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Does adopting PBL mean we should use it all the time and teach everything via projects? If not, then how many projects should teachers do per semester or year?

Project Based Teaching Practices are actually just good teaching, period, and many of the practices can be used in the classroom when students are in between projects.

“Just make two high-quality projects per year for every student be the goal.” In a K-12 system, that means each student would experience 26 projects at a minimum—which sounds like a lot! But that’s only the start. Perhaps students in middle and high school, at first, would experience two projects per year in one subject area—if, say, only social studies teachers begin to use PBL. But assuming PBL spreads across the school, students would do projects in other subject areas, or do interdisciplinary projects, and eventually experience many more than 26 projects if they stayed in one K-12 PBL-infused system.

Coastal Composition Commons translates the student learning outcomes for each course into individual badges: eight in English 101 and six in English 102.

Where badging might most upend traditions, however, is in kindergarten through 12th grades, particularly in how students build portfolios for themselves and use those portfolios to apply to college.

A world in which everything a student does, whether inside or outside of school, can be measured and categorized by a digital badge would – with a common set of standards and if viewed as legitimate by colleges and universities – greatly change the college admissions process, as well as how students think about learning.

The critical difference is that at Harpeth Hall, and most likely any all-girls school, we know a student’s numeric average at any given moment will never provide the whole picture of her educational journey

At this time, we can find no research showing that open gradebooks have improved students’ grades or helped teachers know their students better.

The current system, while technically old-fashioned, preserves the teacher-student relationship and still allows students to have ownership.

experiences students have in each teacher’s class can be vastly different

Grades, then, become a behavior management tool, a motivational tool, and sometimes an indication of mastery too.

I believe that our most precious natural resources are imagination and wonder

Wonder leaves us with a sense of fascination about mysteries yet unsolved or questions yet unanswered.

In a learning ecology that focuses on wonder, an artful approach can be introduced in any subject area