Try It This Way…
Read the chapter. Take lecture notes. Do the worksheet. Take the test.
Welcome to the birthplace of American education. It is how I was taught for the most part, and how many students are still being taught around the country today.
It is not a good model. Certainly not best practice.
It is also extremely boring to teach like that.
There is a better way…a much better way.
What It Is
Project Based Learning is a way of teaching which encourages students to learn by actively engaging in extended, open-ended projects that focus on their personal skills and passions, while enforcing real world experiences.
That’s a mouthful, ain’t it? So is Project Based Learning!
My Business Management program is entirely based on Project Based Learning. The amount of lecturing, or pre-learning my students receive is quite minor considering what they will master. My kids have never done a worksheet, although I do hammer vocabulary into them regularly, since a business vocabulary is not something they would otherwise pick up in their daily lives.
The depth and breadth of projects my students tackle runs a wide gamut in terms of length and deliverables. While some things they do within a week of class time, other projects—like their participation in a Stock Market Simulation—can run the entire length of the semester.
What It Is NOT
It isn’t just a really big PowerPoint, or a long paper. It isn’t something that takes more than one class period.
Without knowing any better, many teachers believe they are using Project Based Learning simply by assigning deliverables that are more intensive and deeper than a worksheet.
If there is no individual and independent research and discovery of material and choice in your project, it simply isn’t Project Based Learning. It might very well be a valuable and important assignment for your students, but you aren’t truly helping them become independent learners if you are still lecturing content and giving them a specific format for their deliverable.
Confused Yet?
Most of us do a career information project at some point in business education. I do.
Does yours include researching a career—its requirements and average salary? Does yours include them creating their own resume?
Sounds great, and important. But that isn’t Project Based Learning even though they are doing research and creating deliverables.
You are on the right track—letting them choose their own career is a great first step. But, they need to go deeper into the subject, allowing their personal curiosities and biases about that career to come through and drive their research. Turning this into Project Based learning could include any number of things. I would…
For example:
- Invite a Career Counselor to come in and answer questions from students about careers in general and entry-level requirements
- Have students interview a person currently working in the field by devising their own questions based on their interests
- Have students visit two different stores/offices related to their career field, comparing and contrasting the environments
- Research entry level positions towards their career goals and investigate how long it would take to climb that ladder
- Find multiple careers within their field that they could branch into
That would give them a starting point for in depth research on a chosen career path.
The true magic of a Project Based Learning environment, in my opinion, is the incredible array of deliverables that can come from a student’s research. I’ve had, for example, different deliverable demonstrating mastery for the career exploration project:
- Someone brought in a professional and interviewed them television-style in front of the class
- I’ve had students create three-dimensional displays showing what the work environment looked like
- Students will assume the persona of their profession—dress, props, the whole thing— and give an informational speech to the class
- Students have created movies of every step of their research, documentary-style, supporting their career choice
- And I’ve had PowerPoints. They aren’t the enemy, you know.
The Impact On Students
While it is significantly more work on the part of the teacher, and grading can be quite difficult with such different deliverables, the impact on students can not be ignored or overlooked. Let’s see how Project Based Learning impacts our students.
- Academic achievement – The increased confidence associated with achieving in a Project Based Learning classroom will transfer for students to their other classes. Given the independence to research, following their passions will encourage students to take more risks in other projects, and helps them think “out of the box” in other scenarios in their life.
- Cross-curricular work – Project Based Learning is naturally cross-curricular, as it requires historical research, interpretation of statistical information and presentation of materials. As a result, I have had students leverage their projects with me into extra credit in other classes.
- 21st century competencies – Our most important task as business educators is to prepare our students for the world of work. In their professional lives, they will be given generic and vague tasks that they will need to deconstruct and create to be successful. That is exactly what they are mastering through Project Based Learning.
Equity And Diversity Benefits
Despite the extremely high class sizes so many of us face, we are constantly tasked with teaching to each student individually—meeting needs and personal goals of extremely different and divergent students. Let’s see how Project Based Learning will help us with this almost impossible task.
- Appeals to passions and interest – My seniors do a year-long capstone project their senior year. Many of them begin long before senior year, and the majority of students look forward to this part of their program. The reason it is so popular is because it can be any passion project they may have. By working with students to create the project of their dreams, I know that ultimately the student will not only be successful in the capstone, but will learn important skills that will serve them based on their individual skills and talents.
- Students can showcase their culture – By permitting students quite a bit of latitude in their choices to demonstrate mastery, it becomes much easier for students to build their own culture into the deliverable. In the career project, for example, I often have students choose careers based on family history, with students doing an in depth study of the “family business” whether it is a culturally respected restaurant, or generations of lawyers.
- Serves diverse learning styles – By far my favorite reason to support Project Based Learning is that it appeals to students with different talents and abilities to perform on standard school assignments. Project Based Learning doesn’t care about your ability to take objective tests, or whether your reading level is at grade level. By encouraging students to personalize projects, and choose deliverables that demonstrate mastery on their own level, it is possible for all of your students to keep their A in your class. You aren’t lowering standards by any stretch of the imagination—you are expanding the options.
Increases Motivation And Engagement
Student apathy continues to be on the rise across the country, decimating the learning potential of millions of students. It falls back on the educator—as everything does—to bring students out of apathy and get them engaged in the classroom.
Hello Project Based Learning.
My students learn the promotional mix by devising marketing plans for any organization in our school. They then present their marketing plan to the club advisor, who will hopefully use the deliverables to support their club. They still learn the vocabulary, and the elements of a promotional mix. They see examples and research types of promotion.
But it’s for their own club. They own it.
And I have 100% engagement.
Are There Disadvantages?
Everything has disadvantages, doesn’t it? Project Based Learning is no exception.
- These projects are very difficult to construct—it goes against everything we have been told to do as educators to demonstrate student mastery! It is against the very core of the American education system, but it is the future. You need to give them enough information to get started, but not overstep your position in the group.
- Doing this type of group work always has the potential of having non-participatory group members. Despite your constant vigilance, it’s possible some students will “coast” through the project, letting others do the work.
- Grading these suckers can be quite a task. There isn’t a “right” answer, so there isn’t a “wrong” answer. You need to carefully construct detailed grading rubrics so students know how to achieve mastery, but you need to be open to multiple demonstrations of that mastery.
- This blog isn’t good training! You need to do considerable research yourself of how to develop and implement a Project Based Learning curriculum. I have done many training and inservice presentations on PBL, and still don’t consider myself a “master”. It’s an ongoing learning curve.
Overall
I still lecture, Boo Boo. There are absolutely still times when direct instruction is necessary and required for my students to master the vocabulary, concepts, theories and skills necessary in Business Education.
I’m not recommending you throw all of that traditional teaching away.
What I am saying is that higher-level thinking, deeper learning and significantly greater retention benefits will be more quickly achieved using Project Based Learning.
Try it—just once—and see what you think. Message me if you want direction on the PBL for Career Development, or any other topic.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING THIS FAR!!!
Wow, thank you for reading about project based learning!
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Resources
https://www.edutopia.org/power-project-based-learning/
https://www.pblworks.org/why-project-based-learning
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