Welcome to the Teaching & Learning Guide for Implementing Project-Based Learning! This guide includes definitions, ideas, and examples designed to help you: 

• Define project-based learning

• Apply project-based learning ideas that fit your course objectives

• Create project-based learning assignments in your courses

• Guide students through long-term projects

• Assess long-term projects effectively

Project-Based Learning (PBL) is sometimes used interchangeably with problem-based learning. PBL is a framework for a course centered around a large-scale project, where students spend an extended period solving a real-world problem or answering a complex question. PBL starts with assigning students an authentic and engaging complex question, problem, or challenge. Students are tasked with exploring and researching the problem or question to solve it. Often, students then display their knowledge by creating a public product or presentation for a real audience. 

PBLWorks.org makes an important distinction between assigning students a project and using project-based learning as a rigorous teaching method: 

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 students need to learn. The project contains and frames curriculum and instruction.

Since students are tasked with solving a problem and not given a specific blueprint for how, PBL requires “critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, and various forms of communication” (PBLWorks.org). Proponents of PBL argue that PBL helps students develop higher-order thinking skills while allowing them to explore aspects of the starting question or problem in ways that are most authentic and interesting to them. In other words, students can develop their critical thinking and enjoy doing it.

According to Zhang and Ma, students develop higher-order thinking skills whenever they engage in PBL. Higher-order thinking includes creative thinking skills, problem-solving skills, and integrated application skills. PBL has the added benefit of engaging students in challenging problems that emphasize real-world situations (10). 

Studies in PBL have shown it can also increase student engagement and attitudes toward learning. When they engage in a long-form, open-ended question, students can find ways to make the course content relevant to them. Specifically, PBL “approaches have demonstrated positive effects for students who learn at the margins, including low-income students, students with low attendance rates, unmotivated students or disengaged students… and students with disabilities” (Wertz and Mulcahy 102). PBL may engage these students who learn at the margins more effectively because they are able to easily frame the project around their unique interests and ways of thinking.

The entire PBL process is based on an open-ended question. For a course-long project, instructors will start with a driving question that can serve as a connection between course content and a relevant societal issue or problem. Instructors can start with a relevant idea that is connected to learning outcomes and has multiple paths for students to investigate.

Through the process of addressing this question, students develop their own questions to drive learning and apply that knowledge to their final project. The goal of the problem presented to the students can differ or be multi-dimensional. For example, maybe the problem originates from professional practice or a particular field. Or maybe the problem affects the wider population and the goal is to use the field or discipline to address it.

The Southern Regional Education Board suggests that to come up with a PBL question,  instructors should start by asking themselves a few questions, including: 

• What do you want your students to know or be able to do? 

• What topics do you know students usually struggle with? 

• What is happening in your community?

• What are students interested in or concerned about?

Research has found that productive starting questions share a few characteristics: 

• They center around an issue that is big enough that students can explore it in multiple ways for an extended period

• There’s enough room for students to make the issue their own

• It requires enough additional research for students to be immersed in the discovery phase

• It’s exciting and relevant to students

• It ties into course concepts

• The problem or issue requires collaboration

• The problem is challenging enough to push students to research it thoroughly (Almazroui 2023)

Example Questions

Below, we’ve included some ideas for project-based learning starting questions. We’ve labeled them by discipline, but many of these questions can be explored through multiple disciplinary lenses. 

• Biology Example: What is the impact of increased temperatures on a specific local ecosystem?

• Business/Marketing Example: How can a local business address the challenge of declining sales or low online engagement? 

• English/Rhetoric Example: How can we address the issue of low media literacy in the general U.S. population?

• History: How can we design a museum exhibit to educate the public about a specific issue?

• Political Science/Government: How can we address low voter turnout and lack of political engagement in a specific audience? 

• Healthcare: How can we develop a system to address a specific health concern in the local population or a specific demographic?

• Sociology: How is a specific social public policy affecting a community? For example, how is a local homelessness policy affecting the homeless population in that city? 

Wijinia et al. (2019) highlight that PBL should be a process with four stages: an initial discussion stage, a question stage, a self-discovery stage, and a reporting stage. 

Stage One: Discussion 

In the first stage of PBL, instructors present context around a specific issue. This first part is like setting the stage. Students should have enough knowledge so that when a question is presented in the next stage, they have the prior knowledge to grasp it sufficiently.

Stage Two: Question

In the question stage, students are presented with the problem they will explore. Students are given a meaningful question that describes an observable phenomenon or event. In this stage, instructors present concepts and terminology, research methods, and other relevant context to build students’ skills for the self-discovery stage.

Stage Three: Self-Discovery

During this stage, students can work independently or in groups to research the problem on their own and begin exploring potential solutions. When students have a hypothesis or an idea to solve the problem, they will test it using methods they were taught in the discussion phase. This may lead students to discover gaps in their knowledge and they will be required to fill those gaps with self-directed study. Students should be allowed to follow any threads or ideas, whether you think they could be fruitful or not. The key to this stage is that students learn by doing. 

Although this stage is largely self-guided, you should be available to help if students get stuck by providing probing questions, hints, or new areas to explore, or recommending research. Instructors have found it useful to schedule regular check-ins with students during the discovery stage to monitor progress.

Stage Four: Reporting

During the reporting stage, students will present their solutions or anything else they learned during their investigations. Even if students didn’t come up with a viable answer to the issue, they can still present their findings about what didn’t work. Research has emphasized that the reporting stage can be more impactful if students can present their research in a public setting.

When assessing PBL, it is important to write Module Learning Objectives that can reflect the open-ended nature of PBL. For example, objectives that start with “inspect,” “investigate,” “explore,” “analyze,” and “experiment” may be most useful to adequately and fairly assess PBL. Some PBL may require students to create a product, like a technology application, whereas some PBL projects may be more about developing a working hypothesis. Students should be given the freedom to explore the starting question and engage in the process of discovery. 

It may be most authentic to consider the effort students put in to investigate the question or issue, not whether or not they reached a specific, pre-determined solution. Since there are no correct answers in an investigative process, students should be encouraged to put in the effort and follow any leads they find interesting. Rubrics may be helpful to assess PBL, but only when they consider the diverse paths students take to explore the question.

Below we’ve included an example of a rubric for a PBL assignment using the example question above for an English course: How can we address the issue of low media literacy in the general U.S. population? The rubric example below ties each rubric criterion to a Course Learning Outcome. The final criterion in the example rubric may be especially relevant for PBL projects. 

Contact your Instructional Designer for help incorporating Project-Based Learning into your courses 

• Almazroui, Karima Matar. 2023. “Project-Based Learning for 21st-Century Skills: An Overview and Case Study of Moral Education in the UAE.” Social Studies 114 (3): 125–36. doi:10.1080/00377996.2022.2134281.

• PBL Works. 2025. ‘What is Project-Based Learning?” https://www.pblworks.org/what-is-pbl#:~:text=Project%20Based%20Learning%20is%20a,question%2C%20problem%2C%20or%20challenge

• Wertz, Jeanette A., and Candace A. Mulcahy. 2025. “Project-Based Learning for All? An Examination of the Approach for Students with Disabilities.” Preventing School Failure 69 (1): 102–10. doi:10.1080/1045988X.2024.2353030.

• Wijnia, Lisette ; Noordzij, Gera ; Arends, Lidia R. et al. 2024. “The Effects of Problem-Based, Project-Based, and Case-Based Learning on Students’ Motivation: A Meta-Analysis.” Educational Psychology Review (36).

• Zhang, Lu, and Yan Ma. "A Study of the Impact of Project-based Learning on Student Learning Effects: A Meta-analysis Study." Frontiers in Psychology 14, (2023): 1202728. Accessed June 10, 2025. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1202728.