What Project Based Learning Actually Is

The driving question

How do we tell whether this is a project or a poster with extra steps.

Why this one works

Most of what schools call project based learning is a normal unit with a craft activity at the end. The distinction that matters is whether the question was open when you started.

If you knew the answer and the children were assembling it, that is a project. If nobody in the room knew the answer, including you, that is project based learning.

How it runs

Four things have to be true, and if any one is missing it is not this.

A question with no known answer. Not what are the parts of a flower. Something like why does nothing grow in this corner.

A real audience or a real decision at the end. Somebody outside the class receives it.

Student decisions about method. If you specified the steps, they are following a recipe.

A finished thing. Not a presentation about the work. The work.

What gets produced

Anything with a recipient. A proposal, a guide, a sign, a garden bed, an event, a repair, a document the school keeps.

Where it goes wrong

The most common failure is the adult knowing the answer and steering. Children detect this immediately and stop investigating, because they can see the destination.

The second is scope. A term long question that could be answered in an afternoon produces four weeks of filler.

Related

Project Tracker is the one page planning sheet for any of these.