Project-Based Learning Final Reflection

Prior to this course, I had a fairly vague idea of what constitutes project-based learning.  I knew it was an approach that relied on long-term, in-depth projects as the focus of the unit and entered this course looking forward to learning how to ensure a project effectively addresses content standards and strategies to scaffold projects for students who have little experience working independently.

This course addressed several key points I would not have previously considered.  For example, the approach I’ve taken with projects before is to start with the content standards, then select a project which will address those standards.  I would have skipped the driving questions, a feature crucial to a good PBL unit.  By focusing on the driving question before the product students will produce, it is possible to design PBL units that are much broader with wide variation in the student products.

My most significant takeaway from this course, however, is the importance of authenticity in a PBL unit.  Like many teachers, most of my assessments are written tests which, no matter how carefully the questions are selected or written, never truly replicate the way the content is used or applied in the real world.  A PBL unit should be placed in a real-world context, allowing students to address problems that interest them or affect their community.  Students should also be given the opportunity to follow processes and produce products modeled on relevant fields.

The part of PBL that has me the most nervous at this point is classroom management.  My students have limited experience with deciding how to use their time in class, and it shows when I use inquiry activities or short-term projects.  With this in mind, I planned specific tasks students should have completed at the end of each class period since I expect my students to be more successful with a series of discrete, small goals than a large goal at the end.  Even so, my students will have significantly more time in their groups and significantly less direction than they are used to and I will need to find strategies to ensure they are making progress on the project.  I expect there is a limit to how much I can learn about classroom management in PBL until I implement a unit and face those challenges first-hand.

This year, I’ll be implementing and refining the PBL unit I developed for this course.  In the 9th grade physical science course I teach, my district has directed us to create more meaningful STEM integration and, in particular, would like to see at in-depth engineering design challenge in each term this year.  PBL very effectively builds on the principles of good engineering instruction, so I will be using strategies from this course to ensure my students get as much out of the engineering design challenge as possible.  In the future, as my district would like us to increase the number of engineering challenges in the course, so I plan to revisit what I’ve learned about PBL when it comes time to develop a second (or even third) design challenge.  I also plan to examine other projects and lessons I do, such as a presentation on the advantages and disadvantages of different energy sources, to find ways I can make improvements using the principles of PBL.  This should result in my course becoming more rigorous and my students becoming more engaged.