Exploring Project-Based Learning

What is Project-Based Learning?

Project-based learning or PBL, is an approach to learning in which students work towards solving an authentic problem, often inspired by a real-world issue.  The problems are open-ended and allow for students to choose different routes when solving them, requiring them to apply various concepts and skills to their learning.

Complex projects may require a complete semester or even the entire school year.  Students begin by identifying the knowledge they already have, then they determine the skills they will need to build in order to solve the problem effectively and efficiently.  Students are expected to produce a product or presentation that demonstrates their knowledge at the culmination of the activity.

PBL is not the same as having students complete a final project to show what they have learned in a unit or through the course.  In a typical final project, the student has presumably already learned certain skills and concepts, and the project serves as a kind of assessment.  In PBL, the project IS the unit.  Learning takes place as the students overcome the various challenges and obstacles they will undoubtedly face as they work to complete the projects.

PBL presents students with authentic, real-world issues that simulate those they may encounter in their future careers. The goal is for students to develop not only knowledge of facts and concepts, but also the skills they will need to succeed in these endeavors.  In short, they go from "knowing" to "doing."  If you are familiar with Bloom's Taxonomy, you know that "applying," "evaluating," and "creating" are higher-order thinking skills.

Image Credit: Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching

PBL and STEM

In a previous post entitled “What is STEM,” we discuss how STEM education itself is a project-based approach to learning.  When students learn to power an electrical circuit or develop and operate a robot, they are utilizing skills that they can apply in the future to solve real-world issues rather than focusing on factual content without truly understanding the contexts in which the information is meaningful.

One study examined the effect of PBL and STEM learning on students in Indonesia, where the education system is lacking.  Because Indonesia is located in the Pacific Ring of Fire, it is often surrounded by natural disasters.  Students were challenged to find ways to improve the impact of these disasters through project-based learning.  In doing so, their problem-solving skills, idea formation, and ability to research necessary information improved dramatically.  Further, students were able to use the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math skills they already had and apply them to their specific issues, reinforcing these concepts and demonstrating a need to know them.

Engaging students in a challenge that directly affects them creates meaning and purpose.  Students want to explore concepts when the topic is of interest to them.  How often do we find that students who love math do not bring the same energy to a language arts class and vice versa?  What if we were always able to capture our students’ attention, even if the class is right before lunch or at the end of the day?

Barriers to PBL

While some schools successfully implement project-based learning in their school day, others do not. Many schools are departmentalized, and students go to math, language arts, social studies, etc., for a certain block of time, without these subjects cross-connecting.  The subjects are essentially taught in silos and are isolated from one another.  Sadly, these arbitrary boundaries exist only inside the school building, and solving real-life problems almost always require one to apply skills and concepts from multiple subject areas.

Additionally, sometimes when teachers attempt to create cross-curricular experiences, they are met with barriers.  For example, I often had ideas to create “STEM challenges” for my students.  In our school, some teachers taught language arts and history, while their partner taught math and science.  I would work with my partner teacher to find a time that our students could work in teams and engage in this type of learning.  However, student schedules, student services, school-wide activities, and lack of time, to name a few, all got in the way of making this a reality.  The few times we were successful, the students were engaged in and enjoyed the challenge.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t make this happen as much as we would have liked.

Seeing the value in education

As the Indonesian education study suggests, when students are provided a challenge that is important to them and can make a difference in our world, they are engrossed in solving the problem.  In these contexts, students use vital STEM skills, reinforcing the importance of learning certain concepts in school.  Further, there is no shortage of issues facing us today, and many of these have both technical and non-technical aspects.  We therefore have the ability to utilize concepts from other disciplines, including language arts, history, and music.  We bring value to all the concepts we teach when students see how they are useful in tangible ways, thus recognizing the importance of needing to learn them 

To effectively use PBL in the classroom, teachers not only need the flexibility to implement this style of learning, they also need more professional development opportunities.  Teachers who are expected to teach all subject areas (as in many elementary schools) are generally trained in science and math, but they are often not given sufficient exposure to technology and engineering for them to feel comfortable incorporating these content areas into their lessons.

Achieving true learning

In order to truly learn, students need to create, make, and solve.  While sometimes information may be presented through lecture, more often it comes from providing learners as many opportunities as possible to problem-solve on their own or while working in a team. It is important to recognize, though, that they will only build these skills if they are truly interested in learning, so the problems they are asked to solve must be engaging and based on something with which they can connect. 

STEM learning IS project-based learning, and if we can increase the opportunities for our students to learn in this way, we will better prepare them to establish a successful future for themselves and our world at large.