Project-Based Learning is taking over! Yup, you heard it here first. Schools all over the world are trying this new teaching method that mixes inquiry, exploration and projects into one sweet bundle. I’m sharing why project-based learning is important and why it works. As a thank-you for checking out my blog, you’re getting this epic freebie that will help you get started with PBL. You’re not going to want to miss out!
Why Project-Based Learning Works
PBL originated by John Dewey (bet you haven’t thought of that name since your university education classes, eh?). Dewey advocated for people to be life-long learners and believed that students learned best when they worked on real-life tasks.
PBL is a method of teaching that has students learning through doing projects. Students are first given a question known as a guiding question. Teachers plan instructional activities that help students find solutions to the question while using the curriculum to help guide them. Throughout the learning, students are planning and creating a project that will demonstrate their interpretation of the question and help find a solution.
Here’s an example of an elementary ELA project:
The guiding question:
How does someone know whether they have a growth mindset?
Students will:
Create a quiz that helps someone determine whether they have a growth mindset or fixed mindset.
Lessons/activities:
- Read stories and articles about growth mindset
- Research how to create a quiz and write a procedural piece of writing
- Write a proposal letter to the principal, outlining why she should let the students distribute the quiz to the school.
- Describe a growth mindset and a fixed mindset
This complete project is included in my Beginner’s Guide to Project-Based Learning For Elementary ELA. Click here to download it now!
Why Project-Based Learning is Important
PBL is important because it brings real-life situations into the classroom. Students are learning the curriculum from a practical situation, rather than a theoretical one. We’ve all seen it; students bored out of their minds, practically napping on their desks. That is until you say a word, such as TikTok, that suddenly wakes them from their comatose state.
Why is that?
Because you are bringing in something that is relatable to them. Something they’ve heard of. A person, place or thing that they already know something about!
Another major part of PBL is feedback. Students are constantly providing feedback to one another. What’s most important is that this feedback is actually going to be used to help improve the project. Teachers often use feedback as a way for students to express an opinion, such as “I like that story you wrote.” But not much is done with that feedback. In Project-based learning, students can quickly take action on the feedback they hear. That is powerful! It makes students want to give more helpful feedback.
Click here to download the Beginner’s Guide to Project-Based Learning for Elementary ELA.
What’s inside the freebie?
I want to help you get started with Project-Based Learning. That’s why I created the Beginner’s Guide to Project-Based Learning. So what’s inside this epic freebie?
If you download it now, you will get a guide that goes through the pillars of project-based learning, a calendar for both a 2-week project and a 4-week project and common misconceptions about PBL.
The best part? It also includes an entire two-week project that you can use with your students to transition to project-based learning. This includes lesson plans, worksheets and assessment tools. The project is focused on growth mindset, something that needs to be talked about more in all classrooms!
Even if you’ve tried PBL before, I think you’ll love this freebie! Click here to get it now.
Final thoughts
I want to help you get started with your project-based learning journey. It may seem challenging and off at first, but with the right resources and the right guide (that’s me!), I know you will love it! Not only doe sit help you teach more skills in less time, but you also will never see your students more engaged. Click here to check out a blog post of mine about student engagement!
Chat soon!
Jennifer
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