Project-based learning is becoming the way many educators and educational leaders are beginning to view the future of instructional pedagogy. Indeed, PBL addresses a litany of educational goals and needs including, but not limited to content standards, skill acquisition and growth, connections to career and community, integrated technology, collaboration, student agency and engagement.
When teachers, leaders, schools and districts become more project-based focused, they often tend to aim their attention at many targets. They will often focus on professional learning, clear goals and objectives, technology, scheduling, how to cohort students and/or teachers, courses, graduate profiles and much more. These are all important. However, sometimes we forget that nothing is typically successful - or least optimized or maximized - unless there is an authentic culture to support it.
In order for teachers to serve as facilitators of learning, while students own and lead their learning, a different type of learning environment is required. And that’s made possible by a discreetly different culture than is traditionally found. Here are five ways school leaders can create, foster and promote a PBL culture, environment:
Start At The Beginning
How we start and end things says a lot about who we are. Projects, in a healthy PBL culture, typically have entry events or launches where we do something significant (field work, guest speaker, simulation, activity, etc.) in order to engage our students in the pursuit of relevant, public work about real world challenges. If we’re not excited and they’re not excited - from the beginning - it will be tough to make it through the project design and implementation process.
Many schools have realized that the beginning of school is not a place to just start academic work, but rather to establish a mindset focused on culture building. We need to get students excited, connected and engaged and then optimize our culture to keep them that way. One approach, that was created at my previous school with colleague Jon Corippo, was Smart Start. Our entire first week of school was dedicated to culture building to prepare for academic work. At week’s end, we had collaboration, relationships, reduced affective filters, connections, public and professional work and true community.
Another format some school leaders are implementing is starting the school year off with a schoolwide design challenge. If a school leader organizes something that involves all students, staff and the larger school community, it will set an amazing tone of the year. It will immediately introduce to students and teachers the concepts of problems solving, collaboration, risk-taking, going public with work and so much more. Several school site leader colleagues of mine have done things similar to this the first week of school to set a PBL culture from day one.
Promote, Push Public Work
Taking student work public by showcasing, exhibiting and sharing projects publicly is foundational to project- based learning. Producing and sharing our work publicly is something that connects to other important aspects of project-based learning design - such as authenticity, reflection, critique and revision. It also tends to get students to buy-in more, have legitimate portfolio and resume examples, and ultimately allows them to connect and network to professionals, leaders, experts and the greater community.
Creating these public opportunities can be a burdensome lift for individual teachers, while site leaders ideally have the capacity. Here is a list of things that leaders can do to create public options for students:
* Organize and facilitate school wide showcases, exhibitions
* Invite the community to these events
* Share and promote student work on site and district digital spaces - websites, social media
* Schools can feature student work at any or all school events (sports events, open houses, back-to-school nights, meetings, fundraisers, etc.)
* Leaders can work with teaching staff to implement school wide portfolios for student work
* Encourage and incentivize students and teachers to submit student work to local, regional, national and international contests. There are hundreds of contests for students to enter media projects, writing, design, presentations and more. They may get scholarship monies or prizes. But the real intent is not winning, but competing in the real world.
* Invite and coordinate students presenting at school board meetings, as well as other governing or leadership organizations.
* Communicate and share student work with local media outlets
Connect Your Campus to the Community
One of the big game changers for project-based learning is the incorporation of partners and collaborators from outside the school. These can be experts, business partners, community leaders, non-profit organizations, higher education and community leaders.
These people can be part of the projects in terms of critique and revision, resources, sharing the work publicly with their networks and often even have authentic projects that students can contribute to and be an actual part of as well.
It’s not fair to expect teachers to be able to make connections and coordinate all of the great potential partners available to support high quality project-based learning. However, leaders often have large and diverse networks throughout the community.
These potential project partners will also typically respond more successfully to school leaders such as principals and site administrators. And if leaders connect these collaborators to teachers, it immediately invests the administrator into the project work as well. It’s a win, win and win.
Make Every Student Famous
One of my former colleagues always said our job was to be the “maker of kings.” In other words, we need to make each of our students a respected expert at something. How can we create environments that maximize our students individual and personal strengths and talents, while also promoting them? Here are just a few ideas:
*Students have the opportunity to serve in many roles and leadership positions focused on their unique skill sets.
* Create your own rewards and recognition practices and systems where high quality work, effort and attitude are appreciated publicly.
* Make sure each student has a digital platform to showcase and share their best work and projects (website, blog, YouTube/Vimeo Channel, etc.)
* Take students to any public setting you can where they can utilize, practice and promote their skills and applications.
* Consider things like digital badging and other practices that encourage students to set goals and master professional skills and applications.
* Text them, message them, email them and meet with them about their best work. And get others to do the same.
Culminate, Celebrate
Beyond how we start, how do we conclude projects in a pbl culture? These should not only be opportunities for showcasing and exhibiting our best work to the public, but also an opportunity to reflect and celebrate. This can take on many shapes and forms. Leaders have the ability to set the tone in terms of how students work climates and get celebrated.
John Dewey, one of America’s original educational reformers, posited early on that “We do not learn from experience ... we learn from reflecting on experience.” What Dewey was suggesting was that real learning, i.e., deeper learning and higher-level thinking, was going to stem from the metacognitive process of thinking about what we’ve learned.
Metacognition is at the core of the PBL process. When done well, students not only engage in project-based endeavors but also are challenged by their teachers and others throughout and at the conclusion of the work to reflect on all aspects of the project. This means what worked, what didn’t work, what could or should happen next time, and what would one do differently. This results in the learner having a greater understanding of their contribution to the work and process, their role or roles in the team and their own growth (academic, social and more). The learner can see themself as an active part of the learning process and that nothing about it is static. They can be part of the problem or solution and that is the journey into self-awareness and discovery.
We need to create systems where students have to not only do regular presentations, but also practice reflective learning in regular semester or annual presentations. These not only get them to present their best work and learning, but also again teach them again and therefore continue to learn at a higher level. If it’s good enough for graduate students and doctoral candidates, it’s good enough for all students. Many classes, programs and schools have started to have their students do Final Reflective Oral Presentations - Defense of Learning - in order to capture this deeper learning experience. My former school - Minarets HS / Minarets Charter HS - designed a year-end portfolio presentation students would do each year entitled the Personal Brand Equity. This culminating project not only required them to analyze and assess their learning and best work, but also do the same for them as a growing, learning and ever-improving young adult (skills focus). Reflection, presenting and teaching will represent the highest form of learning these students can both experience and demonstrate.
Final Focus
Transitioning to a more project-based pedagogy can be challenging and overwhelming for all of us. But remember that beyond the curriculum and instruction, the resources and everything else, we all need to dedicate discrete time and energy to the culture that will help create and cultivate the environment where PBL can not only survive, but truly thrive.
When teachers, leaders, schools and districts become more project-based focused, they often tend to aim their attention at many targets. They will often focus on professional learning, clear goals and objectives, technology, scheduling, how to cohort students and/or teachers, courses, graduate profiles and much more. These are all important. However, sometimes we forget that nothing is typically successful - or least optimized or maximized - unless there is an authentic culture to support it.
In order for teachers to serve as facilitators of learning, while students own and lead their learning, a different type of learning environment is required. And that’s made possible by a discreetly different culture than is traditionally found. Here are five ways school leaders can create, foster and promote a PBL culture, environment:
Start At The Beginning
How we start and end things says a lot about who we are. Projects, in a healthy PBL culture, typically have entry events or launches where we do something significant (field work, guest speaker, simulation, activity, etc.) in order to engage our students in the pursuit of relevant, public work about real world challenges. If we’re not excited and they’re not excited - from the beginning - it will be tough to make it through the project design and implementation process.
Many schools have realized that the beginning of school is not a place to just start academic work, but rather to establish a mindset focused on culture building. We need to get students excited, connected and engaged and then optimize our culture to keep them that way. One approach, that was created at my previous school with colleague Jon Corippo, was Smart Start. Our entire first week of school was dedicated to culture building to prepare for academic work. At week’s end, we had collaboration, relationships, reduced affective filters, connections, public and professional work and true community.
Promote, Push Public Work
Taking student work public by showcasing, exhibiting and sharing projects publicly is foundational to project- based learning. Producing and sharing our work publicly is something that connects to other important aspects of project-based learning design - such as authenticity, reflection, critique and revision. It also tends to get students to buy-in more, have legitimate portfolio and resume examples, and ultimately allows them to connect and network to professionals, leaders, experts and the greater community.
* Organize and facilitate school wide showcases, exhibitions
* Invite the community to these events
* Share and promote student work on site and district digital spaces - websites, social media
* Schools can feature student work at any or all school events (sports events, open houses, back-to-school nights, meetings, fundraisers, etc.)
* Leaders can work with teaching staff to implement school wide portfolios for student work
* Encourage and incentivize students and teachers to submit student work to local, regional, national and international contests. There are hundreds of contests for students to enter media projects, writing, design, presentations and more. They may get scholarship monies or prizes. But the real intent is not winning, but competing in the real world.
* Invite and coordinate students presenting at school board meetings, as well as other governing or leadership organizations.
* Communicate and share student work with local media outlets
Connect Your Campus to the Community
One of the big game changers for project-based learning is the incorporation of partners and collaborators from outside the school. These can be experts, business partners, community leaders, non-profit organizations, higher education and community leaders.
These people can be part of the projects in terms of critique and revision, resources, sharing the work publicly with their networks and often even have authentic projects that students can contribute to and be an actual part of as well.
These potential project partners will also typically respond more successfully to school leaders such as principals and site administrators. And if leaders connect these collaborators to teachers, it immediately invests the administrator into the project work as well. It’s a win, win and win.
Make Every Student Famous
One of my former colleagues always said our job was to be the “maker of kings.” In other words, we need to make each of our students a respected expert at something. How can we create environments that maximize our students individual and personal strengths and talents, while also promoting them? Here are just a few ideas:
*Students have the opportunity to serve in many roles and leadership positions focused on their unique skill sets.
* Create your own rewards and recognition practices and systems where high quality work, effort and attitude are appreciated publicly.
* Make sure each student has a digital platform to showcase and share their best work and projects (website, blog, YouTube/Vimeo Channel, etc.)
* Take students to any public setting you can where they can utilize, practice and promote their skills and applications.
* Consider things like digital badging and other practices that encourage students to set goals and master professional skills and applications.
* Text them, message them, email them and meet with them about their best work. And get others to do the same.
Culminate, Celebrate
Beyond how we start, how do we conclude projects in a pbl culture? These should not only be opportunities for showcasing and exhibiting our best work to the public, but also an opportunity to reflect and celebrate. This can take on many shapes and forms. Leaders have the ability to set the tone in terms of how students work climates and get celebrated.
John Dewey, one of America’s original educational reformers, posited early on that “We do not learn from experience ... we learn from reflecting on experience.” What Dewey was suggesting was that real learning, i.e., deeper learning and higher-level thinking, was going to stem from the metacognitive process of thinking about what we’ve learned.
We need to create systems where students have to not only do regular presentations, but also practice reflective learning in regular semester or annual presentations. These not only get them to present their best work and learning, but also again teach them again and therefore continue to learn at a higher level. If it’s good enough for graduate students and doctoral candidates, it’s good enough for all students. Many classes, programs and schools have started to have their students do Final Reflective Oral Presentations - Defense of Learning - in order to capture this deeper learning experience. My former school - Minarets HS / Minarets Charter HS - designed a year-end portfolio presentation students would do each year entitled the Personal Brand Equity. This culminating project not only required them to analyze and assess their learning and best work, but also do the same for them as a growing, learning and ever-improving young adult (skills focus). Reflection, presenting and teaching will represent the highest form of learning these students can both experience and demonstrate.
Final Focus
Transitioning to a more project-based pedagogy can be challenging and overwhelming for all of us. But remember that beyond the curriculum and instruction, the resources and everything else, we all need to dedicate discrete time and energy to the culture that will help create and cultivate the environment where PBL can not only survive, but truly thrive.
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