Project-based learning programs have the potential to more thoroughly engage students, according to educators who have embraced the model. And, they say, the projects warrant public showcases.
Under a project-based learning approach, students in science classes might explore how to conserve water to keep costs down and steward natural resources. Or in math, they could determine where to locate security cameras in a community to get the best bang for the buck, accounting for both the money to buy the cameras and which angles will best cover the area to be surveilled.
A decade ago, Virginia’s Loudoun County Public Schools worked with nonprofit PBLWorks to institute a “train the trainer” model in about 100 schools — with a separate training for school leaders — aligning the pedagogy and structures of project-based learning to district-wide instruction, said Ashley Ellis, chief academic officer for the district.
“One of the connections was to our mission to empower students to make meaningful contributions to the world,” she said. “We saw PBL as a bridge.”
Dawn Haddock, principal at Emerick Elementary School in Loudoun County, brought the concept to her school and got rapid buy-in.
“I saw the importance behind this type of instruction,” she said. “Giving children the opportunity to have voice and choice, to pick and solve problems, was the direction we needed to go 10 years ago, and we still feel strongly today. ... It has become an everyday, normal type of activity within our school.”
Loudoun County Public Schools does not explicitly require project-based learning, mandatory training every year or a certain number of projects, Ellis said. But in some schools, like Emerick, “it’s become embedded in the work they do to empower their students.”
Emerick has instituted what Haddock calls a “genius hour,” during which students are working on projects that they present about every six weeks to their classmates.
“It can be about everything from black holes to glitter, whatever things interest them,” she said. “This has led to their ability to read and write [to create the project], and then get up and perform. … We do projects throughout the year. Every teacher is doing some type of project.”
The school borrows 30 minutes from library time and 30 minutes from regular classroom time, reasoning that reading and writing still take place, she added. “The children say, ‘You can take me out of anything else; don’t take me out of genius hour!’”
This practice builds toward an end-of-year showcase, for which students pick a project in March that “keeps kids working right up until the last week” of school — with seven minutes to present and two minutes for questions from the audience, Haddock said.
“We like to have them do a reflection of their teaching and learning,” she said. “Supervisors and administrators are coming to see what the kids are doing.”
Showing off PBL
Students work with their peers to solve problems, have a good discussion, and ask questions, Haddock said. “How can we get our students to think deeper? Every year, we add to our projects to make our students better thinkers.”
Project-based learning presentations vary at different grade levels, Ellis said. Elementary school principals, for instance, can more easily create showcases and bring communities together during the school day, because families are typically more engaged and “want to be in the school seeing what the kids are doing,” she said.
“At the middle and high school levels, schools have evening or even weekend symposiums,” Ellis said. “They invite community members, school board members — we’re truly fortunate to have such an active community in our schools.”
Haddock believes project-based learning and presentations help students become more aware of the world around them and instill the notion that they can help solve problems. During a “field day” at the end of the school year, when staff took hoses out to let students get doused, one student said to her, “Mrs. Haddock, we’ve got to conserve our water. I know you like to do that, but you have to turn that off.”
She added, “They got an understanding of a problem by the project we used — it’s neat to see how these projects [impact their thinking] because they become invested in it.”
