"What is it? Here's an article by BIE, updated from its original appearance in the September 2010 issue of Educational Leadership magazine from ASCD. Good for general audiences as well as educators, it explains the essential elements that make rigorous PBL different from "doing projects."
Why do we like it? This article was written because some teachers say they "do projects" already (so why learn more about PBL) and some educators and members of the general public may have negative stereotypes of PBL as merely a "fun" or "hands-on" activity.
How can you use it? Share this article with anyone, from teachers to parents to administrators, to explain PBL and provide a common framework for projects. The 8 Essential Elements are the basis of BIE's Project Design Rubric and PBL 101 Workshop."
Although it takes a great entrepreneur with a vision to start a business, but strong leadership collaboration skills and a collaboration of many people is important to make it a success. Collaboration means to work together to achieve a goal. It is an attribute that cuts across many businesses and business processes.
"subject matter knowledge contributes to good teaching only up to a certain point, beyond which it does not seem to have an impact" (p. 37).
Good teachers must know their subjects well, but having doctoral-level knowledge of Freudian interpretations of Victorian literature, for example, doesn't really improve someone's ability to teach language arts to 8th graders.
Knowledge of how to teach their subject areas
They found that although content knowledge is essential, teachers who also possess strong pedagogical content knowledge are more effective than those with content knowledge alone.
strong pedagogical content knowledge
were likely to gain a full year more learning than students whose teachers had weak pedagogical content knowledge (among the bottom one-fifth of teachers).
common metrics for hiring and rewarding teachers are only weakly linked to student success.
Traditional licensure or credentials.
"little rigorous evidence that [teacher certification] is systematically related to student achievement"
Yet the study detected no before-and-after effects—that is, teachers appeared no more effective after undergoing the grueling certification process than before it (Clotfelter, Ladd, & Vigdor, 2007).
Advanced degrees.
"have found no discernible effect of teachers having a master's degree or higher on student achievement" (p. 26).
One possible exception appears to be high school science and mathematics,
Extensive classroom experience.
Yet on average, after a few years of teaching, added years of teaching experience appear to offer little guarantee of increased effectiveness.
teacher effectiveness
Belief that all students can learn.
Belief in their own abilities
Ability to connect with students.
School leaders must consider, then, which attributes they can augment and which they cannot.
reexamine the metrics, explicit or implicit, they use to select and compensate teachers
Being credentialed, being experienced, or holding an advanced degree is no guarantee of effectiveness
know how to teach
teacher's dispositions and attitudes
teased out through interviews and observations
analogy
quality of their teachers can be the difference between academic success and failure.