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At the end of a project-based learning (PBL) experience, students typically share what they have learned or discovered with an audience. Depending on the project, students might publish their work online, make presentations at a public event, or pitch their ideas to a panel of judges.

For veteran PBL teacher Don Wettrick, "nothing is better than a project that gets community buy-in." Connecting students with an authentic audience is key, he says, to driving engagement and helping students relate what they are learning to the real world. "My top two goals are to help students find great opportunities [for real-world problem solving], and then cheerlead them to a great audience."

From Social Media to the Mayor

Audience interactions might unfold on YouTube or Twitter, where Wettrick (@DonWettrick)helps students "navigate social media and build their digital brand." Face-to-face interactions are equally important. It's not unusual for Wettrick's high school students to make recommendations to the mayor of their Indiana community. "There's no more authentic audience than the mayor," Wettrick says, "when it comes to getting things done."

Wettrick is one of several "expert educators" who will represent the United States next month at the Microsoft Partners in Learning Global Forum in Barcelona, Spain. He will be sharing highlights of projects that his students have tackled in a 21st-century learning class called Innovations. (Until this month, Wettrick taught the class at Franklin Community High School. He recently took a new position as Director of Innovations at Noblesville High School, also in Indiana.)

The Innovations class is deliberately open-ended, which means students have to propose their own project ideas and the standards they plan to meet. They also have to identify subject-area mentors who are willing to work with them. Wettrick has taught English and broadcasting, but knows that projects may go in directions outside his areas of expertise. That's where mentors are key.

"The mentor can't be their dad or their dad's buddy," Wettrick says. "It has to be an expert in an arena, and it has to be somebody who makes a commitment to help them." The right mentor often helps to connect students with an authentic audience. "The people in that mentor's network are going to be your stakeholders," he says.

Some projects go viral, reaching audiences that neither teacher nor students could have imagined. That was the case for an unusual project in which an Innovations student designed a weight-loss and self-confidence building program for a seriously obese classmate. The Indianapolis Star picked up on The Eric Project, which has transformed the life of a student who weighed more than 500 pounds.

Students benefit from honest critique along with positive attention for their projects, Wettrick says. "They don't need to hear, 'Good job!' They're better off when an expert tells them, 'That's not bad, but have you considered this, or you might want to look at that.' Oh, boy," he adds. "When a student gets that kind of response from an expert in a field, that's authentic."

Students aren't the only ones who benefit from an authentic audience. Wettrick encourages teachers to make their good ideas public so that others in education can learn from their examples. "It's not bragging," he says. "It's sharing best practices."

Think Critically About Audience

By thinking more critically about audience interactions, you can make the most of the final phase of PBL. The Buck Institute for Education has produced a feedback form to help audience members think through their role.

Here are three questions to consider as you plan culminating events:

What do you want students to gain from the audience interaction?

If it's technical feedback, think about inviting experts for a pitch session or judging panel

If it's response or action, think about having students make presentations to a community group or decision-making body (such as a school board, city council, or neighborhood association)

If it's a celebration, think about inviting community members whose talents or contributions are being honored or recognized in student projects

Who's the audience for the "real-world" version?

If students are producing documentaries, plan a red carpet screening event

If students are making sense of history, set up a museum-style exhibition

If students are producing literature, plan a book release party, author chat, or poetry slam

How can technology connect students with larger audiences?

Extend your reach to audiences beyond your immediate community by taking advantage of digital publishing sites like YouTube, social media tools like Twitter, or services like #comments4kids to solicit comments for students' blogs.

Many of Wettrick's students, for example, publish their project videos on YouTube. "I grade their work, but they're watching for number of views and community feedback," he says. "When a student gets 2,000 hits on YouTube, that's meaningful."

How have you connected your students with authentic audiences? How did the interactions lead to deeper learning? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

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Focus on Audience for Better PBL Results | Edutopia

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At the end of a project-based learning (PBL) experience, students typically share what they have learned or discovered with an audience. Depending on the project, students might publish their work online, make presentations at a public event, or pitch their ideas to a panel of judges.

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Providing students with an audience helps them understand why their coursework is worthwhile.

Over the past year, I've had the chance to talk to teachers across the country about the ways they are turning their students into creators. Digital tools make it easier than ever for our student creators to share their work with the world beyond the classroom. When I share how to use my favorite tools, I always come back to the why and the who. Why are we asking students to create a video, design a webpage, record a tutorial? And who is going to see their work?

One of the reasons we want to establish authentic audiences for students is so real people can view and interact with the projects students create. We want to take student work out of a pile of papers (or a hidden digital folder) and place it in the real world. Because when we establish authentic audiences for students, they can see the purpose for their work.

What Does an Authentic Audience Look Like?

Imagine you're teaching students about the power of persuasive writing. Propose a few topics for them to write about that relate to an issue in your community. Think about who should listen to your students' opinions, thinking, "Whose mind can my students change?" If your third graders want a new playground, their authentic audience might be the school board. If your eighth-grade students feel that the recycling collection in your community could be more efficient, you might ask a town official to Skype with your students so they can present their ideas.

Examining your learning goals is the first step to building an authentic audience. Next, think about the type of culminating project your students will create. Maybe they're working to solve a problem in your community using what they've learned in the math classroom. Or they're investigating a historical issue that mirrors a problem in today's society. Once you have an idea for what your students will create, you'll have a better sense of who could interact with your students' final project.

What Does the Common Core Say About Authentic Audiences?

Although you can provide an audience for any work your students produce, the Common Core State Standards specifically address the importance of establishing an audience for students. The English Language Arts Standards ask students to "produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience." The Common Core also expects students to write for "a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences."

How Can I Create an Authentic Audience for My Students' Work?

Start with very familiar faces. The project you decide to do with your students will influence the audience you choose. After determining what your students will create, think about the people who already have an interest in your students' work. You might decide to hold a celebration that invites families to interact with student creations such as displays of interviews for an ancestry project.

Continue with notable locals. Think about the members of your community who can spare a half-day visit to your school, host your students for a field trip, or conduct a Google Hangout for 30 minutes during the school day. You can even do this while your students are in the process of brainstorming. Interested community members might include a local congresswoman who can listen to student speeches on public policy or a deli owner who can review posters students create on healthy eating.

Reach out with a cold call. If you have a particular person (or type of person) in mind for your students' audience, it's easier than ever to get in touch with someone you've never met before. Students working on a project on ecosystems could share their creations with a zoologist via a 30-minute virtual visit by video phone. All you have to do is look on the website of the person's organization for contact information. You might not hear back on your first email, but if you send a few to different places you'll increase your chances.

Tweet out your requests. I am consistently amazed at the power of Twitter and the number of people I've connected with through a medium that is still relatively novel. With Twitter, you can send out a message to your network asking for support or send a tweet to an expert who would make a great audience for your students. If you're not a Twitter user, you might post a request to friends and family on Facebook to see if someone can make an introduction for you.

Authentic audiences help students connect their work in the classroom to the real world. They provide a sense of buy-in for students and bring attention to their work. As educators we have an understanding of what life is like for teachers and students every day. Bringing outsiders into this space helps them learn about the role of a school in a community and makes it easier for them to understand the collective duty all citizens have to support their school system.

Have you created an authentic audience for students? Share your experiences in the comments below.

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Providing students with an audience helps them understand why their coursework is worthwhile. Over the past year, I've had the chance to talk to teachers across the country about the ways they are turning their students into creators. Digital tools make it easier than ever for our student creators to share their work with the world beyond the classroom.

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What began as a classwide math project to learn about the profit function equation and quadratic functions culminated into a grade-level presentation to imitate the show Shark Tank.

Each student was tasked with joining a group to create a fictitious business, which included developing a product and marketing plan, choosing a location and work space, and identifying how much money they would need for startup costs and what the return would be for investors.

"One of the things you hear all the time as a math teacher is, 'When am I ever going to use this?'" says Derick Richardson, a Nashville Big Picture math teacher. "I try to bridge that. And so through this project, the kids were able to see, 'Oh, man, we're talking about stuff that I hear on the news and that I see on this TV show that I like, and it actually makes sense.' Everybody got involved, even the kids that are not good at math. I've never seen these kids get this excited about a math project."

"When you're able make learning relevant to a student," adds Chaerea Snorten, Nashville Big Picture's principal, "it helps them want to do it and not just because that's what's expected. The whole focus of personalized learning is that students see the relevance of what it is that they're doing. The outcome is students are engaged, and they're enjoying the learning process."

If you want to engage your students in personalized learning projects, here are six tips from Nashville Big Picture High School for how you can get started.

How It's Done

1. Make Your Projects Simple

Not every project has to be a grade-level collaboration like the Shark Tank project. Instead of the traditional paper or PowerPoint presentation, give your students choices in how they show their learning. They may choose to make a video, act out a skit, or create a painting.

Kristin, a Nashville Big Picture junior, was asked to depict slavery in any way that she wanted for her history class. She chose art. Her painting depicted Harriet Tubman and a slave girl against a backdrop of words.

These words -- ranging from "kidnapping" to "hope" -- depicted a slave's journey from slavery to emancipation. She appreciated not only being able to choose how she would express her learning, but also the public display of her art -- alongside other students' work -- in the school hallways. "My art is a part of me," shared Kristin, "and so for people to walk by and see a part of me, it feels great."

When Harley, an alumnus, entered Nashville Big Picture in ninth grade, he was given the choice in how he could approach his first project. "I made a video documentary about myself," Harley recalls, "and from that assignment, I realized that I loved making movies." From that moment forward -- from his exhibitions to his senior capstone project -- Harley expressed his learning through video. "I wouldn't have put in as much time and effort if I had to write a lot of papers, but by making a bunch of videos, I was able to do awesome work because it was something I cared about," he says.

Watch Harley's short video for Edutopia about student voice and choice (and read his four tips on how teachers can engage students).

2. Let Your Students Choose What They Learn (It's Not as Scary as it Sounds)

In place of a quarterly test, Big Picture history teacher Gary Hook assigned his students a mini-project to research, investigate, and present on a topic within modern U.S. history. He gave them a list of topics from the '80s to the present -- ranging from movements (like gay rights and Black Lives Matter) to the impact of social media on modern-day society. If there wasn't a topic on the list that his students wanted to research, he let them choose their own topic as long as it fit within modern U.S. history.

Give your students a list of options from which they can choose, whether it's a book to read in language arts, a topic to research in history, or a business to create in math. "With project work, I try to give them a menu of options that they can choose from to show their learning," explains Hook, "as well as a menu of options that they can choose to research. This allows them to operate in a space where they are comfortable."

3. Give Your Students a Project Framework

Giving your students choice in what they learn and in how they express their learning doesn't mean that content or standards get thrown out the window. Hook was able to give his students choice while still meeting his content objectives. Nor does giving your students choice mean that your assignments lack structure or planning. "When it comes to personalizing our learning, we have to look at what our content and standards are. We start there," says Snorten.

"The essence of personalized learning is understanding where the student is and where they want to go, as well as where you need them to go," adds Hook. Give your students a project brief to make sure that they cover the content and skills you need them to learn. Hook gave his students a project brief outlining the objective, topic options for research, guidance on how they'll carry out their project (such as working in groups and presenting their topic), and details on what needed to be included in their process.

4. Use Temperature Checks to Assess Your Students' Work

When assessing personalized learning projects, do one-on-one or group temperature checks with your students. Are they hot or cold? Are they way off or close to grasping what they need to understand? When Richardson's students were working on the Shark Tank project, he would go from group to group, checking in on their profit functions.

Richardson also checked in on their progress with their product, their marketing campaign, and the elements of their project that were less tied to math. "Sometimes you have a project, but you don't follow up," he explains. "You hand out a sheet of paper, they go do it, and that's it. I really wanted them to get excited about this, be passionate about it, and create something that they really might be able to use outside of the classroom." Student choice about their project brings relevance to their learning. By showing interest in the whole project, you show interest in their passions and in your students themselves. They'll become more engaged in their work if they believe that you're excited and engaged in what they're doing and in who they are.

5. Get to Know Your Students

"We need to understand who our students are and how they learn," stresses Richardson. Once you understand your students' needs, you won't waste time delivering content in a way that they won't comprehend. "It saves you a lot of time and effort," he says.

"Like adults," adds Courtney Ivy Davis, Big Picture's school counselor and internship coordinator, "their passion is what drives them. It's what gives them excitement, and we want them to be excited about their passion and tie that to their education so that they can be successful lifelong learners." Students don't walk into your classroom with their passions and interests written on their forehead. You have to uncover these things while giving your students the opportunity to explore and discover their interests for themselves. By offering them choice in what and how they learn, you allow them to figure out how they learn best. Building intentional relationships with your students will allow you to guide them in this discovery. Here are 22 ways that Nashville Big Picture builds intentional relationships with their students. (Note that these strategies are applicable even if you're at a bigger school.)

6. Ask Your Students What They Want and Need

"Student voice is number one," emphasizes Snorten. "Hear it, learn it, ask for it. 'What is it that will help you do better? How can we help you improve? What do you need from us?'" Building personal relationships with each of your students is important, but it also takes time.

If you have a class of 40 students, and want to know their needs and interests now, ask them.

See Related Resources: When We Listen to Students and Student Surveys: Using Student Voice to Improve Teaching and Learning

Help Your Students Figure Out How They Learn Best

Rather than opening a textbook, memorizing steps to an equation, or learning the teacher's method on how to understand something, personalized learning allows your students to figure out how they learn best. They also get to see how their peers learn best, showing them that there are many ways to problem solve and reach the same solution. "At other schools, they might know one specific way to do things," explains Richardson, "but our students are prepared to be more creative in how they figure out the solution. They learn how to learn on their own, and they take that into college."

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Driving Engagement Through Voice and Choice

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What began as a classwide math project to learn about the profit function equation and quadratic functions culminated into a grade-level presentation to imitate the show Shark Tank.

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5 Ways to Give Your Students More Voice and Choice

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.