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Some examples of rich and rewarding learning opportunities offered in our national parks.  Milton Chen is senior fellow and executive director emeritus at Edutopia and sits on the National Advisory Board at National Park Service. He is also the author of Education Nation: The Six Leading Edges of Innovation.

Project-based learning (PBL) demands excellent assessment practices to ensure that all learners are supported in the learning process. With good assessment practices, PBL can create a culture of excellence for all students. We've compiled some of the best resources from Edutopia and the web to support your use of assessment in PBL, including information about strategies, advice on how to address the demands of standardized tests, and summaries of the research.

Part One: Should Teachers Care About Student Apathy? | Edutopia

Newest classroom guide from Edutopia focuses on assessment strategies and tools for PBL. "Tips" are organized to follow the arc of a project.

This classroom guide is intended to inspire and expand your thinking about effective assessment for project-based learning.  The tips are organized to follow the arc of a project. First comes planning, then the launch into active learning, and then a culminating presentation. Reflection is the final stage. Download this today and get started! 

Suzie Boss from Edutopia will be hosting a session called "Ripped from the Headlines" at ISTE 2011.  She will be discussing her approach to using real world news events in the classroom.

In a growing number of schools, educators are echoing Papert's assertion that engaging students by starting with the concrete and solving hands-on, real-world problems is a great motivator. Ultimately, they say, such project-based learning that freely crosses disciplines provides an education superior to the traditional "algebra at age nine, Civil War at ten, Great Expectations at eleven" structure.

PBL and blended learning prove to be two educational approaches worth combining.

Thom Markham is a psychologist, educator, and president of Global Redesigns, an international consulting organization focused on project-based learning, social-emotional learning, youth development, and 21st-century school design.  He discusses the connection between Project-based learning and social and emotional learning.  

Just getting started with project-based learning (PBL)? Our curated list of resources for educators new to PBL should help you. Before you get started, be sure to check out Edutopia's PBL page, including information about the research behind effective PBL practices. You can also connect with Edutopia's community to learn and share PBL tips.

Suggestions from educators at KIPP King Collegiate High School on how to help develop and assess critical thinking skills in your students.

Innovation is a key ingredient to authentic PBL. We must take risks, be prepared to experience failures, learn from them, persevere, endure criticism from skeptics and other curmudgeons, if we are going to make a difference. Never give up!

In 1968, two researchers conducted a fascinating study that proved the extent to which teacher expectations influence student performance. Positive expectations influence performance positively, and negative expectations influence performance negatively. In educational circles, this has been termed the Pygmalion Effect, or more colloquially, a self-fulfilling prophecy. What has always intrigued me about this study is specifically what the teachers did to communicate that they believed a certain set of students had "unusual potential for academic growth." The research isn't overly explicit about this, but it indicates that the teachers "may have paid closer attention to the students, and treated them differently in times of difficulty." This begs the following questions: Why can't teachers treat all of their students like this? How do we communicate to students whether we believe in them or not?

As both a planning and a learning tool, PBL challenges teachers to make new decisions about how they plan student learning experiences, while simultaneously empowering students to take a more active role in the learning process.

A major award! I'm honoring them for stepping outside the comfort zone of the school system that they have been subject to for most of their lives, authoring their own learning, and in the process, enjoying it. However, this transition did not come easily, and it took them some time to adjust to this format. 

"It is often said that leading and teaching in project-based learning schools are like building an airplane while flying it. During the summer, we land the plane and we have a chance to just build. In the spirit of summer, this post is brief and concrete so we have more time for the beach and planning! Here are three ways you can plan for student success this summer"

"A New Hero's Journey in the Classroom Kids need to know the basics of story creation -- character, conflicts, resolutions etc. -- before they can write their own. Have them read, watch, and play video games with a critical eye towards identifying these basic story elements. Then you can use life timelines as way of uncovering their personal narratives. Have them identify heroes of their own from real life or fiction as inspiration. You can go as deep as you have time for here! There are myriad tools available for actual story creation (see Resources below). "

A New Hero's Journey in the Classroom Kids need to know the basics of story creation -- character, conflicts, resolutions etc. -- before they can write their own. Have them read, watch, and play video games with a critical eye towards identifying these basic story elements. Then you can use life timelines as way of uncovering their personal narratives. Have them identify heroes of their own from real life or fiction as inspiration. You can go as deep as you have time for here! There are myriad tools available for actual story creation (see Resources below).

Another blog piece by Andrew Miller on how to make good DQ's

Another blog piece by Andrew Miller on how to make good DQ's

"What boosts PBL from a fun and engaging exercise to a rigorous and powerful real-world learning experience? Researchers have identified four key components that are critical to teaching successfully with PBL (Barron & Darling-Hammond, 2008; Ertmer & Simons, 2005; Mergendoller & Thomas, 2005; Hung, 2008). All of these play a role in the curriculum-design process."

"Research Supports Global Curriculum Language immersion, global competence, and vibrant professional learning communities enhance student learning at Seattle's John Stanford International School. "

Regardless of what social and emotional learning (SEL), character development, or any other related program you might use in your school, two things are true: They have a problem-solving component, and generalization is greatly enhanced when what is being taught as SEL/character is also integrated into the rest of the school day. Because of the importance of language arts skills, reading activities provide an ideal way to build students' problem-solving skills by applying them to deepen their insights into the written materials.