachers, school and district leaders, and instructional coaches to get started and advance their practice with Project Based Learning.
Learn more

This project features teacher Rayhan Ahmed at Leaders High School in Brooklyn, NY, with his 11th grade chemistry class.

This project features Kimberly Head-Trotter of McKissack Middle School, in Nashville, TN, with her 6th grade ELA/History class.

This project features teacher Cheryl Bautista of Katherine Smith Elementary School, San Jose, CA and her third graders.

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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. 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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An overview of the 7 Essential Project Design Elements in the PBLWorks model for Gold Standard PBL. Adapted from "Gold Standard PBL: The Essential Project Design Elements" white paper by John Larmer and John Mergendoller (2015).
Gold Standard Project Based Learning

Project Based Learning is a powerful and transformative pedagogy that-when done well-can help all of our students learn and thrive. But what are the features that differentiate Project Based Learning (PBL) from other instructional approaches, and how can teachers ensure that they are implementing PBL in ways that will be most impactful for their students? In order to help teachers do PBL effectively, PBLWorks has developed a comprehensive, research-informed model for PBL - a "gold standard" to help teachers, schools, and organizations to reflect on and grow their practice. Our framework for Gold Standard PBL is designed to meet the needs of all learners, and includes several key components:

Essential Project Design Elements: These seven elements (the focus of this article) are the characteristics that differentiate a Gold Standard project from other forms of instruction- the key features that are evident in the design of an effective project.

Project Based Teaching Practices: These practices are the instructional moves teachers make to bring a project to life in the classroom. Many of them are familiar practices to teachers, but they look different in the context of a project. In addition to focus areas such as scaffolding and assessment, these teaching practices include the intentional practices teachers use to build a culture of interdependence in the classroom. (Learn more.)

An Equity-Centered Vision for PBL: In addition to knowing the nuts and bolts of PBL pedagogy, effective PBL teachers hold a clear vision for how their project design and implementation will meet the needs of all of their learners. This includes attending to four "levers" for equitable PBL- knowledge of students, cognitive demand, literacy, and shared power- and regularly using these levers to reflect on and refine practice. (Learn more.)

Each component of the Gold Standard frameworks is intended to support all students in deep learning of meaningful and relevant learning goals, so let's begin our discussion there.

Student Learning Goals

Student learning of academic content and skill development are at the center of any well-designed project. Like the lens of a camera, our framework puts the focus of PBL on helping students gain the knowledge, understanding, and success skills they need to thrive:

Key Knowledge and Understanding: Gold Standard PBL teaches students the important content standards, concepts, and in-depth understandings that are fundamental to school subject areas and academic disciplines. In good projects, students learn how to apply knowledge to the real world, and use it to solve problems, answer complex questions, and create high-quality products.

Key Success Skills: Content knowledge and conceptual understanding, by themselves, are not enough. In school and college, in the workplace, as community members, and in their lives generally, people need to be able to think critically and solve problems, work well with others, and communicate effectively. They also need to manage projects and approach novel tasks with creativity and innovation. We call these kinds of competencies "success skills." They are also known as "College and Career Readiness Skills" and are often seen in "Graduate Profiles" created by schools and districts.

It's important to note that success skills can only be taught through the acquisition of content knowledge and understanding. For example, students don't learn critical thinking skills in the abstract, isolated from subject matter; they gain them by thinking critically about math, science, history, English, career/tech subjects, the arts, and so on.

We recommend that each project explicitly teach and assess one or two specific success skills, even though students may learn other skills as well. Projects can also help students to develop and strengthen other personal qualities (such as perseverance and compassion), rooted in the needs and values of students and their local community.

Essential Project Design Elements

So what characterizes an effective project? Based on an extensive literature review and the distilled experience of the many educators we have worked with over the past several decades, we believe the following Essential Project Design Elements outline what is necessary for an effective project that maximizes student learning and engagement.

Challenging Problem or Question

The What: The heart of a project - what it is "about" - is a problem to investigate and solve, or a question to explore and answer. This question should be aligned to learning goals and, as much as possible, should connect to students' interests, identities, and communities. The challenge could be concrete (the school needs to do a better job of recycling waste) or abstract (deciding if and when war is justified). When teachers design and conduct a project, we suggest they (sometimes with students) write the central problem or question in the form of an open-ended, student-friendly "driving question" that focuses their task, like a thesis focuses an essay (e.g., "How can we improve our school's recycling system, so we can reduce waste?" or "Should the U.S. have fought the Vietnam War?"). Note that this problem or question should not be simple to answer, but should be cognitively demanding for students and require them to engage in deep and original thought.
The Why: A well-designed problem or question makes learning meaningful for students. They are not just gaining knowledge to remember it; they are learning because they have a real need to know something, so they can use this knowledge to solve a problem or answer a question that matters to them. This also helps students develop a problem-solving disposition, and creates the context for building skills and confidence that students can apply to other challenges in their lives, communities, and work.

Sustained Inquiry

The What: To inquire is to seek information or to investigate - it's a more active, in-depth process than just "looking something up" in a book or online. The inquiry process takes time, which means a Gold Standard project lasts more than a few days. In PBL, inquiry is iterative; when confronted with a challenging problem or question, students ask questions, find and use resources and other learning experiences to help develop answers to those questions, then ask deeper questions - and the process repeats. Projects can incorporate different modes of seeking answers, mixing the traditional idea of "research" - reading a book or searching a website - with other learning experiences such as labs, field trips, or interviews with experts and end-users.

The Why: Learning through sustained inquiry helps students engage with the world from a place of curiosity. Students who do inquiry-based projects develop the capacity to ask meaningful questions and the agency to effectively seek answers to those questions. Sustained inquiry also helps content and skills "stick:" students are not just passively receiving knowledge, they are actively seeking and co-constructing it.

Authenticity

The What: When people say something is authentic, they generally mean it is real or genuine, not fake or contrived. In education, the concept has to do with how "real-world" the learning or the task is. A project can be authentic in several ways, often in combination. It can have an authentic context, such as when students solve problems like those faced by people in the world outside of school (e.g., entrepreneurs developing a business plan, engineers designing a bridge, or advisors to the City Council recommending policy). It can involve the use of real-world processes, tasks and tools, and performance standards, such as when students plan an experimental investigation or use digital editing software to produce professional quality videos. It can have a real impact on others, such as when students address a need in their school or community (e.g., designing and building a school garden, improving a community park, providing support to local immigrant families) or create a product or service that will be used or experienced by others. Finally, a project can have personal authenticity when it speaks to students' own concerns, interests, cultures, identities, and issues in their lives.

The Why: When a project is designed with authenticity in mind, students are engaged in learning for a purpose. Their motivation increases because they see why what they are learning matters. Students also understand how to transfer their learning, as they apply the concepts and skills from the standards to life beyond the classroom. Finally, designing projects with authenticity in mind helps to bridge the gap between school and home, and provides an opportunity for students to use and share the knowledge and skills they bring into the classroom (including cultural competency, community wisdom, place-based knowledge, and language skills).

Student Voice & Choice

The What: Gold Standard projects include opportunities for students to make their voices and perspectives heard, within and beyond the classroom. Students are invited to speak in their own ways and to express their own opinions, rather than speak in ways they think the teacher wants.

Effective projects are also shaped by student choice: students can have input and (some) control over many aspects of a project, from the questions they generate, to the resources they will use to find answers to their questions, to the tasks and roles they will take on as team members, to the products they will create. More advanced students may go even further and select the topic and nature of the project itself; they can write their own driving question and decide how they want to investigate it, demonstrate what they have learned, and how they will share their work.

The Why: Having a say in a project creates a sense of ownership in students; they care more about- and bring more of themselves to- the project. When student voices are centered in projects, they are able to learn from one another, and they learn that their voices and ideas matter.

Creating opportunities for student choice in a project also increases student engagement and ownership. Additionally, students learn how to evaluate options and strategically approach challenges- critical skills that will support their leadership and agency within and well beyond the classroom walls.
Finally, both voice and choice within a project contribute to a culture of shared power- students learn to recognize their own power and that of their peers, and learn to use that power responsibly to benefit each other and the larger community.

Reflection

The What: John Dewey, whose ideas continue to inform our thinking about PBL, pointed out that we do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience. Throughout a project, students - and the teacher - should reflect on what they're learning, how they're learning, and why they're learning, as well as how they are changing as learners. Reflection can occur informally, as part of classroom culture and dialogue, but should also be an explicit part of project journals, scheduled formative assessment, discussions at project checkpoints, and public presentations of student work.

The Why: Reflection on the content knowledge and understanding gained helps students solidify what they have learned and think about how it might apply elsewhere, beyond the project. Reflection on the project itself - how it was designed and implemented - helps students decide how they might approach their next project, and helps teachers improve the quality of their PBL practice. And reflection on their own growth as learners- including in the area of success skill development- helps students to take ownership of their learning, celebrate success, and identify new goals for continued growth.

Critique & Revision

The What: High quality student work is a hallmark of Gold Standard PBL, and such quality is attained through thoughtful critique and revision. Students should be taught how to give and receive constructive peer feedback that will improve project processes and products, guided by rubrics, models, and formal feedback/critique protocols. In addition to peers and teachers, outside adults and experts can also contribute to the critique process, bringing an authentic, real-world point of view.

The Why: Giving and receiving purposeful feedback helps students build a shared understanding of what quality work looks like with regard to the targeted content and skills. It also expands responsibility for formative assessment and collective learning from the teacher alone to the whole class, helping to create a culture of interdependence and investment in collective learning. Finally, regularly engaging in critique and revision processes helps students to develop a growth mindset- moving from a paradigm in which work is "right or wrong" to a paradigm in which work is always improving.

Public Product

The What: In Gold Standard PBL, students share the work they create with an audience beyond the classroom. This can take many forms: a tangible product that students design or build, or the presentation of a solution to a problem or an answer to a driving question. A public product can be complex- the launch of a large-scale event, website, or change effort in the community- or simple- a video conference with classroom family members or a presentation to another class in the school. What's important is that someone beyond the teacher will see students' work and hear about their learning.

Many PBL schools and districts reinforce this message by repurposing the traditional "open house" into an exhibition of project work, which helps build understanding and support for PBL among stakeholders. When the public sees what high-quality products students can create, they're often surprised - and eager to see more.

The Why: There are three major reasons for creating a public product in Gold Standard PBL. First, like authenticity, a public product adds greatly to PBL's motivating power and encourages high-quality work. When students have to present or display their work to an audience beyond the classroom, the stakes- and the bar for student performance- are raised.

Second, by creating a product, students make what they have learned tangible and thus, when shared publicly, discussible. Instead of only being a private exchange between an individual student and teacher, the social dimension of learning becomes more important. This has an impact on classroom and school culture, helping create a "learning community," where students and teachers discuss what is being learned, how it is learned, what are acceptable standards of performance, and how student performance can be made better.

Finally, making student work public is an effective way to communicate with families, community members, and the wider world about what PBL is and what it does for students. When a classroom, school, or district opens itself up to public scrutiny, the message is, "Here's what our students can do - we're about more than test scores."

The Essential Project Design Elements are designed to serve as guideposts for teachers when planning Gold Standard projects for their classrooms. They are also intended to be developed over time- not all Elements will be strong in a teacher's first project, but they will become more evident as teachers and their students gain experience and confidence with the project process. What's most important as teachers begin to work with the Essential Project Design Elements is that they do so with a focus on the transformative impact that PBL can have for all students.

Yes, we provide PBL training for educators!

PBLWorks offers a variety of PBL workshops, courses and services for teachers, school and district leaders, and instructional coaches - whether you're just getting started or advancing your practice.

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Gold Standard PBL: Essential Project Design Elements

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An overview of the 7 Essential Project Design Elements in the PBLWorks model for Gold Standard PBL. Adapted from "Gold Standard PBL: The Essential Project Design Elements" white paper by John Larmer and John Mergendoller (2015).

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February 2008 | Volume 65 | Number 5
Teaching Students to Think Pages 80-82

Jane L. David

Whether students investigate what happens to their family's garbage or design an entire city, project-based learning aims to engage them in realistic, thought-provoking problems.

What's the Idea?

The core idea of project-based learning is that real-world problems capture students' interest and provoke serious thinking as the students acquire and apply new knowledge in a problem-solving context. The teacher plays the role of facilitator, working with students to frame worthwhile questions, structuring meaningful tasks, coaching both knowledge development and social skills, and carefully assessing what students have learned from the experience. Advocates assert that project-based learning helps prepare students for the thinking and collaboration skills required in the workplace.

Project-based learning creates opportunities for groups of students to investigate meaningful questions that require them to gather information and think critically. Typical projects present a problem to solve (How can we reduce the pollution in the schoolyard pond?); a phenomenon to investigate (Why do you stay on your skateboard?); a model to design (Create a scale model of an ideal high school); or a decision to make (Should the school board vote to build a new school?).

What's the Reality?

Although projects are the primary vehicle for instruction in project-based learning, there are no commonly shared criteria for what constitutes an acceptable project. Projects vary greatly in the depth of the questions explored, the clarity of the learning goals, the content and structure of the activity, and guidance from the teacher. The role of projects in the overall curriculum is also open to interpretation. Projects can guide the entire curriculum (more common in charter or other alternative schools) or simply comprise a few scattered hands-on activities. They might be multidisciplinary (more likely in elementary schools) or single-subject (commonly science and math). Some are whole class, others small group, and some individual.

Fully realized project-based teaching has never been widespread in mainstream public schooling. Teachers have little training or experience in the approach. Moreover, the time demands of projects, especially in today's context of standards, high-stakes tests, and pacing guides, understandably discourage many teachers from venturing into the kinds of collaborative student investigations that form the foundation of project-based learning. Because teachers tend to find this approach difficult to implement with low-performing students and may lack supporting technology, it is less likely to be embraced in high-poverty schools, which could increase rather than lessen existing inequities.

What's the Research?

The broad and varied definitions of project-based learning make it difficult to identify a distinct body of research on its practice. In fact, only a few studies have measured the effects of project-based learning on student achievement.

Boaler (2002) compared student mathematics achievement in two similar British secondary schools, one using traditional instruction and the other using project-based instruction. After three years, students in the project-based-learning school significantly outperformed the traditional-school students in mathematics skills as well as conceptual and applied knowledge. In fact, in the project-based-learning school, three times as many students passed the national exam.

The Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt University (1992) evaluated the effects of a series of video-based adventure simulations it developed. "The Adventures of Jasper Woodbury" provides a structure for students to work collaboratively on simulated real-world problems that require applying mathematical knowledge and reasoning. Compared with a control group, students who used the Vanderbilt series scored higher in solving word problems and in planning. On tests of basic math concepts, both groups scored the same.

Beyond academic outcomes, the Boaler and Vanderbilt studies both found that experience with projects reduced student math anxiety and resulted in more positive attitudes toward math. Boaler also found positive effects on equity: The link between performance and student economic level disappeared in the project-based school and increased in the traditional school.

In his comprehensive review of the limited research on project-based learning, Thomas (2000) found some evidence that this approach enhances the quality of student learning compared with other instructional methods. He also cited evidence that project-based learning is effective for teaching processes such as problem solving and decision making, but much of this research lacked comparisons with other methods.

The handful of studies that have measured the effects of project-based learning have looked at programs that were more well developed than the vast majority of projects created and carried out by individual teachers. Research on these more typical versions of project-based learning has not focused on the results but instead has shed light on the challenges of implementing this practice in classrooms.

Marx, Blumenfeld, Krajcik, and Soloway (1997) documented several challenges teachers face in implementing projects. Among these are the length of class periods and the pressure to cover curriculum topics. Because inquiry-based projects take more time than teacher-centered instruction does, their use raises the perennial question of breadth versus depth. Teachers also need skill in managing multiple activities. Many projects use technology-for example, to provide simulations, opportunities for Internet research, or collaboration with others in a remote location-which makes additional demands on the teacher.

To use project-based learning effectively, teachers must fully understand the concepts embedded in their projects and be able to model thinking and problem-solving strategies effectively (Blumenfeld et al., 1991). Worthwhile projects require challenging questions that can support collaboration, as well as methods of measuring the intended learning outcomes. Without carefully designed tasks, skilled teachers, and school conditions that support projects, project-based learning can devolve into a string of activities with no clear purpose or outcome.

What's One to Do?

These studies suggest that project-based learning, when fully realized, can improve student learning. However, the research also underscores how difficult it is to implement project-based learning well. Together these findings suggest caution in embracing this practice unless the conditions for success are in place, including strong school support, access to well-developed projects, and a collaborative culture for teachers and students.

Yet, teachers can use the key ideas underlying project-based learning in some measure in any classroom. Using real-life problems to motivate students, challenging them to think deeply about meaningful content, and enabling them to work collaboratively are practices that yield benefits for all students.

References

Blumenfeld, P., Soloway, E., Marx, R., Krajcik, J., Guzdial, M., & Palincsar, A. (1991). Motivating project-based learning: Sustaining the doing, supporting the learning. Educational Psychologist, 26(3, 4), 369-398.

Boaler, J. (2002). Learning from teaching: Exploring the relationship between reform curriculum and equity. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 33(4), 239-258.

Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt. (1992). The Jasper Series as an example of anchored instruction: Theory, program description, and assessment data. Educational Psychologist, 27(3), 291-315.

Marx, R. W., Blumenfeld, P. C., Krajcik, J. S., & Soloway, E. (1997). Enacting project-based science: Challenges for practice and policy. Elementary School Journal, 97(4) 341-358.

Thomas, J. W. (2000). A review of research on project-based learning. San Rafael, CA: Autodesk Foundation.

Editor's Note: Because of an editor's error, the last paragraph of Jane L. David's December 2007/January 2008 column was incorrect. The correct version reads as follows:

As one of several strategies designed to support strong instructional leaders and teachers, walk-throughs can be helpful. Used alone or to enforce compliance, however, they are likely to backfire.

The correct version of the full column can be viewed online at www.ascd.org/el.

Jane L. David is Director of the Bay Area Research Group, Palo Alto, California; jld@bayarearesearch.org. She is the author, with Larry Cuban, of Cutting Through the Hype: A Taxpayer's Guide to School Reform (Education Week Press, 2006).

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Project-Based Learning - Educational Leadership

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February 2008 | Volume 65 | Number 5 Teaching Students to Think Pages 80-82 Jane L. David Whether students investigate what happens to their family's garbage or design an entire city, project-based learning aims to engage them in realistic, thought-provoking problems. The core idea of project-based learning is that real-world problems capture students' interest and provoke serious thinking as the students acquire and apply new knowledge in a problem-solving context.

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Experiential Education through Project Based Learning - ScienceDirect

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Experiential learning is the key factor of acquiring knowledge through experiencing things. It addresses specific teaching methods, which are believed to achieve a beneficial outcome to the learning ability of students. Project Based Learning is such a modern teaching method.

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I believe that all education proceeds by the participation of the individual in the social consciousness of the race. This process begins unconsciously almost at birth, and is continually shaping the individual's powers, saturating his consciousness, forming his habits, training his ideas, and arousing his feelings and emotions.