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"roject-based learning (PBL) is a powerful tool to promote student engagement. It allows students to investigate real-world challenges and problems and create high-quality work for authentic audiences. It allows students to work collaboratively and individually to learn the content and skills they need to be "future ready." Books by John Larmer and Suzie Boss are great tools to get started designing these high quality projects, and educators can reinvent projects of the past to make sure they are truly engaging. Here are three tips to consider as you design and redesign PBL projects for your students to make them even more engaging and focused on learning."

According to veteran PBL teacher Don Wettrick, "Nothing is better than a project that gets community buy-in." He says connecting students with an authentic audience is key 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."

If you had three wishes for STEM education, what would those be? These are three of my priorities: Classrooms would be places of exploration, creativity, and discourse. Learning would be meaningfully connected to the world outside the school walls. Teachers would be prepared and empowered to design engaging STEM curricula and assessments. If those are your wishes as well, then here's some encouraging news!