Real World = Real Problems

Education is changing the way teach students as we try to prepare them for the 21st century workplace and college - enter Project Based Learning (PBL).  According to the Buck Institute for Education, PBL is "a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging and complex question, problem, or challenge."* In PBL students practice how to learn and solve problems rather than memorizing content, it is both student centered and collaborative. I decided to include this artifact in my blog to perhaps educate teachers who are unfamiliar with it and to encourage others to try using it in the classroom. 


The PBL lesson I created was on Natural Disasters. I chose this topic for 6th grade as it is part of their content in science. I feel this PBL has many engaging essential questions for students to be excited, especially coming up with a location and design for their 'new home'. I hope my template will provide a good base for others to use as an example for designing a PBL lesson.

Probably the biggest challenge to implementing PBL is getting up to speed on PBL. It is imperative teachers are trained or provided professional development on PBL so it is executed properly in the classroom. Another significant challenge is changing the mindset and role of teachers from direct instruction/lecturer to that of facilitator. Other things you may be faced with include finding authentic problems for students to investigate, establishing clear outcomes and assessment for mastery, and ensuring quality of learning is achieved. Finally, I find that monitoring progress is a key component to confirming scope and sequence of PBL.

PBL can be used in the classroom across all subjects. You should start by introducing your students to a real world problem that applies in their everyday life. From there you can present the students with the task of finding ways to help solve it, ultimately leading to a finished product demonstrating their findings. When beginning PBL in the classroom, make sure you start small. to engage student learning, foster

Source: *https://www.bie.org/about/what_pbl