Learner-Centered Education

Project-Based Learning

Project-Based Learning planning resources

What the Heck Is Project-Based Learning?In project-based learning, students show what they learn as they journey through the unit, interact with its lessons, collaborate with each other, and assess themselves and each other.

In Project Based Learning, students go through an extended process of inquiry in response to a complex question, problem, or challenge. Rigorous projects help students learn key academic content and practice 21st Century Skills (such as collaboration, communication & critical thinking), and create high-quality, authentic products & presentations.

How to Bring Playfulness to High School StudentsPlay is often the domain of young children, but as those kids become teens, learning playfully maintains its importance, especially as academics and competitive sports take over.

Evaluation Within Project-Based LearningBecause PBL is about more than learning content, PBL teachers should investigate and experiment with multi-model strategies for assessing their students' learning skills.

How to Design a Classroom Built on Inquiry, Openness and TrustIt can be overwhelming, frightening and even discouraging to try and shift the culture of your classroom, especially when no one else around you seems to think the system is broken.

Can Project-Based Learning Close Gaps in Science Education?An encouraging new report describes preliminary, first-year outcomes from a study of 3,000 middle school students that shows kids can, in fact, learn more in science classrooms that adopt a well-designed, project-focused curriculum.

Why Inquiry Learning is Worth the Trouble Nearly seven years after first opening its doors, the Science Leadership Academy public magnet high school* in Philadelphia and its inquiry-based approach

What It Takes to Become an All Project-Based SchoolNew Tech Network, which was founded 15 years ago, is taking its school-wide project-based model to national scale. The organization, which offers a paid program for schools to use its model, began with a flagship school in Napa and has grown to 120 schools in 18 states, most of which are public schools.

What We Learn from MakingNew insights, new tools help educators expand the possibilities of maker-centered learning.

"Fitting In" PBLRead about how four teachers fit PBL into their curriculum through scalable projects that challenged and enriched students while meeting the standards.

My First PBL Unit: Learning From My StudentsIn her first PBL unit, a new teacher learns how giving her students voice and choice will ignite their passions and enhance their learning.

Real-World Math: A Bit Of Trig And Hay For The HorsesThe Common Core math standards say students need more than a textbook understanding of concepts like the Pythagorean theorem. So two Colorado teachers teamed up for a lesson in real-world math.

Seeing Struggling Math Learners as ‘Sense Makers,’ Not ‘Mistake Makers’One teacher is reframing how math is taught by focusing more on how students are thinking instead right or wrong answers.

Teaming, CCSS, and Project-Based LearningMiddle school is an energetic and dynamic environment. We should know—we spend our days with 100 fifth through eighth graders on a team at Williston Central School in Vermont called Swift House, named for the chimney swift bird and its love of flying. Our motto, Fly Forever, signifies our love of learning as a lifelong adventure. Eighth graders leave our team with a sterling silver pin of a swift in flight, designed and created by the parent of a member of our first eighth grade...

How to Create the Learning Community Vital to Project-Based Learning’s SuccessAn under-appreciated element of effective project-based learning is a community of learners who trust one another.

How Turning Math Into a Maker Workshop Can Bring Calculations to LifeA teacher ignited her students' interest in math by introducing maker projects that apply practical hands-on math.

How to Make Sure That Project-based Learning is Applied Well in SchoolsIt's not uncommon to see popular education strategies become muddied by people who don't understand them well.

Why Learning Should Be Messy The following is an excerpt of One Size Does Not Fit All: A Student’s Assessment of School, by 17-year-old Nikhil Goyal, a senior at Syosset High Scho

Teens Show Off Engineering Mettle With Pasta Bridge CompetitionA summer program at Johns Hopkins University puts high schoolers' ingenuity to the test — building bridges out of nothing but spaghetti and glue.

How to Reinvent Project Based Learning to Be More MeaningfulProject-based learning continues to be misinterpreted as a single teaching strategy rather than as a set of design principles that allow us to introduce the philosophy of inquiry into education in an intelligent and grounded way. It’s time to not only address the flaws in PBL, but to reinvent it in a way that leads to deeper learning, creative inquiry, and a better fit with a collaborative world in which doing and knowing are one thing.

The Challenges and Realities of Inquiry-Based LearningAs education continues the march toward a student-driven, project-oriented approach that values intelligent solutions to open-ended problems, it won’t be sufficient to focus on the wonderful discoveries and authentic work that result from an inquiry-based system. Instead, a far more difficult issue will come to the fore: How will we know if inquiry-based learning is successful, and what non-standardized measures of achievement, like better attitude, apply?

4 Things All Project-Based Learning Teachers Should Do -...

Five Ways to Ensure Real Learning Happens in Maker-Enhanced ProjectsMaker education is a great way to get kids engaged with solving problems and creating elegant solutions, but if teachers don't clearly tie class projects to expected learning outcomes, the movement may be a passing fad.

What the Heck Is Inquiry-Based Learning?Teachers use inquiry-based learning to combat the “dunno” -- a chronic problem in student engagement. Check out these four steps for creating inquiry-based curriculum.

Learning Through Tinkering

Standards-Aligned Genius HourGive your students a chance to follow their own interests with projects that meet state standards.

Design Thinking and PBLDesign thinking and PBL can bridge what we know and how we innovate. Try combining these two practices as an instructional framework for teaching 21st-century skills.

Middle School Maker Journey: Assessment in an Ungraded ClassroomIn part seven of his year-long series, Kevin Jarrett examines the role of student reflection and the challenges of assessment in his (ungraded) middle school makerspace.

How to Incubate Creativity in School Through Making and DiscoveryThe makerspace in one inner-city school is helping infuse hands-on learning into all core classes.

Bringing Inquiry-Based Learning Into Your ClassA four-step approach to using a powerful model that increases student agency in learning.

Evaluation Within Project-Based LearningBecause PBL is about more than learning content, PBL teachers should investigate and experiment with multi-model strategies for assessing their students' learning skills.

To Develop Future-Ready Students, Project-Based Lessons Teach Real World Skills - EdSurge NewsHigher test scores. Better graduation rates. Increased lifetime earning potential. Incorporating social-emotional learning and character education into ...

Get a Taste of PBL Before Your Students DoProject slices—condensed project-based learning for teachers—give educators a student’s perspective on what it’s like to do a project.

Project-Based Learning in the primary grades - The Tarrant Institute for Innovative EducationAuthor and educator Katy Farber provides 8 great ways to approach PBL in the primary grades, K-3. The key is to start small and go slow. You got this.

Bringing Inquiry-Based Learning Into Your ClassA four-step approach to using a powerful model that increases student agency in learning.

Collaborative Learning Builds Deeper UnderstandingEncouraging students to reach out to one another to solve problems not only builds collaboration skills but leads to deeper learning and understanding.

A Project-Based Learning Spectrum: 25 Questions To Guide Your PBL PlanningA Project-Based Learning Spectrum: 25 Questions To Guide Your PBL Planning

What Service-Learning and Global Goals Taught Us About Promoting the Greater Good - EdSurge NewsService-learning PD, Image Credit: Weaver Elementary SchoolLast April, the entire faculty at Bettie Weaver Elementary School spent an afternoon making ...

6 Strategies for Differentiated Instruction in Project-Based Learning | EdutopiaProject-based learning (PBL) naturally lends itself to differentiated instruction. By design, it is student-centered, student-driven, and gives space for teachers to meet the needs of students in a variety of ways. PBL can allow for effective differentiation in assessment as well as daily management and instruction. Here are some specific differentiation strategies to use during a PBL project.

A Look at Playful Assessment | EdutopiaBorrowing ideas from game construction can help teachers with both assessing student projects and constructing rubrics.

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