# data[].attributes.headline
This is a space for you to write questions or comments, in addition to posting relevant articles and project ideas!

# data[].attributes.subject
This is a space for you to write questions or comments, in addition to posting relevant articles and project ideas!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Launch PBL at your school or district with on-site services that bring high-quality PBL workshops to your teachers and staff.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
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

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Gold Standard PBL: Essential Project Design Elements

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A research-informed model for improving, calibrating, and assessing your practice.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Listen to this post as a podcast (sponsored by Kiddom):An earlier version of this post was published in 2013. This is an updated version.
A few years ago, I was working with a group of student teachers. One of them-we'll call him Eric-was teaching seventh-grade social studies. His class was studying ancient Greece. The standards for grade 7 required teachers to address concepts like the government, economics, and culture of this era. For his 5-day unit, Eric was going to focus on the "culture" part.

On the first day of the unit, which Eric developed with his cooperating teacher, students would read the chapter of their textbook that swept through three centuries' worth of ancient Greek culture in about five pages. Then they'd write answers to a set of end-of-chapter questions. On days 2 through 4, students would create their own Grecian urns by wrapping balloons with papier-mâché. Once the urns were dry, students would paint them in a similar style to that of the Greeks, incorporating something personally meaningful as the main artistic feature. Finally, they would present their urns to the class. On day 5, they would be given a quiz asking them to match 10 vocabulary terms, such as comedy, tragedy, urn, and Olympics, to their definitions.

Feeling more than a bit skeptical, I asked Eric to show me the standards his unit was aligned with. He rustled through some paperwork, then pointed to this language from the state standards: Students will demonstrate an understanding of the complexity of culture by exploring cultural elements (e.g., beliefs, customs/traditions, languages, skills, literature, the arts) of diverse groups and explaining how culture served to define groups in world civilizations prior to 1500 A.D. and resulted in unique perspectives.

I read this out loud to Eric, then asked him to show me exactly how his plans taught or measured the standard.

For a long moment, he said nothing.

Finally, he shrugged and told me the unit was basically what his cooperating teacher had "always done for ancient Greece." She'd told him the urn project was really fun, and that the kids loved it. The only problem was, it had nothing to do with the standards. Draping wet, gluey newspaper around a balloon has nothing to do with deepening one's understanding of societies and cultures.

I wish Eric's story was just a rare example, but in my work with student teachers, as a classroom teacher myself, in my many years as a student, and now as a parent, I've seen far too many "Grecian Urns": projects that look creative, that the teacher might describe as hands-on learning, interdisciplinary teaching, project-based instruction, or the integration of arts or tech, but that nonetheless lack any substantial learning for students. What's worse, because these activities are often time-consuming, they take away from other tasks that would give students the chance to wrestle with more challenging stuff.

In their groundbreaking book Understanding by Design, Jay McTighe and the late Grant Wiggins describe this problem as the Sin of Activity-Oriented Design. Instead of focusing on the desired learning outcomes, this approach merely seeks out tasks that might be fun, or at least keep kids busy: "The activities, though fun and engaging, do not lead anywhere intellectually. (They) lack an explicit focus on important ideas and appropriate evidence of learning."

To illustrate this, Wiggins and McTighe describe a 3rd grade unit on apples. In this two-week unit, students read about Johnny Appleseed, paint pictures of apples, do math problems that involve apples, write apple-themed stories, make applesauce, and take a trip to a local orchard. Students probably enjoyed all of these activities, and it's likely that both teachers and students were charmed by how cleverly the theme was woven into so many different content areas. Throughout the unit, students probably seemed engaged, the classroom was full of colors and productivity and maybe even collaboration, but what valuable learning actually took place?

Let's move our lens to the higher grades. Here, the Grecian Urns might involve no crafts at all, but still force students to ride along curricular tangents that, rather than inspire and ignite a passion for learning, lead to dead ends.

Take the math and social studies teachers who decide to co-teach a two-week unit on famous mathematicians. Math and history, right? Students spend most of the first week on computers, researching the mathematicians' birthplaces, families, deaths, and contributions to the field (which most students simply copy, because the actual mathematical concepts are over their heads...how many eighth graders do you know who can explain the Fibonacci sequence?). They spend another three class periods creating PowerPoints or Prezis full of facts about these obscure pioneers in math, complete with neat-o animations and stomach-turning transitions, and another three days presenting these to the class...

For what?

None of the kids got any better at math, nor did their thirst for history grow. But to someone walking by, maybe even to an administrator doing a formal observation, this unit would look kind of amazing. Students doing online research! Cooperative learning! Technology! Interdisciplinary study!
No!
These teachers misunderstood and misapplied the concepts of interdisciplinary study, hands-on learning, and tech integration, and two weeks of precious instructional time were wasted because of it.

It could be argued that all lessons have some educational value, that any kind of reading and writing, manipulating materials and words, interaction with peers, and exposure to the world in general offer opportunities for learning. With that in mind, think of "Grecian Urn" as more of a relative term than an absolute one: Few lessons will be pure Grecian Urns; almost any lesson will probably have some arguable educational value. Far more lessons will simply contain elements that are Grecian Urn-ish; we can make these lessons better if we try to minimize those elements.

The best way to identify a Grecian Urn is to look at a task and ask this question: Does it consume far more of a student's time than is reasonable in relation to its academic impact? If students spend more time on work that will not move them forward in the skill you think you are teaching, then it may be a Grecian Urn. And it may need to go.

Here are some more specific ways to spot the Grecian Urns in your teaching, and what you could do to replace them:

1. Excessive Coloring or Crafting

If your lesson requires more time coloring, cutting, or pasting than meaningful work with the content you're trying to teach, it might be a Grecian Urn. If you are a primary teacher and students need to develop their fine motor skills, or if you are, in fact, an art teacher, then these activities have a clear place in your classroom. Everyone else should use these tasks more sparingly.

This doesn't mean you should never ask students to color, cut, paste, sing, act, or draw, but every time you do, ask yourself if that work is contributing to learning. If not, there may be a way to cut down the time it takes. Suppose you want students to draw illustrations of vocabulary words. Adding visuals can work wonders to boost memory, so this is an instructionally sound decision. But is it necessary for these illustrations to be colored? On posterboard? Or hanging from a mobile? Would a simple line drawing beside each word on a regular sheet of paper serve the same purpose?

Now if your goal is true integration of the arts into your curriculum, I have two articles to recommend to you. Both of these really dig into what it looks like when teachers use art to really enhance students' learning: read this post on arts integration from MindShift and this one from Edutopia to learn more about what this looks like.

2. Excessive "Neat-O" Tech

This is the tech equivalent of item #1: If students are spending lots and lots of time searching for images, making digital drawings, adding animations or effects to slideshows, adding sound effects or special titles to podcasts and videos, you are probably heading into Grecian Urn territory.

The key phrase here is lots and lots of time: Our students will absolutely benefit from learning how to combine text with images, manipulate presentations to make them more interesting, and make use of all the digital tools at their disposal. But when a student burns two hours listening to sound clips so he can make a photo of Langston Hughes zoom onto his PowerPoint slide to the sound of screeching brakes, well, he's probably not doing much thinking about the Harlem Renaissance.

So when you're assigning work that requires the creative use of tech, be mindful of how much time students are putting into the bells and whistles. Look at your rubric and make sure you haven't required too many of these bells and whistles to begin with. And if possible, see if they can make the bells and whistles relevant: If students want sound in their slideshow about the Harlem Renaissance, have them add a Duke Ellington song, music that's actually from that era, rather than a funny sound effect.

3. Low-Level Thinking

Most of the thinking in a Grecian Urn task is on the lowest level of Bloom's Taxonomy. In other words, the task appears to be creative, but the primary academic work is rearranging and regurgitating basic facts or definitions.

Let's look at two possible assignments for students to demonstrate their understanding of the Food Pyramid. In one class, the teacher has students re-create the pyramid as a hanging mobile. They write all the parts of the pyramid on pieces of colored paper and hang those papers onto a hanger or something. They might also be asked to draw or cut out magazine pictures of foods that represent items within each part of the pyramid. All of this work is at the Remember and Understand level of Bloom's. Students are more or less defining stuff, and yet the task still takes an awfully long time to complete. Grecian Urn.

But what's the point of teaching the Food Pyramid? Don't we want students to learn it so they can make healthy eating choices? Here's a different assignment: Have students write up a 3-day eating plan that applies the principles of the Pyramid. Sure, they can draw a border around it if they like. This will take five minutes. They can choose a cool font for the headings; that's 10 minutes. But shouldn't the real time-consuming work be put into deeply wrestling with the content itself?

4. Big Points for "Creativity"

An assignment might be a Grecian Urn if a significant part of the grade is based on "creativity" or "attractiveness." And by the way, I'm a big design snob. I think presentation is important. But if more than 10 percent of a grade is based on these things-and I even think 10 percent is pushing it-we're not measuring the learning that's supposed to be taking place.

The fix for this couldn't be easier. Cut way back on the points you assign for creativity or attractiveness. And if you find that the projects you get don't excite you because they are not colorful or pretty, it's time to start planning projects that will excite you with their content.

5. Word Search

If the task is a word search, there's a very strong chance it is a Grecian Urn. Some argument could probably be made for how word searches reinforce letter recognition in the very early grades. Fine. But if some form of letter recognition, decoding skill, or language development is not the curricular intent of your word search, then your word search is probably a Grecian Urn. If you are a teacher who doesn't have time to do things like project-based learning or Genius Hour, but you have time to make word searches and have students spend time doing them? Drop the word searches and you just bought yourself and your students at least 30 extra minutes per week.

So you have identified a couple of Grecian Urns in your lessons. What do you do about them?

One option is to cut them out. Just move those lessons out of your plan book and replace them with activities that will actually result in learning. Look again at your goals: What do you want students to know or be able to do by the time they're done? And what tasks will help them get there?

The other option is to revise them. Let's go back to Eric and his urns. Maybe instead of using up three class days on all that wet newspaper business, he could have students draw their urns on paper. He could build the historical relevance by providing students with images of typical Greek urns, have them choose one, then draw their own urn with images that parallel those in the original, but with a modern twist. So if the urn they choose depicts a battle, they might draw something on their own that represents a significant war or other "battle" that has occurred in the last century. Students could then add captions to their drawings, pointing out these details and the thinking behind them.

If you really like your Grecian Urn activity, you don't have to completely drop it. But if you can tweak it to make it take less time and build in more curricular relevance, you've made it a lot less "urn-y" and, in turn, given it a more rightful place in your classroom.

Having said all this, I think it's important to note that not all classroom activities have to have a clearly defined, rigorous academic purpose. There will be times when a task that would be called a Grecian Urn in one context serves a completely different purpose in another.

The Fun Loophole
Building relationships with students, creating a family-like atmosphere, and making the classroom a place students love to come has incredible value. If I didn't believe this, I never would have written something called When a Principal Whips and Nae-Naes. Some things should just be done for fun. If students absolutely love playing with the drawing app on their iPads, make that an option for free time. If students want to create a collage as a thank-you gift for a departing student, by all means let them.

The Sanity Loophole
At other times, you just need your students to be still and quiet. Maybe you're coming down with a stomach bug or you just got bad news over the phone. Maybe the morning assembly left you with only 6 minutes of class time and you know you're not going to get anything done. Maybe they have driven you to the absolute brink and you're about to start throwing things. The best teachers in the world have days when they just can't be on. At those times, good old-fashioned busywork is like manna from heaven. That's when you have them color. That's when you pull out the word searches.

When used for fun or sanity, these tasks are no longer Grecian Urns; they're more like classroom management strategies. The important thing is to know the difference.

That's what I tried to teach Eric as we revised his unit. We had him use some graphic organizer activities, where students did side-by-side comparisons of ancient Greek and modern-day cultural elements. Students then completed a lengthy questionnaire, where they took on the identity of a person in Ancient Greece. Each student chose a social rank, age, and gender, and wrote about what their life was like. Some questions asked them to describe their feelings about other people in their community and about social issues. They had to draw a few sketches of some of the artifacts in their daily life and describe why these artifacts were important to them. Once all students completed these questionnaires, they worked together to arrange them on a wall in a way that represented their social hierarchy.

The activity took three days. Students collaborated, used technology to research their person's life, and even used a bit of color for their sketches. In the end, they understood a lot more about ancient Greek culture and about how culture influences who we are.

And they did it all without a single strip of gluey newspaper. ♦

Learn something new every week.
Join my mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration all geared toward making your teaching more effective and fun. You'll also get access to my members-only library of free resources, including my e-booklet, 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half, which has helped thousands of teachers spend less time grading!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Far too many students are doing projects that look creative but offer almost no opportunity for real learning. Time for the Grecian Urns to go.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Studies have proven that when implemented well, project-based learning (PBL) can increase retention of content and improve students' attitudes towards learning, among other benefits. Edutopia's PBL research review explores the vast body of research on the topic and helps make sense of the results. In this series of five articles, learn how researchers define project-based learning, review some of the possible learning outcomes, get our recommendations of evidence-based components for successful PBL, learn about best practices across disciplines, find tips for avoiding pitfalls when implementing PBL programs, and dig in to a comprehensive annotated bibliography with links to all the studies and reports cited in these pages.

What is Project-Based Learning?

Project-based learning hails from a tradition of pedagogy which asserts that students learn best by experiencing and solving real-world problems. According to researchers ( Barron & Darling-Hammond, 2008; Thomas, 2000), project-based learning essentially involves the following:

students learning knowledge to tackle realistic problems as they would be solved in the real world

increased student control over his or her learning

teachers serving as coaches and facilitators of inquiry and reflection

students (usually, but not always) working in pairs or groups

Teachers can create real-world problem-solving situations by designing questions and tasks that correspond to two different frameworks of inquiry-based teaching: Problem-based learning, which tackles a problem but doesn't necessarily include a student project, and project-based learning, which involves a complex task and some form of student presentation, and/or creating an actual product or artifact.

These inquiry-based teaching methods engage students in creating, questioning, and revising knowledge, while developing their skills in critical thinking, collaboration, communication, reasoning, synthesis, and resilience (Barron & Darling-Hammond, 2008). Although these methods of inquiry-based teaching differ slightly, for simplicity they're combined in these pages and referred to as project-based learning or PBL.

Learning Outcomes

Studies comparing learning outcomes for students taught via project-based learning versus traditional instruction show that when implemented well, PBL increases long-term retention of content, helps students perform as well as or better than traditional learners in high-stakes tests, improves problem-solving and collaboration skills, and improves students' attitudes towards learning ( Strobel & van Barneveld, 2009; Walker & Leary, 2009). PBL can also provide an effective model for whole-school reform ( National Clearinghouse for Comprehensive School Reform, 2004; Newmann & Wehlage, 1995).

A 2016 MDRC/Lucas Education Research literature review found that the design principles most commonly used in PBL align well with the goals of preparing students for deeper learning, higher-level thinking skills, and intra/interpersonal skills ( Condliffe et al., 2016).

Keys to Project-Based Learning Success

Researchers have identified several components that are critical to successful PBL (Barron & Darling-Hammond, 2008; Ertmer & Simons, 2005; Mergendoller & Thomas, 2005; Hung, 2008). While project-based learning has been criticized in the past for not being rigorous enough, the following features will greatly improve the chances of a project's success:

1. A realistic problem or project

aligns with students' skills and interests

requires learning clearly defined content and skills (e.g. using rubrics, or exemplars from local professionals and students)

2. Structured group work

groups of three to four students, with diverse skill levels and interdependent roles

team rewards

individual accountability, based on student growth

3. Multi-faceted assessment

multiple opportunities for students to receive feedback and revise their work (e.g., benchmarks, reflective activities)

multiple learning outcomes (e.g., problem-solving, content, collaboration)

presentations that encourage participation and signal social value (e.g. exhibitions, portfolios, performances, reports)

4. Participation in a professional learning network

collaborating and reflecting upon PBL experiences in the classroom with colleagues

courses in inquiry-based teaching methods

You will find much greater detail on these four key components, along with step-by-step instructions on how to put them into place, in the next section.
Continue to the next section of the PBL research review, Evidence-Based Components of Success.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Studies have proven that when implemented well, project-based learning (PBL) can increase retention of content and improve students' attitudes towards learning, among other benefits. Edutopia's PBL research review explores the vast body of research on the topic and helps make sense of the results.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
As a parent, you've probably heard the buzz about "project-based learning," but you might not know exactly what it means. Or, more significantly, why you should care about it when it comes to your child's education. You were your child's first and most important teacher in life. So what is all this project-based learning hype about and why are so many schools starting to implement it?

Project-based learning (PBL) is a practice that takes a learning-by-doing approach wherein students are active participants in their own educational development. In a PBL classroom, you often find students solving problems, participating in simulations, conducting case studies and designing research projects based on different areas of inquiry. This method encourages students to investigate real world issues and develop practical solutions in order to inspire change at the local and global levels. Strong PBL practice requires a multidisciplinary approach, where educators collaborate to support differentiated skill building and sustained inquiry, further developing individual student voice and choice. " If traditional education is classical, PBL is jazz."

21st-century educationalists champion this method mainly because it cultivates the curiosity of students. And why is that important? For starters, psychologists have found that "curious people report finding a greater sense of meaning in life." Secondly, research shows that curious, intrinsically-motivated students become deep learners who master complex subjects, and who develop a sense of "fascination with the subject, a sense of its relevance to life and the world, a sense of accomplishment in mastering it, and a sense of calling to it."

Sounds ideal, right? While child-centered learning was first supported in the 70s by Jean Piaget and reinforced by other renowned educators such as Howard Gardner, schools have been slow to apply this method on a large scale. Why has it taken so long for schools to come around to this idea? Because PBL is difficult to implement, and even more difficult to implement well. PBL requires a total transformation of the traditional classroom, and it takes a village to rethink traditional learning models of the past. Big reforms often require big risks, and often times these risks morph into misconceptions.

Since project-based learning isn't quite yet the standard in every classroom, many misconceptions about the practice still abound. Below we've listed some of the more popular misconceptions that parents still harbor, as well as why we feel these misconceptions could actually be viewed as merits, rather than detractors, of PBL.

My child won't learn as much as they would in a traditional classroom

One of the biggest misconceptions regarding project-based learning is that schools that implement it fail to cover core subject material for particular courses. And to some extent, yes, many PBL-based schools do sacrifice "core" traditional content coverage so that students can spend time engaging in applied, investigative learning.

But the sacrifice is worth it. Study after study show that passively learning content in a rote manner no longer proves sufficient to prepare students for success in today's world, especially now that subject content is accessible via one quick click on the web; however, research shows that PBL helps equip students to troubleshoot in the "real world," and will help develop fundamental skills "for living in a knowledge-based, highly technological society."

While most would agree that the way we access information changes our educational landscape, some still question whether PBL will adequately "test" students. It is true that PBL is the antithesis to standardized testing, but that is because PBL classrooms support scaffolding and aims for students to reach different levels of mastery for each project they undertake. As project work is typically presented to an audience consisting of community members, including local experts who may have contributed to their learning, students become stakeholders in their own achievement, and are self-motivated to produce products of meaning. So where does the teacher stand in all of this?

Teachers won't teach actual content.

Another misconception of PBL is that teachers will not adequately cover content or "teach," and they don't - not standing in the front of the classroom, at least. Since a PBL classroom looks vastly different than a lecture-driven classroom, they teach everywhere but the front of the classroom. Serving as an active participant rather than the sole instructor, teachers who practice project-based learning continually rotate around the classroom, offering constructive advice as students lead their own investigations and learning.

With fluid and ever-changing project content, educators actually become the most critical resource to the student. The educator must help all students to develop a reliable research question, oversee design-cycle thinking, guide students toward relevant physical and digital resources, provide critical and constructive feedback, and assess student level of mastery in building skills and understanding complex content. In presenting, students become teachers themselves. The old adage, "Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn," is pretty much PBL philosophy in a nutshell. The teacher becomes a conductor of sorts, directing, inspiring, involving, and fostering self-learners for the future.

My child won't be prepared for university or for the future.

Unlike their grandparents, the chances of your child holding the same job at the same company for their entire adult life are practically nil, and uncertainty and change are the only predictable factors of the future.

Irrespective of the direction technology leads us, futurists and neuroscientists believe that because of AI, a student's need to memorize "core content" will be futile. Instead, the top skill sets for the future require agency, adaptability, problem-solving, teamwork and communication- all prominent features of PBL. Educational technology is another integral part of PBL, and this integration allows students to work with the very tools of the future while digital access sets the stage for cross-cultural examination and communication.

One area in which PBL students possess a competitive edge in the college application process over traditional applicants lies in the inherent strength of their digital portfolios. With the focus of learning centered around the completion of projects, graduates of schools that practice PBL leave equipped with a robust portfolio of real-world products documenting their ability to face big challenges and come up with big solutions. The conclusions of these projects showcase the student's ability to solve real-world problems, and the experience of presenting their results in front of their peers and experts will prove invaluable during the interview process - both excellent skills for any student to possess as they transition into the world of secondary education.

So, are universities on board with all of this? PBL is making headway in universities as more and more are realizing that... it simply works. The bitter truth is that international universities are dissimilar in their admissions requirements, and traditional exams, SAT, ACT, IB, AP, are still typically required for entrance. Some parents question whether universities will even be relevant for their child in the future, while others believe AI will take over teaching altogether. Regardless, if you can't beat it, meet it. Most PBL schools (like THINK Global School, where I am a teacher) still offer exam and/or external program support to accommodate students whose aim is to attend one of the aforementioned universities with more stringent admissions requirements.

To PBL or not to PBL?

So, is it worth the risk? While sailing the partially-uncharted waters of PBL, don't be afraid to let your child dive in. Embrace the sometimes chaotic yet always erratically beautiful jazz in the air. Jean Piaget once said, "Education, for most people, means trying to lead the child to resemble the typical adult of his society... but for me and no one else, education means making creators... You have to make inventors, innovators-not conformists." As parents, it's time for us to get on Piaget's page and aspire to make our children creators-their future depends on it.

For more, see:
Stay in-the-know with all things EdTech and innovations in learning by signing up to receive the weekly Smart Update

Breanna Reynolds is a teacher at THINKGlobal Schools. Follow her on Twitter: @ReynoldsBreanna

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What Parents Need to Know About Project-Based Learning

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As a parent, you've probably heard the buzz about "project-based learning," but you might not know exactly what it means. Or, more significantly, why you should care about it when it comes to your child's education. You were your child's first and most important teacher in life.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Our job as leaders, teachers, and parents is not to prepare kids for something; our job is to help kids prepare themselves for anything.

I'm the author of the bestselling education books, Empower and Launch (along with five other books). In addition to writing, I am the Head of Learning and Growth at NextLesson, and a Facilitator for the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education (PLN).

As a former Director of Learning and Innovation for Centennial School District, I've served as a teacher, instructional coach, and administrator at all K-12 grade levels. Click here to learn more about me and my work.

Over the past few years I've been lucky enough to speak at many amazing schools, organizations, companies and conferences. If you are looking for an energizing, funny, and inspiring keynote or workshop click here to learn more and submit a speaking request.

Most importantly, I'm a husband and dad to four crazy kids, who remind me on a daily basis why education means so much to all of us.

Connect with me on Twitter and Instagram.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Our job as leaders, teachers, and parents is not to prepare kids for something; our job is to help kids prepare themselves for anything. I'm the author of the bestselling education books, Empower and Launch (along with five other books).

# data[].attributes.body
Please make a copy of this form before editing. Then, after it is complete email it to my West Sound email address!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This school year, will your students be experiencing Project Based Learning for the first time? Or do your students need a reset after having "done projects" in the past with mixed results, since now you're planning to introduce new and improved PBL practices?

Here are some approaches you could take to meet this challenge.

Decision #1 Start by explaining what PBL is and why you're doing it, or skip the theory and just have students experience a good project?

It's your call, but even high school students might not be persuaded by abstract arguments, so it might be better to just have students experience an engaging and effective project, then take the time to reflect on the PBL methodology and its benefits after the project. If you do want to explain PBL in advance, the advice below applies mainly to older students, but could be adapted for younger children.
Tips & Resources for Explaining PBL to Students

Share information with students - or have them do a mini-research assignment to find it themselves - about what employers and colleges want to see in people they hire or admit. Build the case for 21st century success skills, and connect this to how and what they should learn in school (but don't come on too strong with your own "sales pitch" for PBL). See our post, "How My Project-Based School Prepared Me for Columbia."

Show students a video or two about PBL, such as "Project Based Learning: Explained" or "It Really, Actually Changed My Life" or others you find on our website or online.

Tell stories of engaging, impactful projects other students have done (or preview some that yours will be doing).

Have a discussion about the most memorable assignments/learning experiences students have done. Connect these experiences with the characteristics of high-quality PBL.

Help students understand the difference between traditional "projects" and PBL, as shown on the chart in this post and explained in this article. Explain how a PBL unit differs from a traditionally-taught unit, as shown on this graphic.

If students want to vent about negative experiences they've had in the past with "doing projects," let them-then talk about how the experience could be improved. Let them know how you intend to design and facilitate projects. (Then make sure your first project is highly engaging and well-run!)

Check out the Buck Institute's booklet An Intro to Project Based Learning, which is aimed primarily at parents, but older students would also find it helpful for understanding the what and why of PBL, with answers to many FAQs.

Check out Getting Smart's "Learning in a Project-Based World: A Quick Start Guide for Students" for ideas on creating student ownership of their learning.

Teacher Kaitlyn Roberts says, "I began with a discussion on what PBL is and presented it as a challenge where you could really not be wrong, but more so learn from experience. Since it was my first time doing it as well I sold it as, 'Let's go through this adventure together!'"

Kindergarten teacher Sara Lev introduces PBL this way: "I talk to them about what "Inquiry" means - so we talk about how an Inquiry Project has a question that is so big, we need to do a project to find out the answer. The first thing we do is make a list of "Big Questions" students have about anything they want, to model what Big Questions might be."

Decision #2 Start the year with a project, or wait?

This was the topic of a blog post I wrote a few years ago, comparing the "plunge right in" approach vs. the "build skills first" approach. The answer to this question depends on several factors, including your own readiness, the topics of the projects you might have planned in the summer, and your sense of who your students are. (Veteran PBL teachers, I notice, tend to plunge right in.)
Tips & Resources for Starting the Year with a Project

Make it a mini-project, perhaps only 2-3 days long. Include each of the Gold Standard PBL Project Design Elements, but only to a limited degree, as we do in our one-day "Project Slice" for teachers and school leaders. Here are some examples of mini-projects from our National Faculty members:
- Brandon Cohen asked his 9th grade students to create infographics about themselves, using graphic design and technology skills.
- Chris Fancher will be asking his middle school students this year to design a layout for their classroom, as will high school math teacherTelannia Norfar.
- Sara Lev had her kindergartners create a large map of the school for the entry way and made copies to use for new parent orientations.

Our National Faculty member Michael Niehoff suggests "mini challenges, school wide challenges, design challenges, service education"-all of which can help prepare students for PBL in a variety of ways. (See Krystal Diaz' blog post about a school-wide lip-dub video mini-project that launched a school year.)

High school engineering teacher Chris Beyerle offers this advice: "Start with small projects. Start building in skills like oral communication. Create norms on what good collaboration looks and sounds like. Have students focus on a problem they can solve in ways that allows voice and creativity."

Tips & Resources for Waiting to Launch Your First Project

Get to know your students, so you can plan projects that connect authentically to their lives and interests.

Right from the start of the year, begin building a PBL culture in your classroom. National Faculty member Feroze Munshi explains: "A classroom culture that values high-quality work is intentionally built through tools, practices, and routines. For example, it's important to give students explicit language to describe high-quality work." On the first day of school Feroze has students practice giving feedback, as does chemistry teacher Ray Ahmed, since that skill and belief in its value are so important in creating a culture of quality.

Incorporate elements of PBL into your "regular" teaching, to get students used to open-ended driving questions, making presentations, conducting inquiry, using rubrics, and exercising voice and choice--as explained in this post and this post.

Build students' 21st century success skills by giving them tasks or team-builder activities that teach critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork, design thinking, and the use of project management tools and processes. (See BIE National Faculty member Erin Starkey's "20 days to PBL" approach.)

Finally, here's another Buck Institute National Faculty member, JoAnn Groh, explaining how her small, alternative public school prepares students for PBL:

"We partner 6th and 7th graders so the 7th graders can be natural mentors.

"We love using SOLE classrooms as an entré into independent inquiry and group work.

"Every other year our 6/7th grade team has a mini-project where kids have to create aqueducts and compete with others (on how quickly and how much water flows to the end) as a precursor to a larger unit on ancient civilizations and technology."

Do you have tips to share about how you introduce students to PBL or start the school year? Share them in the comments below or on Twitter @biepbl and @johnlbie. Want to learn more about PBL? Check out our books.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
PBLWorks Editor in Chief John Larmer shares tips and resources for starting the school year with students who are new to PBL.

# data[].attributes.body
PBL for all learners!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
PBL & Introverts: 6 Modifications to Bring out the Best in All Students

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Drawing from the book, Quiet Power, a school leader offers reflections and advice to teachers for an inclusive PBL classroom.

# data[].attributes.body
Here is a great video discussing how to scaffold projects to ensure success for all students!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Project Based Teaching: Scaffold Student Learning