Group items tagged

"At the Buck Institute for Education (BIE), we've been keeping a list of the many types of "_____- based learning" we've run across over the years: Case-based learning Challenge-based learning Community-based learning Design-based learning Game-based learning Inquiry-based learning Land-based learning Passion-based learning Place-based learning Problem-based learning Proficiency-based learning Service-based learning Studio-based learning Team-based learning Work-based learning . . . and our new fave . . . Zombie-based learning (look it up!)"

"Thanks to Amy Mayer of FriEdTechnology for this fantastic comparison describing the key differences between "doing projects" and project-based learning! This, my friends, is exactly what I have been trying so ineptly to explain to educators at my own school. There's a BIG difference, and one that completely changes how the classroom is run and what students take out of it."

"To help teachers do PBL well, we created a comprehensive, research-based model for PBL - a "gold standard" to help teachers, schools, and organizations to measure, calibrate, and improve their practice. This term is used in many industries and fields to indicate the highest quality process or product. Our conception of Gold Standard PBL has three parts: 1) Student Learning Goals (in the center of the diagram below) 2) Essential Project Design Elements (shown in the red sections of the diagram), and 3) Project Based Teaching Practices (which we explain elsewhere)."

"This is a crucial time for education. Every system in every country is in the process of figuring out how to reboot education to teach skills, application, and attitude in addition to recall and understanding. Helping students be able to grapple with increased problem solving and inquiry, be better critical and creative thinkers, show greater independence and engagement, and exhibit skills as presenters and collaborators is the challenge of the moment. That's why so many educators are using the project based learning (PBL) model. PBL has proven to be a means for setting up the kind of problem-solving challenges that engage students in deeper learning and critical inquiry. It requires students to research, collaborate, decide on the value of information and evidence, accept feedback, design solutions, and present findings in a public space-all factors that create the conditions under which high performance and mastery are most likely to emerge. The rise of PBL, in fact, is a success story for education."

"Everyone thinks that Project-Based Learning has something to do with "authentic" learning. But not everyone agrees what this means. Take this quick quiz. "

"You know the hardest thing about teaching with project-based learning? Explaining it to someone. It seems to me that whenever I asked someone the definition of PBL, the description was always so complicated that my eyes would begin to glaze over immediately. So to help you in your own musings, I've devised an elevator speech to help you clearly see what's it all about."

"At the end of a project-based learning (PBL) experience, students typically share what they have learned or discovered with an audience. Depending on the project, students might publish their work online, make presentations at a public event, or pitch their ideas to a panel of judges. For veteran PBL teacher Don Wettrick, "nothing is better than a project that gets community buy-in." Connecting students with an authentic audience is key, he says, to driving engagement and helping students relate what they are learning to the real world. "My top two goals are to help students find great opportunities [for real-world problem solving], and then cheerlead them to a great audience." "

"Editor's Note: Andrew Miller is a consultant for the Buck Institute for Education, an organization that specializes in project-based curriculum. He also creates curriculum and instruction at Giant Campus, which seeks to create 21st century learners using PBL in an online environment. "

"Looking for tools and strategies for effective assessment in project-based learning? To support you, we've assembled this guide to helpful resources from Edutopia and beyond."

"The end of the school year presents us with an opportunity for reflection at Envision Schools. We take a final measure of students' progress throughout the school year, celebrate the many Envision graduates that will be heading off to college in the fall, and consider how we can incorporate those lessons into improving our own work to best enable, encourage, and ensure student learning."

"I spend a good chunk of time on Twitter, often participating in or lurking on a Twitter chat. I have seen project based learning - PBL - a topic of discussion, but at the same time, I see a lot of claims about PBL that are just not true. What bothers me about these claims is not that they are wrong but that these misconceptions lead to further problems when implementing PBL. I'd like to take some time to dispel some of these misunderstandings in hopes that they clear up other issues teachers may have with PBL."

"In recent years, most students in my project-based AP Government classes have indicated, in both class discussions and anonymously on surveys, that they prefer project-based learning to a more traditional classroom experience. They find PBL more fun and believe that it leads to deeper learning. However, two types of students often resist this model. Students of the first type generally do not enjoy school at all, and are looking for the path of least resistance. "

"f you're planning to give project-based learning a try during the coming school year, you may hope a spark of inspiration will strike during the summer months that will lead to a memorable PBL experience. And maybe that's just the excuse that hard-working teachers need to take a hike or daydream by a pool."

"Many teachers and administrators -- not to mention the general public -- might have the wrong impression of PBL. Maybe they have stereotypical views of what a "project" is, or they've seen poor examples of it in the past. Or they can't imagine how it could fit in today's landscape of standards and testing ("Oh yeah, we did that in the 90's, but things were different then.") "

"This is how evaluation and reporting works in the student-centered classroom that I like to call a Results Only Learning Environment (ROLE). There is no room for numbers, percentages or letter grades in a ROLE. Instead, students collaborate with each other and with their teacher, in order to demonstrate mastery of various objectives contained in yearlong projects. Learning is a conversation built on a system of summary, explanation, redirection and resubmission - something all stakeholders in the classroom come to know simply as SE2R. If a report card is required, the student and teacher agree on what that final grade should be, based on how all feedback was handled throughout a grading period."

Children in the Mehlville district may have the chance in two years to attend an elementary school with an alternative curriculum - one that uses real-world problems to help students learn and without the restraints grade levels sometimes place on learning. It would be a school that parents would choose, and there would be no admission requirements. If more children apply than there are seats available, the district would hold a lottery. That kind of competition for classroom seats has largely been limited regionally to the city of St. Louis. There, district magnet and choice schools, along with independent charter schools, offer language immersion education and schooling that focuses on science, engineering, technology and math. Mehlville Superintendent Chris Gaines received preliminary approval from the district's School Board last week to move ahead with a "Choice School of Innovation" that would be the only of its kind in St. Louis County.

"When four South Carolina districts joined forces in 2013 to compete for a federal Race to the Top grant, their shared educational vision was clear: Teaching students to be creative innovators and independent learners will improve school performance. The challenge was finding a model to encompass all the sweeping changes they wanted to implement. What the districts' leaders eventually settled on was the term "enterprise learning," which refers to both a popular public education program overseas, and a model for professional development in corporate America. The South Carolina schools-working collectively as the Carolina Consortium for Enterprise Learning (CCEL)-are now trying to blend the two programs together with the help of $24.9 million in federal funding."

"Whatever form a project takes, it must have these Essential Elements to meet BIE's definition of PBL. Developed by bie.org

"Teachers want to know what the day-to-day looks like. I know I do. After generating great project ideas, I want to know exactly what my day-to-day looks like. There is a pitfall there. Sometimes we plan the calendar too quickly."