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.
A Review of Research on Inquiry-Based and Cooperative Learning
By Dr. Brigid Barron and Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond, Stanford University
"Decades of research illustrate the benefits of inquiry-based and
cooperative learning to help students develop the knowledge and skills necessary to be successful in a rapidly changing world."
"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."
Collaborative Project-Based Learning
When implemented well, PBL has been shown to develop students' critical thinking skills, improve long-term retention of content learned, and increase students' and teachers' satisfaction with learning experiences (see Ravitz, 2009, for a review). Students at Manor New Tech typically complete nearly 200 projects over the course of their high school experience, with each project lasting about two to four weeks.
'The duration of these activities may range from days to weeks, or longer. The teacher acts as a facilitator of the exercise, as students work together usually in pairs or small groups. The students may have different roles to fill and gain specific expertise in these team building events. Social interactions plays an important part. '