Project-Based Learning: Engages Students, Garners Results
Project-Based Learning: Engages Students, Garners Results
Project-based learning
engages students, garners results
S tudents in a South Texas classroom had taken on
the role of employees at CleanWater Tech, a fictional
U.S. company that produces water filtration technology,
Such a response is not at all unusual from students who
are engaged in project-based learning, says Kantrov. The
Education Development C enter is a global nonprofit
and were poring over the economic indicators of various organization that designs, delivers, and evaluates
unnamed countries, trying to decide into which nation the innovative instructional programs—and many of these
company should expand. embrace learning through inquiry-based projects.
When asked by Ilene Kantrov, director of the Center for The California-based Buck Institute for Education, an
Educational Resources and Outreach at the Education organization committed to the use of project-based
D evelopment C enter, what they would tell an learning worldwide, defines the concept as “a systematic
administrator who visited the classroom during their work teaching method that engages students in learning
on the project, one student piped up, “I’d tell them they knowledge and skills through an extended inquiry process
should leave, because there’s learning going on and structured around complex, authentic questions and
they don’t want to get in the way.” carefully designed products and tasks.”
See Project-based learning , page 22
Jennifer Nastu is a freelance writer in Colorado This eSchool News Special Report is made possible with financial support from Sebit.
who writes frequently on education and technology. www.adaptivecurriculum.com 8 8 8.9 9 9.9319
eS N Special Report
22 • eSCHOOL NEWS January 2009
Project-based learning ... What’s more, project-based learning can help stu-
Helping project- continued from page 21
dents develop the same kinds of 21st-century skills—
such as problem solving, critical thinking, communi-
based learning Project-based learning is a successful approach to
instruction for a variety of reasons, its proponents say.
cation, collaboration, and creativity—that today’s
employers covet. Tackling long-term, student-led pro-
take hold For one thing, it helps students retain the information
they learn. Lecture approaches don’t lead to long-term
retention, says John Mergendoller, executive director
jects can help students build real-world skills and knowl-
edge.
The Buck Institute for Education, which focuses of the Buck Institute. “Kids learn it for a week, then for- Examples of project-based learning
on professional development and materials to sup- get it,” he says. At the High Tech High charter high school in San
port project-based learning, believes that, as with Another reason project-based learning is useful is Diego, a group of 10th-grade students collaborated on
most complex instructional approaches, there are because it engages students’ interest and motivates them a multidisciplinary project called Beyond the Border.
many conditions that need to be met for schools to to learn. One of the main reasons kids drop out of school Because one of the most-crossed borders in the world
embrace project-based learning. is because they’re bored. With project-based learning, is just 12 miles from the school, the students wanted to
First, says Executive Director John Mergendoller, students are encouraged to explore their own interests discover what was on the other side, and why condi-
teachers must fully understand the concepts they are and to make connections to the world beyond school. tions were so different there.
teaching. They also need to know they are not trying “I can’t tell you how many times I have heard, ‘Why They decided to look at several elements, including
to force learning on the students, but instead are en- am I learning this? This is a waste of time. What’s the medical care, water quality, immigration, and travel
couraging students to approach learning themselves.
Then, there needs to be an accountability system
that ensures students are staying on track. “You can’t
just turn kids loose on the project,” Mergendoller
says. “There has to be a defined set of benchmarks,
check-ins with the teacher.”
The fluidity of this approach to learning also can
discourage teachers from incorporating project-based
learning into their curriculum, because it can be hard
to ensure that all standards are being met—and tricky
to recycle lessons from one year to another.
With project-based learning, students are in
charge of their own learning. “So if they want to in-
vestigate the water in school to see if it contains lead,
that’s where you go,” says Peter Rollero, associate
professor of science education at Arizona State
University and a consultant for Adaptive Curriculum.
“Every year, the project could be different.”
Starting small, and letting teachers see the ex-
citement and learning that take place with a project,
can help them become willing to incorporate more
project-based learning into their instruction.
“Students go from class to class and say, ‘I’m in
Miss Jones’ class and we’re doing this really cool
thing,’ and then the other teachers go to Miss Jones
and say, ‘What are you doing with your class? The
kids are so excited….’” explains Donna Gilley, ca-
reer and technical education coordinator for the
Metro Nashville Public Schools.
It also helps when schools have an integrated cur-
riculum. “It’s good for a teacher to teach all the sub-
jects instead of having them compartmentalized, so
you can do one project and learn math, science, so-
cial studies, writing, [and] language arts,” Rollero
says.
For schools that don’t have an integrated cur- Advocates of project-based learning say it encourages higher-level thinking skills.
riculum, teachers from different subject areas can
team up on projects. point?’ Project-based learning gives you a way of an- across the border. Then, working in groups of two or
Of course, Gilley adds, the teachers can’t do it swering those questions,” says Kantrov. three, they created video clips about their findings and
alone. To make project-based learning the best it can Project-based learning also encourages a deeper lev- posted these on YouTube. They also presented their find-
be, schools should coordinate with outside organiza- el of thinking by involving students in answering ques- ings in an evening exhibition. Visitors could watch the
tions—with industry, with museums, and with other tions for themselves, making connections, and using an- students’ videos on a bank of laptops and headphones
places that will make projects come alive for students. alytical skills. arranged around a table.
Teachers also should not work in a vacuum; “When I’m doing project-based learning, I’m look- The project cut across several courses and disci-
school leaders should give them plenty of time to ing at taking the ‘whole’ apart and looking at the pieces. plines, including English, science, and social studies,
collaborate and plan projects. That’s problem-solving, the ability to analyze infor- while teaching students in a way that allowed for mul-
“We entrust teachers and encourage them to de- mation by putting it together in a new way to solve the tiple entry points into the core curriculum content.
sign the projects themselves,” explains Rob Riordan, problem,” explains Pat Walkington, vice president of “Our teachers, when they sit to plan their projects,
director of instructional support for High Tech High sales and marketing for Sebit LLC, which produces an think about the things they’re passionate about, things
in San Diego. “To support that, [the teachers] have online learning solution called Adaptive Curriculum. they think are important to cover in their discipline.
lots of contacts throughout the day and in the sum- Adaptive Curriculum is an interactive, web-based Then they think about state standards, and what they
mer, where teachers are talking to each other about software product that allows students to conduct scien- can cover in the projects they want to do,” says Rob
their work. Teachers also come in an hour before tific experiments, in realistically rendered surroundings, Riordan, so-called “emperor of rigor” for High Tech
the school day with kids begins. They spend that time that are substitutes for actual experiments when these High (basically, he’s the director of instructional sup-
working in teams, studying together, and talking might be dangerous in real life or when they require port). The teachers also consider the elements of their
about the curriculum, projects, school issues, and costly equipment. The virtual experiments help students discipline they will be unable to cover through the
students.” develop standards-based scientific inquiry skills. planned projects, and pinpoint the areas they’ll have to
Riordan concludes: “None of this could work “In project-based learning, instead of answers be- cover through other, perhaps more traditional, means.
without professional time for the teachers.” —J.N. ing provided to students, [students] have to do experi-
ments to come up with the solutions,” Walkington says. See Project-based learning, page 24
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24 • eSCHOOL NEWS January 2009
Project-based learning ... sionals in a given field would do. As they work on in-
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26 • eSCHOOL NEWS January 2009
Project-based learning ... School challenges—and successes “When you have 15 laptops going, you can’t go to
your desk to check eMail, you can’t step out into the
continued from page 24
The relatively new Adaptive Curriculum was used hall to have conversations with colleagues,” she says.
cepts they learn, stay with the students much longer with great success recently during a pilot program at “[Teachers were] walking around monitoring things
than if they had just been taught an algorithm [that] they the Isaac School District in Phoenix, Ariz. Kendra [and] answering questions. These were high-level con-
memorized and then applied,” says Jim Ryan, vice pres- Moreno, assistant principal at Isaac Middle School, met cepts.”
ident of marketing for Key Curriculum Press. with the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade teachers, as Moreno mentions the mutualism activity with the
Engineering the Future poses questions to students well as with the designers of the program and its ac- crocodile and bird as something that captivated students
at the beginning of projects. The students then discov- tivity objects, to discuss bringing Adaptive Curriculum in particular. “With middle school kids, keeping them in-
er the answers to these questions as they go along. into classrooms. terested in participating is a science,” she points out. “If
PASCO Scientific’s computer interfaces and sensors “We went through our state standards to see which I’m a seventh grader, I’m thinking, ‘This is so cool.’ It’s
(probes), bundled with computer-based activities for activity objects would best align. Then I had to promise much cooler to look at it on a screen than read about it.
chemistry, biology, physics, and general science, are teachers that they would not fall off their timeline. They Kids loved it.” Students were visibly excited on laptop
another way for schools to bring technology into a are reluctant to do things that would put them back. It day, she says, and English-language learners and students
project-based learning environment. had to be seamless [and] support their instruction,” who’d typically give teachers the hardest time were the
“More and more, we’re trying to give kids an idea Moreno says. Only after they started using the activity ones who were most excited and willing to learn.
of what real science is,” says Wayne Grant, chief edu- objects did teachers begin to see how the activities Teacher growth also was apparent. “They learned
cation officer for PASCO. “It’s about asking questions served as building blocks for understanding. their subject much better,” Moreno says. “They also
that have meaning to you and going out to answer those Moreno developed a calendar for the school’s lap- learned classroom-management techniques and looked
questions. It’s like detective work.” top cart; teachers got the cart, which contained one lap- at how their students learned. They asked themselves,
For example, he says, a project that took place in the top for every two students, every other week. ‘When Adaptive Curriculum and the laptops are gone,
Pacific Northwest had students examining the viabili- “About 80 percent of [our students] come from how am I going to keep students engaged?’”
ty of salmon spawning streams. They took water qual- homes where English is not the primary language, so The program’s assessment feature revealed how
ity measurements along the length of the river to de- we have huge numbers of second-language learners,” much students had learned, and it suggested to teach-
termine the deterioration of the environment and its she says. One of the things she likes about Adaptive ers where the lesson should go next. Teachers loved the
effects on salmon. Then, they looked for factors that Curriculum is its repetition of vocabulary words and curriculum’s support pages, which helped them navi-
were affecting the river. visuals; kids were using key content vocabulary from gate through the material and understand how much
One detrimental factor they discovered was logging; the lessons and having very academic discussions as time it would take to give students the requisite knowl-
however, logging is a major industry in that area. “So they completed the activities. “They hear the same edge they needed.
then science is not just about lab coats. It influences so- words over and over, and that’s important, because if The Metro Nashville Public Schools are using Ford
cial policy. The measurements you take are not just dis- you don’t ‘get’ the word, you’re not going to get the PAS. One of the projects Metro Nashville uses has stu-
connected measurements of things like pH,” explains concept,” she explains. dents create a business plan for an imaginary rock band
Grant. Another huge benefit of Adaptive Curriculum, that starts in a garage.
The students followed up by looking at the eco- Moreno says, is that she saw a significant increase not Students look at how to market the band and how to
nomics of logging. “It changes the perception of what only in students interacting with each other, but in teach-
science can be about,” Grant says. ers interacting with students. See Project-based learning, page 27
Another benefit of project-based learning is that it helps students learn to collaborate and solve problems in a team environment.
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January 2009 eSCHOOL NEWS • 27
cuted a pilot program to explore the effects of hands-on learning through Challenge 2000 Multimedia Project
http://www.ed.gov/pubs/edtechprograms/multimediaproject.html
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