What Makes Project-Based Learning a Success? | Edutopia

What Makes Project-Based Learning a Success? | Edutopia

This Article has really caught my attention. At the start of this school year our superintendent  really wanted us to use the Project-Based Learning (PBL) process. One of our required professional development at the beginning of the school year was spent on it.  We sat for the morning listening to a speaker introduce PBL and watched a video on a school that demonstrated how they have used PBL. The data that suggests it works and that was the extent of it.... 

While I do think it is a great idea and the presentation was well done. There was no follow up.  I wonder how it works and not just the overall details. Where do you even start when creating these projects. How do you get the students to work on them without you having to answer their every question? Especially in a math classroom. I know in my room, my students very much struggle with attempting to solve the problems independently. Most the time they have not even read the question! They just panic because they see words.

So when I spotted this article (or actually the video that is linked to it) I just had to check it out. The problem with when you start a school year is you have all these wonderful ideas that you want to check out but then everything just goes crazy. You have all these things that have to be accomplished (data meetings, calendars, planning, school improvement meetings, paperwork...etc.) So I think the thought of doing PBL got put on the back burner. 

Although, I do know you need one thing. TIME. Time to figure out what to do. A sub article of this one is the Step - by - Step Guide on how to develop these projects. At least this is a  start and maybe I will be one step closer to developing these lessons. :)