Reinventing Project Based Learning: Your Field Guide to Real-World Projects in the Digital Age

By Suzie Boss and Jane Krauss

This updated edition of the bestselling Reinventing Project-Based Learning offers examples of the latest tools, assessment strategies and promising practices poised to shape education in the future.

This popular ISTE title follows the arc of a project, providing guided opportunities to direct and reflect educators’ own learning and professional development. This book shows how to design authentic projects that make the most of available and emerging technologies.

This new edition:

• Provides examples of how to merge personalized learning, flipped classrooms, and PBL for effective teaching and learning.
• Includes coverage of computational thinking and coding, demonstrating ways to develop new approaches to solving problems as well as new forms of expression.
• Discusses PBL as an equity consideration, with opportunities for personalization and empowerment, addressing issues of social justice and closing the achievement gap.
• Includes coverage on new trends like augmented and virtual reality; and new and updated Spotlights from educators featured in the first edition and others.
• Features deeper focus on Gold Standard and High Quality PBL, the P21 Framework, and ISTE Standards for Students and Educators.

With this book, teachers will come to appreciate the importance of problem-finding and problem-posing — thoughtful activity that needs to precede problem solving in any context.

The companion jump start guide based on this book is Project-Based Learning: Strategies and Tools for Creating Authentic Experiences.

Audience: K-12 classroom teachers, teacher educators

• Language: English
• Publisher: International Society for Technology in Education
• Release date: Nov 14, 2018
• ISBN: 9781564847195

Suzie Boss

Suzie Boss is a writer and educational consultant who focuses on the power of teaching and learning to improve lives and transform communities. She is the author of 10 books for educators, most recently All Together Now: How to Engage Your Stakeholders in Reimagining School and The Power of a Plant (co-authored with award-winning teacher Stephen Ritz). She contributes regularly to Edutopia and is a member of the National Faculty of the Buck Institute for Education. She has consulted with educators across the U.S. as well as in India, South Korea, South America, and Europe to bring project-based learning and innovation strategies to both traditional classrooms and informal learning settings.

Book preview

Introduction to the Third Edition

When we wrote the first edition of this book in 2007, Twitter was just a year old, #edchats were unheard of, and the first edcamp was still three years away. Google had just gobbled up the company that created Writely, a collaborative writing tool that was about to morph into Google Docs, which would become part of Google Apps, which would become part of G Suite for Education. Apple had just introduced something new called an iPhone.

Change is rapid and relentless on the technology front, and this 10th anniversary edition of Reinventing Project-Based Learning offers many new and updated examples of digital tools that make a difference for student learning and teacher productivity and collaboration. What has not changed is our emphasis on putting learning goals first and then finding the right tools to help meet them.

Just as important as innovation in the tech sector are the changes unfolding in the world of education. Today’s popular strategies include personalized learning, flipped classrooms, blended learning, makerspaces, and computational and design thinking, to name a few. To varying degrees, they all incorporate digital tools and challenge students to take a more active role in their own learning.

Meanwhile, momentum for project-based learning continues to build internationally. This surge of interest reflects growing recognition, based on unfolding research, that PBL can transform teaching and learning in powerful ways—when done well. Furthermore, PBL and other student-centered strategies are far from mutually exclusive. As you will see in the examples ahead, there is no need to choose between doing PBL and having a makerspace, flipped classroom, or personalized approach.

What is driving the interest in digital-age PBL? Here are a few big-picture trends you will hear more about in the coming chapters:

Deeper learning. Educators, policymakers, parents, and students themselves are looking for practical strategies that will better prepare young people for college, careers, and active citizenship. By emphasizing academics along with skills such as collaboration and critical thinking, high-quality PBL leads to deeper learning.

Equity. Educators committed to equity insist that all students, regardless of zip code or family background, deserve real-world learning experiences that put them on the path to success. Many of the stories in the following pages come from schools that serve diverse learners, including students who will be the first in their families to enroll in college.

Engagement. We know from experience that teachers often find their way to PBL because they are looking for strategies to better engage their students. Research paints a dismal picture of students feeling less engaged in learning the longer they spend in school. By deliberately emphasizing student voice and connecting academics with students’ interests, PBL offers a powerful antidote.

Updated standards. In recent years, we have seen many of yesterday’s standards being revised to emphasize application of knowledge over memorization of facts that can be Googled in seconds. In this edition, we will look at updated standards (including ISTE Standards for Students) that call on students to analyze, empathize, synthesize, justify, create, communicate, and engage in active citizenship. These action verbs can be drivers of engaging, meaningful projects.

Computational thinking and coding. Computational thinking and coding offer opportunities for developing new approaches to solving problems as well as new forms of expression. Examples ahead will show computing in service of projects that are not limited to computer science classes. Nontechnical teachers will recognize the importance of problem-finding and problem-posing, key features of both PBL and computational thinking.

A decade of writing about digital-age PBL and consulting with schools globally has enabled us to have a long view of two important trends: how individual teachers do PBL well and how school systems sustain PBL efforts over time. This edition offers plentiful examples of both.

In the chapters ahead, you will hear from teachers who share project examples and strategies for implementing PBL in unique contexts. Their rich examples bring PBL to life. A decade ago, many of the teachers we featured were lone advocates for PBL in their buildings. They managed to chart their own paths to success, but their journeys were often challenging. If they moved to new schools, PBL opportunities for students often left with them.

Increasingly, we are encountering school systems that are more strategic about sustaining PBL. Networks of wall-to-wall PBL schools have been the pioneers; they continue to expand and fine-tune their strategies, and we highlight several examples that are part of the Deeper Learning Network. Beyond these networks, many more districts are embracing PBL as a strategy to implement regularly, but perhaps only in certain content areas or grade levels. In these often but not always contexts, teachers may alternate between doing projects and delivering more traditional instruction. We will highlight the factors that help PBL practices take hold across a school system, such as collaborative professional learning that mirrors the best of PBL for students.

What has not changed from the first edition is our emphasis on teachers learning together. As new tools have emerged, savvy educators have grabbed hold of them to forge new connections with colleagues. Edchats, edcamps, unconferences, and other virtual and face-to-face meet-ups are among the trends we highlight, and welcome, as opportunities for rich, relevant, peer-to-peer learning.

Starting Your Journey

Long before we began writing this book, each of us embarked on our own learning journey that opened our eyes to new possibilities for digital-age instruction.

Jane Krauss has seen her approach to teaching evolve during her more than 30 years in education. She has been a special and general education teacher, supervisor of preservice educators, curriculum writer, presenter, trainer, and director of professional development. In the elementary classroom, she was an early adopter of project-based learning and experienced the shift in what was possible when technologies became available to make projects more authentic, meaningful, and rigorous. Jane continues to work with educators around the world to explore the potential and promise of education technology. In the last few years, she has expanded her work to include advocacy for equitable student access to computer science education and careers. She helps teachers and other influencers imagine students not only using technologies effectively but actually inventing technologies through computer science.

Suzie Boss, an education writer and consultant, has spent much of the past two decades observing effective teachers, learning from them and their students about best practices, and chronicling their stories. The author of 10 books for educators, she has seen how innovative approaches to instruction can combine with new tools to better engage learners and even transform communities. As a consultant, she has worked with teachers on nearly every continent who are ready to shift their practice to project-based learning. Many of the global examples in this edition grew out of these connections.

Where are you starting your journey? What has motivated you to consider new strategies for the classroom? Maybe you are an old hand at project-based instruction, but now you want to incorporate technologies in new ways to reach ambitious instructional goals. Maybe you are a newcomer to the profession, looking for authentic project ideas you cannot find in a textbook. Perhaps your school is part of an initiative that is making new technologies available or working to develop common standards and language around assessment. Or perhaps you are an administrator or technology specialist, working with a team of teachers on improving instruction across a grade level or subject area.

We start with no assumptions about your past teaching experiences, your students’ ages or backgrounds, or the technology tools you have available. Regardless of your role or background, we assume only that you are open to new ideas—and that you like learning.

As we set out on this journey together, keep in mind the following:

Today’s students are up to the challenge. The digital world already permeates every aspect of students’ lives. Many schools have not kept pace with the learning opportunities, but most students are primed to take advantage of these digital tools.

Projects are worth the effort. As a teacher, your world will change—for the better. Veteran teachers often talk about how they feel rejuvenated as a result of teaching with projects. Many teachers we interviewed expressed the same idea: I’m not doing the same old lessons we always did, and I’m excited because I’m learning. Do not be surprised if you become more passionate about teaching after taking this journey. After giving PBL a try with your students, you may hear yourself repeating this refrain we have heard from dozens of teachers: I’ll never go back to the way I used to teach.

Students live and learn in the real world. From a student’s perspective, there is no substitute for the real world when it comes to generating interest in learning. At the end of the day, would you rather see your students dumping their work into the recycling bin or talking about an authentic project in which they are driving their own learning? One science teacher, for example, compares his students to researchers working in industry and academia. At the end of a project, they may publish a monograph to share their original research or participate in a community symposium about science and ethics. They know that their work matters.

New contexts encourage the project approach. New learning contexts set the stage for technology-rich, project-based learning. Teacher teaming, professional learning communities, and interdisciplinary instruction facilitate planning and design. New models for using technology—such as 1:1 laptop or tablet rollouts, flipped classrooms, bring-your-own-device (BYOD), and maker initiatives—expand student access to digital tools. Communities of practice and the expanding networks of connected educators help good project ideas travel and encourage teachers to reflect on what works. All these factors help to set the stage for success with the project approach.

Learning from PBL Scouts

Schools that embrace PBL as a core instructional strategy once occupied the fringes of public education. Not any longer. Strong results by PBL schools and a growing research base about PBL outcomes have drawn increasing attention from more mainstream public schools. PBL also is gaining traction in independent schools and international schools.

In the chapters ahead, watch for highlights of several school models that put PBL at the center of instruction. We will take a close look at schools within the Deeper Learning Network, such as the New Tech Network and High Tech High. In these wall-to-wall PBL schools, all teachers are on board, and students learn through projects across the curriculum. We will also see how PBL can take hold within more traditional public school districts. For example, clusters of schools in Gwinnett County, Georgia, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, have managed to grow their own versions of PBL for K–12 by encouraging teachers to collaborate across content areas and grade levels.

Elsewhere, schools choose to alternate between PBL and more traditional instruction. As you will see, there is no need for students to feel whiplash when they move between projects and regular learning activities. For example, schools that use a workshop model for literacy put a premium on peer collaboration, feedback, and writing for an authentic audience. Teachers who emphasize inquiry in science or problem-solving in math are developing students’ abilities to dig into meaningful questions and justify their solutions. These same principles and strategies apply when students shift into project mode.

Although there are subtle differences from one PBL model to the next, all the schools we will discuss share the philosophy that students learn best by doing. In many ways, they have been the advance scouts for PBL, developing replicable strategies for teaching and learning. In the spotlights in coming chapters, look for ideas you can borrow and adapt for your own context.

How to Use This Book: Turn It into Your Own Project

Field guides are meant to be taken along on a journey. They help you focus your attention on the details that matter, and so it is with this book. It is designed to help you navigate the fast-changing learning landscape of the digital age.

As you work your way through these chapters, use this book as your own learning project. Write in the margins. Turn down pages where you find ideas you want to borrow, or make notes in your e-reader. Take time to explore and test-drive the technologies we highlight. In other words, be an active learner who engages with your environment. That is the kind of learning your students will experience as you begin designing and implementing effective projects.

This book has been designed to support your journey whether you are reading alone or working with a group of colleagues. Either way, we hope you find time to talk with others about what you are thinking and learning. Just as good projects involve teamwork, collaboration yields the best results for professional development. Collaboration can range from learning teams—which we encourage and address in more detail in Chapter 2—to more informal conversations. In the coming pages, we suggest many ways to open the door for dialogue, either in person or virtually. Each chapter closes with more questions for collegial discussion.

Just as your students arrive with varying levels of readiness, we understand that readers will have a range of entry points for adopting project-based learning. Some readers will be more comfortable starting small, while others will be ready to dive into more complex projects, and we offer supports all along that spectrum. We have provided opportunities for you to assess your readiness, make choices, direct your learning, explore new ideas, and reflect on your experiences. Throughout the book, you will encounter suggestions for related reading and prompts that encourage you to pause and reflect.

A note on the sources: Many teachers shared their project insights with us in interviews and, in some cases, opened their classrooms to us for visits. Unless otherwise indicated, direct quotes are from the authors’ personal correspondence and interviewing.

Look for these special features throughout the book:

Spotlight: expanded close-up of a teacher, school, school network, or other promising model

Technology Focus: expanded information about a promising technology to support your project success

Side Trip: related readings or web resources worth considering

Your Turn: suggestion for your own hands-on learning or for a collaborative activity to prompt deeper reflection

At journey’s end, you can look back and see how far you have come—and decide where in the world you next want to travel with your students.

Here is a quick preview of the topics we will explore together:

Section I. Anticipation

Chapter 1. Mapping the Journey—Seeing the Big Picture

Assess your readiness to begin teaching with technology-rich, authentic projects.

Spotlight: New Tech Network

Technology Focus: Shared Research

Side Trips: The Case for High-Quality PBL; Lurk and Learn

Your Turn: Start with the Big Picture

Chapter 2. Finding Your Fellow Travelers

Engage with colleagues, near or far, to build collaboration into project design and enrich your teaching practices.

Spotlight: Changing Their Worldview; High Tech High

Technology Focus: Online Communities

Side Trip: Project-Tuning Protocol

Your Turn: Reading Group

Section II. Packing Up

Chapter 3. Imagining the Possibilities

Establish the conceptual framework for your project. Why do big ideas matter in project design?

Spotlights: Lanier Cluster, Gwinnett, County, Georgia; Expanding Interest in Computer Science; Thinking Aloud About Learning Dispositions

Technology Focus: Create a Wiki

Your Turn: Develop a Conceptual Framework for Your Project

Chapter 4. Strategies for Discovery

How do you begin designing a project? A guided design process helps, whether you build a project from scratch or adapt an existing project plan to meet your needs.

Spotlights: Science Leadership Academy

Technology Focus: Collect and Track Assets Online

Side Trip: Project Design Resources

Your Turn: Design Your Project

Chapter 5. Making Assessment Meaningful

Take a thoughtful approach to assessment to boost learning and communicate progress.

Spotlights: Just-in-Time Feedback

Technology Focus: Online Grade Books

Your Turn: Review Work Samples

Chapter 6. Project Management Strategies for Teachers and Learners

Teachers and learners alike benefit from improving their project management skills.

Spotlights: Creating Opportunities; Fielding Inquiry; Teams That Maximize Results

Technology Focus: Project Management with Technology

Side Trip: Be Resourceful

Your Turn: Set Up a Project Space

Section III. Navigating the Learning Experience

Chapter 7: Project Launch—Implementation Strategies

Get your project off to the right start by generating curiosity and preparing students for the active learning ahead.

Technology Focus: Screencasting; Ripped from the Headlines

Your Turn: How to Tell Your Story

Chapter 8. A Guiding Hand—Keeping a Project Moving

Consider the critical roles of classroom discussions, technology use, and troubleshooting strategies in keeping the project moving forward.

Spotlights: EL Education

Technology Focus: Podcasting

Your Turn: Analyze Your Classroom Conversations

Section IV. Expanding Your Circle

Chapter 9. Building Connections and Branching Out

Successful projects may take off in directions you did not anticipate. Imagine the possibilities for extensions and connections.

Spotlights: Learning in Place; EAST: Technology-Powered Service

Technology Focus: Online Collaboration; Tools to Build Geo-Literacy

Your Turn: Where Next?

Chapter 10. Celebrating and Reflecting

Culminating activities remind learners of where they have been and what they have gained along the way.

Technology Focus: Photo Sharing

Your Turn: Plan a Celebration

Section V. Unpacking

Chapter 11. Bringing It Home

Build time for reflection and sharing into the project life cycle to make the most of your investment in meaningful project design.

Your Turn: Join the Blogosphere or Twitterverse

Chapter 12. On the Horizon: PBL Forecast

With momentum building for authentic learning experiences, where will PBL go next?

Appendixes

Appendix A. Digital Tools for All Phases of the PBL Cycle

Examine a wide array of digital tools through the lens of the essential learning they make possible.

Appendix B. ISTE Standards for Students

The ISTE Standards for Students express what students should know and be able to do to learn effectively and live productively in an increasingly digital world.

Appendix C. Reading Group Guide

Chapter-by-chapter questions are provided to prompt discussions and encourage reflection about your own practice.

Appendix D. Bibliography

Section I

Anticipation

What are your expectations as you consider teaching with authentic, technology-rich projects? As you set out on this learning journey, consider what motivates you to try new classroom methods and use technology in new ways. Who will accompany you on this adventure? Section I helps you assess your own readiness for change and suggests how to enhance your experience through collaboration with colleagues.

Chapter 1

Mapping the Journey—

Seeing the Big Picture

THIS CHAPTER WILL GUIDE YOU TO:

Understand the hallmarks of high-quality project-based learning for the digital age

Learn from educators and organizations that have pioneered effective strategies for project-based instruction

Anticipate opportunities and challenges as you bring project-based learning into your own teaching practice

Teacher Scott Durham was hired to join the faculty at the same Michigan school where he had once been a student. Before the new year began, Durham took a stroll down the halls. He indulged in a little nostalgia as he wandered past his old classrooms. He then asked himself a critical question: "What had I actually done in those rooms? He could remember getting good grades on tests and assignments, but he could not come up with a single memory about a project that had made him excited about learning. On the spot, he promised himself—and his future students—that he would pursue teaching in a different way."

Project-based learning (PBL)—powered by contemporary technologies—is a strategy certain to turn traditional classrooms upside down. When students learn by engaging in real-world projects, nearly every aspect of their experience changes. The teacher’s role shifts. He or she is no longer the content expert, doling out information in bite-sized pieces. Student behavior also changes. Instead of following the teacher’s lead, learners pursue their own questions to create their own meaning. Even the boundaries of the classroom change. Teachers typically design the project as the framework for learning, but students have more agency and may wind up using technology to access and analyze information from all corners of the globe. Connections among learners and experts can happen in real time. That means new kinds of learning communities can come together to discuss, debate, and exchange ideas.

This transformation of traditional schooling is precisely what is needed to prepare students for college, careers, and active citizenship. Today’s employers are looking for candidates who know how to work as a team, adapt to change, access and analyze information, and think creatively to solve problems. The same skill set will prepare the next generation of citizens to tackle complex social and environmental problems, both locally and globally.

More immediately, PBL offers an antidote to the lack of engagement in school that too many young people experience. Although student engagement remains high in the early elementary years, it declines as students move into higher grade levels (Fullan & Donnelly, 2013). We can turn around that trend by engaging students in projects that matter to them and helping them build the mental muscles to tackle difficult challenges.

The shift in teaching necessary to realize this vision of competent, creative young people is far from complete. In Different Schools for a Different World (2018), Scott McLeod (@mcleod) and Dean Shareski (@shareski) describe the pace of school change as frustratingly slow. To create the relevant, engaging, equitable learning environments that students deserve, they call for a greater emphasis on higher-level thinking, student agency, authentic work, and technology infusion. Not surprisingly, they highlight PBL as one of the key building blocks for updating education. They also underscore that the role of teachers remains critical to student success, even as that role evolves to catch up with the demands of the Information Age (p. 17):

Because content is no longer scarce, our students don’t need us to purvey information. But they do need us—now more than ever—to help them learn how to think about the content, wrestle and play with the content, and put the content to work.

Similarly, longtime PBL advocate John Mergendoller (@johnmbie), senior fellow at the Buck Institute for Education, reports that teachers around the world are recognizing the importance of this instructional approach that enables students to master academic skills and content knowledge, develop skills necessary for future success, and build the personal agency needed to tackle life’s and the world’s challenges (Mergendoller, n.d., p. 1).

You may already be familiar with traditional project-based learning, influenced by important early thinkers such as John Dewey and Maria Montessori. Learning by doing has a solid track record as an approach that increases student motivation while improving students’ problem-solving and higher-order thinking skills (Stites, 1998; Thomas, 2000).

In broad strokes, project-based learning is about students investigating open-ended questions and applying their knowledge to produce authentic products or original solutions. Projects typically allow for student choice, setting the stage for active learning and teamwork. PBL is far from a free-for-all, however; teachers design projects to address rigorous learning goals and provide instruction, resources, and feedback to help learners succeed.

Reinventing the project approach does not mean discarding this venerable model. Rather, we advocate building on what we already know is good about project-based learning by integrating technology into teaching and learning in meaningful ways. (See Side Trip: The Case for High-Quality PBL, below.)

By maximizing the use of digital tools to reach essential learning goals, teachers can overcome the boundaries and limitations of the traditional classroom. Some tools open new windows into student thinking, setting the stage for more productive classroom conversations. Others facilitate the process of drafting and refining, removing obstacles to improvement. Still others allow for instant global connections, redefining the meaning of a learning community. When teachers and students thoughtfully integrate these tools, the result is a turbo boost that can take project-based learning into a new orbit.

Side Trip

The Case for High Quality PBL

How many flavors of PBL can you name? Passion-based, problem-based, challenge-based, and place-based learning are just a few of the terms used to describe learning experiences that sound similar in spirit to project-based learning. But definitions are not necessarily clear-cut, and that can lead to head-scratching by educators looking for the best approach for their students. In an Edutopia post a few years back, John Larmer (@johnlbie) of the Buck Institute for Education counted 16 variations on what he calls X-based learning, ending his list with zombie-based learning (Larmer, 2014).

If schools attempt to implement PBL without a clear definition and common language, the result can be confusion for teachers, students, parents, and even potential community partners. Education researchers, too, want to be able to compare apples to apples when they look for evidence of the effectiveness of PBL from one school or classroom to the next. The lack of consensus can result in implementation with varying degrees of academic rigor, curriculum materials derived from competing design principles, and a consequently uneven evidence base for PBL effectiveness, according to a position paper from Lucas Education Research (Baines & DeBarger, n.d., p. 2).

To resolve this issue, two recent initiatives have engaged diverse stakeholders in reaching consensus about the characteristics of high-quality PBL. One framework focuses on the student experience in PBL; the other addresses the role of the PBL teacher in designing successful learning experiences. Both frameworks are consistent with the goals and practices of digital-age PBL.

The Framework for High Quality PBL, introduced in 2018, is informed by research and also draws on the insights of hundreds of practitioners and many of the organizations that advocate for PBL as a core instructional strategy. It identifies six criteria, each of which must be at least minimally present in a project for it to be judged high quality, according to HQPBL advocates. The more emphasis on each of the criteria, the better, when it comes to memorable student learning.

The six criteria for students include (hqpbl.org):

Intellectual challenge and accomplishment. Students learn deeply, think critically, and strive for excellence.

Authenticity. Students work on projects that are meaningful and relevant to their culture, their lives, and their future.

Public product. Students’ work is publicly displayed, discussed, and critiqued.

Collaboration. Students collaborate with other students in person or online and/or receive guidance from adult mentors and experts.

Project management. Students use a project management process that enables them to proceed effectively from project initiation to completion.

Reflection. Students reflect on their work and their learning throughout the project.

These criteria have considerable overlap with what the Buck Institute for Education describes as Gold Standard PBL. In the BIE model, however, the focus is on teacher decisions that set the stage for student learning. As described in Setting the Standard for Project Based Learning (Larmer, Mergendoller, & Boss, 2015, p. 34), Gold Standard PBL is meant to be "an aspirational goal, a composite of the best research-based