"Traditional" Project-Based Learning

Additional Projects and PBL-related Videos, Sites, Blogs, etc.

Buck Institute for Education - the folks who support PBL for everyone. Their Resources page is amazing, and their "Gold Standard" PBL Teaching Rubric is exactly that.

Edutopia's PBL page is also overflowing with resources. I especially recommend these videos:

-Community Partners: Making Student Learning Relevant

-How a TEDx Mission Makes Learning Relevant to Students' Lives

-Inquiry-Based Learning: Developing Student-Driven Questions

-Learning Partners: Co-Teaching with Community Experts

High Tech High examples - network of high schools well known for PBL. Here are seven example projects, with details!

New Tech Network video page, with many examples.

Bob Pearlman has also curated a plethora of videos and resources, from New Tech Network schools, Edutopia, and more.

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Brief excerpt from Problems as Possibilities book, via ASCD web site

At High Schools

Real-life problems can become PBL problems, as shown in these examples:

• • • Bernard Hollister, a former social science teacher, co-taught a PBL course, Science, Society, and the Future (SSF), for seniors at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA). One year, SSF students started with a problem Hollister designed around lunchroom waste in U.S. schools. As he put it, students began “stripping away the layers of the onion” when they discovered that lunchroom waste was only the tip of this problem. The real problem seemed to be flawed methodology and strong political motivations in the congressional study they were using.

    • Also at IMSA, science/physics teacher David Workman has used PBL for a number of years. One problem unit in his integrated science course revolved around finding the best possible design for retention/detention ponds in the immediate school vicinity. Severe flooding had occurred in the community in the previous year. In this course, students investigate “problem platforms,” which expose physical and biological problematic contexts—such as pond life or habitation on Mars. Such exposure allows student involvement in several different PBL experiences.