Do you ever do capstone projects with your students? Do your students forget their learning immediately after rote tests? Do your students need to build their organizational, communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity skills? Do your students prefer to create modern applied real-world artefacts for their eportfolios? Have you ever considered project-based learning?

Project-Based Learning

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In project-based learning (PBL), students create an authentic project to solve a real-world problem. It is an extension of problem-based learning where students actually build the solution they propose to the problem. Ideally, students have roles and responsibilities within the project that reflects team dynamics in the workplace. Project-based learning has six implementation steps:

1.State the Essential Question2.Plan the Project3.Create the Schedule4.Monitor Student Progress5.Assess the Learning Outcome6.Evaluate the Experience (Edutopia, 2007)

VariationsNone.

ExamplesUse your imagination. What kinds of projects could your students create? What would be an appropriate project for your students? Only you know what would be authentic to your field of study, your curriculum, and your students. To get started, consider these ideas:

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Watch a four-minute video about project-based learning from CommonCraft

Project-Based Learning

Visual Arts•Documentary•Cartoon•Music video•Decor plan for a non-profit

Health & Community Studies•Public service announcement•Health campaign•Community mural•Neighbourhood event

Science & Technology•Race car•Building design•Video game•Website for a non-profit

Business Administration•Advertising campaign•Tourism event•Financial plan for a charity•Human resources training course

Humanities & Social Sciences•Children’s story•Newsletter•Health brochure•Adaptation

MeritsProjects reflect the real world of work. Students tend to like projects as they see the relevance to their future career goals (Palmer & Hall, 2011). Through project-based learning (PBL), students learn critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity. They have tangible eportfolio artefacts to impress employers with, too. Grades with PBL are generally higher than in lecture style classes. There are opportunities with projects to incorporate community involvement and interdisciplinary studies.

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Engagement and Achievement. Project-based learning (PBL) enhances problem solving, critical thinking, and collaboration as well as academic achievement, engagement, and retention (Thomas, 2000). With problem-based learning students retain more knowledge and achieve higher grades. For example, Alcalá University, in Madrid, saw an increase in grades and retention when they integrated project-based learning into the mobile computing program (Portilla-Figueras, Jiménez-Fernández, & Salcedo-Sanz, 2010). At-risk students at an alternative high school in Oregon showed more engagement and better test scores with PBL (Heitin, 2012). According to Shuell, “‘what the student does is actually more important … than what the teacher does’” (as cited in Biggs & Tang, 2011, p.97).

Education Reform. Employers want students who can demonstrate skills; high grades is not the only measure of a good graduate. Projects provide tangible artefacts for eportfolios. Likewise, projects and eportfolios help students build confidence as they reflect on their skills. When students work on a project, they also use skills of communication, collaboration, and critical thinking that employers value (Edutopia, 2014). Projects can reach beyond the local school and include global participation across many schools and countries as well as include industry or community partners (Diaz-Rico, 2013).

Interdisciplinary. Project-based learning (PBL) is ideal for interdisciplinary studies or integrated studies. Professors can team teach to a project across subject areas (Edutopia, 2010). Not only does this reflect the real world, but it also gives students an opportunity to experience another disciplines’ perspective. This builds empathy, tolerance, and persuasion skills, in particular for bigger global issues (Willermet, Mueller, Juris, Drake, Upadhaya, & Chhetri, 2013).

ChallengesTo incorporate project-based learning (PBL) into the classroom, requires a shift in thought on curriculum. Projects take more time to plan and take more class time to execute. Building partnerships with community and industry partners can take time, too. To allow students time to engage in a project, means

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Edutopia

Watch a four-minute video from Edutopia about team teaching

surrendering some of the content coverage. Reflection is a key part of project learning, and this, too, takes time away from content coverage.

Planning. Project work takes much more time and skill than simple rote learning. It takes time for the professor to organize, especially if one needs to build relationships with internal or external partners. Students need to learn time management as well as planning and organizational skills. Professors need to monitor and support students with self-direction, planning goals, and team work (Palmer & Hall, 2011; Thomas, 2000). In addition to project time, students need time to reflect during and after on theory and practice - the settling time where deep learning take place (Jensen, 2005).

Monitoring and Evaluating. To maximize student success with projects, you will need to create several check points. Break the project down into manageable chunks. Assess each stage of the project. Provide feedback using a rubric or rating scale; allow for peer critique and self-assessment. Distribute marks for process as well as the final product.

Coverage. If we focus on the applied skills students use in the creation of a project, it means letting go of some content coverage. In a project, we may cover key discrete skills but not likely all the possible concepts and scenarios. However, according to Gardner, less in more - coverage is the enemy of understanding (as cited in Biggs & Tang, 2011, p.43). All too often, when we try to jam as many facts and figures as possible into our curriculum, we only have time for surface coverage; and learning is quickly forgotten after the test. When we dive deeper, like in a project, we learn invaluable skills that we can transfer to other situations.

Instructional DesignUse a backwards design approach. First, start with your learning outcomes. Second, create your assessments. Third, plan your instructional activities. Finally, choose a technology to enhance the lesson.

Look at what Sheridan College is doing with project-based learning! The Craft and Design program incorporated an interdisciplinary project whereby students designed and built a functional electrical light that infused all four arts of textile, ceramics, furniture, and glass blowing. These amazing projects were exhibited in the Sheridan gallery Read

more about the craft and design project on the Sheridan Ceramics blog

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Design. Consider your curriculum; look carefully at your accreditation standards, graduate attributes, program learning outcomes, course learning outcomes, and lesson learning outcomes. Will project-based learning fulfill the learning outcomes? How will you prepare students to create a project? What technologies will you and your students need to learn in order to complete a project? Will project-based learning enhance the learning experience?

Develop. Browse the Internet for authentic project ideas. The Buck Institute for Education (BIDE) has project ideas on their website. They also host another website called PBLU. The George Lucas Educational Foundation has videos and articles of real projects that teachers have done with their K-12 students on the Edutopia website. There are many journals and websites with project ideas across disciplines.

Create your own projects from your real world industry experiences. Use current events or news stories. Consider partnering with a local or global partner to work with the students. The industry or community partner can provide the case as well as feedback on the student projects. Work with other Sheridan professors to create an interdisciplinary project.

Deliver. Decide what students will do before, during, and after the project. Before the project, students might interview a community or industry partner. During the project activity, students would propose, build, and test their project. After the project, students might present their creation in an efair through a paper, presentation, or podcast. The project should be authentic, active, and applied.

TechnologyYour students will need a means to collaborate with each other or an industry or community partner. Some tools to discuss project proposals or details include email, telephone, chat, discussion forums, social media blogs, wikis, web conferencing, or video conferencing. To build or share documents, they could use web documents, wikis, social media blogs, or web conferencing. When the final product is ready to share, students can capture their work with mobile device, cameras, or video cameras and post their work in a efair on a discussion forum in the learning management system (LMS); a social media sharing site; or a wiki.

ReferencesBiggs, J. & Tang, C. (2011). Teaching for quality learning at university (4th ed.). Berkshire,

England: McGraw Hill. Retrieved from Sheridan College Library

Diaz-Rico, L. (2013). Strategies for teaching English learners (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Retrieved from Sheridan College Library

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Edutopia. (2007). How does project-based learning work. The George Lucas Educational Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/project-based-learning-guide-implementation

Edutopia. (2010, August 9). Team Teaching: Two Teachers, Three Subjects, One Project [Video]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsJR2X-j7s4&feature=related

Heitin, L. (2012). Project-based learning helps at-risk students. Education Week, 31(29), p.8-9. Retrieved from Sheridan College Library

Jensen, E. (2005). Teaching with the brain in mind. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision in Curriculum Development. Retrieved from Sheridan College Library

Palmer, S., & Hall, W. (2011). An evaluation of a project-based learning initiative in engineering education. European Journal of Engineering Education, 36(4), 357-365. Retrieved from Sheridan College Library

Portilla-Figueras, A., Jiménez-Fernández, S., & Salcedo-Sanz, S. (2010). A project-based competitive learning scheme to teach mobile communications. International Journal of Electrical Engineering Education 47(4), p.460-468. Retrieved from Sheridan College Library

Thomas, J.W. (2000). A review of research on project-based learning. San Rafael, CA: Autodesk Foundation.

Willermet, C., Mueller, A., Juris, S. J., Drake, E., Upadhaya, S., & Chhetri, P. (2013). Water as life, death, and power: Building an integrated interdisciplinary course combining perspectives from anthropology, biology, and chemistry. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 13(5), p.106-124. Retrieved from Sheridan College Library

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Written by Paula OggPhotography by Jonathan Eger

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