project-based learning

What are the key ideas of project-based learning?

Project-based learning (PBL) is a classroom paradise for some teachers.20 Students collaborate to study complex and real-world issues. As a result, they develop abilities that are in line with the curriculum. They receive improved communication and problem-solving abilities as compensation.

However, setting up and managing an appropriate project-based learning curriculum isn’t always simple because the methodology is surrounded by controversy and manifests itself in a variety of tasks.

Find the best project-based learning ideas for your students and facilitate them. Learn more by reading on!

What Exactly Is Project-Based Learning?

PBL activities

With the help of a long-term investigation and solution to a complex, interesting, and authentic issue, problem, or issue, students learn through the use of project-based learning.

Students work on a project for a long time—from one week to a semester—that requires them to address a challenging subject or solve a real-world problem. By producing a public product or presentation for a live audience, they showcase their expertise and abilities.

Students gain strong content understanding as well as critical thinking, teamwork, creativity, and communication abilities as a result. Students and teachers are given the opportunity to express their creativity through project-based learning.

Why Is Project-Based Learning So Important?

Project-based learning enhances classroom engagement while also having a significant impact on how well students are ready to enter the industry once they graduate.

A greater focus on 21st-century abilities and critical thinking implies that project-based learning is picking up steam in education. In fact, PBL can help educators:

  • Teach students self-responsibility and crucial time management skills
  • Create assignments that touch higher-order stages in Bloom’s typology, like analysis, synthesis, and assessment
  • Provide several ways of grading students at different phases of the project, whether using a portfolio, highlighted bibliography, overview, draft product, or final project.

Once students leave school, they’ll have to recognize that the job isn’t as clear as lecturing and homework. It’s more linked with a project-based method, where employees are required to focus, manage their schedules and deliver work on a deadline.

Similar Article: 5 Facts On Children’s Engagement in Project-Based Learning Programs

What Are The Key Ideas Of Project-Based Learning?

Project-based learning incorporates a number of key ideas, including the following:

Learning And Thinking

The purpose of the project is to encourage thought about the desired standards, topics, and abilities that students need to know.

In the process of preparing for the design of the project, what kinds of thinking and learning do we wish to connect our teaching with? It is possible that this will not be the case with some projects, despite the fact that this clearly can be focused on quality and standards and that this is actually the case the majority of the time.

In fact, there is a very strong argument that can be made for a very good balance between information and skills, as well as possibly concentrating on thought in order to absorb content in a more in-depth manner. However, the main focus should be on the fact that the teacher or facilitator makes a conscious effort to plan for the thinking and learning—regardless of what it may be—that the students will need to be familiar with and be able to demonstrate an understanding of in order to successfully complete the project and the challenge.

Great Inquiry

The project offers various chances and necessitates a high degree of inquiry from both the instructor and the students. Excellent facilitators and teachers arrange for settings from which great questions can develop from all of the participants in the class, while good ones plan for fantastic questions to ask the students. Throughout the entirety of a project, we want to make sure that there are chances for students and teachers to ask questions, as well as a requirement for them to do so. 

Beginning with an open-ended Driving Question that is aligned with the preferred thinking and learning, students may have questions for an outside expert, questionnaires for fellow students centered on a text or other resources, questions to actually guide the thinking of others, or questions that are simply intended to clarify something. 

Great inquiry, as opposed to the more traditional classroom setting in which solutions are provided, fosters profound thought and creativity by building one idea atop another.

Assessment That Is Meaningful

Teaching and learning are directed by the project through the use of intentional summative and formative assessments.

If you ask the majority of students how they feel about assessment, you will probably get an answer that is less than positive; however, this does not necessarily have to be the case. It can be thrilling to use evaluation as a tool to identify the next steps and desired areas of growth, particularly when the activity being assessed is genuine, relevant, and performed for a specific reason. 

Assessments that are meaningful can take numerous forms, including official and informal ones, and may even take the form of questions rather than merely providing answers. It is also possible for it to arise from numerous sources, such as the individual themselves, their peers, experts from the outside, and of course, their teachers.

Conclusion 

You should have a better understanding of project-based learning after reading this. One of the top project-based learning schools in Bangalore is Tapas, which guarantees greater involvement and engagement with a curriculum that promotes higher-order thinking and problem-solving abilities.

Just keep in mind that the focus of teaching must be on the students. It’s possible that what works for other teachers won’t work for you.

But unless you try, you’ll never know.

The Benefits of Using a Project-Based Curriculum In the Classroom – An Overview

How do you make education more than just theory? What can you do to make it more interactive and less boring? How do you energise students to engage and enquire? The answer to all of the above is Project-based learning. A teaching method whereby students are engaged in real-life projects makes learning more meaningful and long-lasting.

Participation in real-world projects brings about experiences that develop rooted core skills in the students, which is collectively beneficial for students, educators and society on a deeper level. Project Based Learning is centered around the student and teamwork is encouraged to obtain deep content knowledge.

The students are zealous in learning in such a way, not only because it keeps them engaged and all their questions are answered, either by the educators or the peers, but also because they get to demonstrate their skills and knowledge at the end of a project. They get to present the outcome to an audience which is rewarding too.

Project Based Learning

It is but a given that some basic skills are required in each individual. Whether or not traditional learning methods are able to achieve those are debatable. But what is not conjectured is that we all need to have and inculcate in our next-generation, and critical thinking, collaboration, communication and creativity and PBL ticks all these boxes.

Approaching PBL as a way of learning has become a must-have for many schools and universities now, given the changing times. Each institution has its own method of teaching and learning but the basic fabric remains the same. PBL is an in-depth exploration of a subject which has an inquiry and project approach, having an emphasis on a certain outcome. Depending on the subject matter, the age of the student and the relevance of the project, the results can be a presentation, a review, a poster, a report, a display, or a demonstration. This provides the children with opportunities to be involved at each juncture, giving them a sense of ownership and responsibility.

Benefits of Project-based Learning

  • Project-based learning helps students to get involved deeper in the learning process as well as the rate of interaction is higher.
  • The aspect of higher-order thinking is encouraged and problem-solving skills are enhanced.
  • Networking with peers with confidence is achieved.
  • Public speaking and learning to discuss openly with teachers and peers alike.
  • 21st Century skills like collaboration and communication are cultivated.
  • Self-learning is a strong skill that is enhanced.
  • A sense of belonging, self-learning and self-competence is birthed and nurtured.
  • Growth in self-reliance and attitude towards learning is improved.
  • Research shows that academic performance is higher in Project-based learning in the classroom versus traditional learning.
  • The range of Project-Based learning in the Classroom is broader and more accessible as compared to other mediums of learning.
  • Culturally diverse learning becomes strategic and engagement is higher with a spike in attendance rates.

Tapas Education in Banashankari, Bengaluru is one such institution that has managed to meld Project-based learning curriculum with a theoretical curriculum and has interspersed the “Gurukul” system through it.

Essentially, they have included design elements from a perspective of deep learning, better quality work and a higher engagement from the students.

Some such points are:

  • A project that can solve a real-world problem or a challenging question is answered appropriately.
  • A continuous inquiry-based project that forces students to sit up and take notice and keeps them engaged in a thorough procedure of asking the right questions, and application of the apt information to find the resources to bring it to the end goal.
  • Real-life situations can stem from personal issues, interests or concerns which create a realistic task for the students to question and find answers to.
  • The students are given a choice to find a relevant and real project that enables them to voice their concerns and make decisions on the given project. They take complete ownership of what to create and why.
  • Validation in terms of presenting the final outcome to a crowd proves to be very beneficial. A product for a real audience provides a result-oriented mind.
  • Reflecting on the quality of work produced, the learning that went with it, the challenges faced, and the strategies used are all important for students and educators alike.
  • Being able to handle critique, reflect on the feedback and revise accordingly is an extremely important step in the world of education. The products and procedures that have been implemented by the students themselves with the guidance of the educators enable them successfully in their formative and summative assessments.

Conclusion

While this may sound like a complicated process, it is actually the simplest way of learning. We learn more through an experience than words on the said experience. Well, what could be better than having both? At Tapas education, there is a dedicated team of educators who have created the most suitable Project-based learning classrooms and Project-based learning curriculums to ensure that the best learning outcomes are achieved.

Education is not the filling of the pail, but the lighting of a fire.
-William Butler Yeats.

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