What actually is Project-Based Learning or PBL anyway?
Project-Based Learning is a student-centred approach to learning that provides students with a real-world context for their learning and enables teachers to think more creatively about the syllabus and how it might be learned.
In the traditional unit, teachers will often lead a series of lectures, activities and quizzes before some form of assessment or end of unit test, followed by a fun project at the end. Project-Based Learning makes the project front and centre and is what drives the learning throughout the unit of work. The schools in our Network report that their students are more engaged, active participants in their work, they report improved academic results in Year 12, and ex-students report being snapped up by top universities and enterprises due to their experience in Project-Based Learning.
Are you interested in improving student outcomes at your school?
From its origins at a Canadian Medical School in the 1960s, Project-Based Learning (or PBL) has gradually found its way into classrooms across the globe. The ‘founding fathers’ of PBL at McMaster School of Medicine recognised that the traditional method of teaching did not foster key skills such as communication, collaboration and critical thinking that were crucial in the functioning of a successful medical team. Today, with the rapid rate of change in technology changing the face of the world in which our students will ultimately live and work it is widely accepted that in order to best prepare our students for this uncertain future, not only do they need a sound understanding of the National Curriculum but also the aforementioned 21st century skills.
Students working collaboratively to solve a real world problem in science.
PBL is essentially having students engaged in authentic learning experiences that not only challenge them academically but allow them to make connections with adult experts and technology used in the workplace. From an engaging entry event and thought provoking Driving Question students collaborate with both teachers and peers to work towards each formative assessment (or Benchmark) which pave the way to the culminating product. During the culminating event students present work they are proud of to external experts able to provide feedback. Throughout the project, student-generated Need-to-Knows drive the direction of the learning with workshops that respond to the learning needs and interests of the individuals in the class. The involvement of students in the learning process and provision of Voice and Choice (coupled with regular formative assessment) allows for a more responsive student-centred learning environment, which in turn leads to more engaged students, actively participating and able to see relevance in their work.
Though direct teacher instruction still plays a vital role in PBL, from a teacher’s perspective, PBL empowers you think more creatively about the content you teach, removes you from the front of the classroom for much of the time and seats you with your students as they lead their own team meetings, run peer workshops and participate in collaborative reflection and feedback.
Skilfully devised PBL projects ensure that students cannot simply ‘divide and conquer’ the work but instead must rely on each other and work as a team in order to be successful.
In PBL classrooms, not only is content mastery for each individual student essential but so too are collaborations skills, active participation skills, skills for tackling and monitoring learning, resilience, conflict resolution, agency skills, communication, academic mindsets, seeking feedback, seeking challenge, finding personal relevance; the list is endless! New Tech Network Australia recognises that most of us as human beings are not naturally expert in most (if any!) of these skills, but as Dr. Carol Dweck’s work on the Growth Mindset has shown, just as intelligence can be improved, so too are personal traits adaptable and all of us can grow in areas to which we devote our attention.
In New Tech Network Australia (NTNAU) schools not only do students learn to master content, but each project targets one or two particular skills from our collaboration, agency, oral or written communication rubrics. These skills are intentionally taught and practiced within the project. Students reflect individually on their progress in these skills, receive feedback from their peers and teacher and are formally assessed on their development of these skills towards the end of the project. On a personal level, some of my greatest moments as a PBL teacher have been my students reporting back to me (unprompted) on how they used one of the skills we’ve learned about at home or with the soccer team the previous night.
Have you considered the traits of your ideal graduate?
Many schools consider what their ideal graduate looks like and the traits they will ideally have, with the approach detailed above of teaching, practice and assessment we get to lay down a roadmap for explicitly teaching and helping students track their own progress in the very traits we otherwise can only hope for them to have.
Change in education happens slowly, and perhaps with good reason - teachers are stretched thin, leaders bombarded with initiatives and our students keep us pretty busy too. Moreover, spending on Innovation, R& D in schools is often less than 1% of annual spending each year. NTNAU provides instant access to thousands of ready made projects and a tried and tested model of PBL, not to mention all the tools you could ever need for fostering equitable, professional learning environments and the aforementioned key skills. The true power of the Network, however, is just that, the Network: the coming together of like-minded professionals to connect, collaborate and learn from one another at fortnightly Virtual Workshops, biannual Leadership Summits and termly Meetings of the Minds.
It’s the privilege of facilitating all this adult deeper learning, the subsequent cultural shifts in staff rooms and classrooms across our Network and the roadmap for fostering ideal graduate traits essential for success in work and life after school that make PBL so exciting.
What’s your ideal graduate? Find out more about how New Tech Network Australia can partner with your school to improve student engagement and learning outcomes through the New Tech Network model of authentic, academically rigorous, inspiring PBL.