I have enjoyed reading all the posts this week.  I am struck by a few key points.

Assessment really drives how we teach and more importantly how students learn. This can be good or bad, depending on the assessment tool.   

I agree with Nancy that rubrics are such great tools. Rubrics enable teachers to be clear with students about product standards. Rubrics can be used for self assessment or a way to assess the quality of a project. 

I appreciate the discussion on incorporating technology into projects.  Not only do our students need to know how to use various technologies, but I think more importantly, technology really makes the learning come alive for students. It increases the likelihood that our students will be engaged in the work because of their comfort and ease with using technology. Our students create movies or post their research online for others to view.  The days of teachers sharing information have passed and now students are becoming content creators.  When they publish content, they are affirmed by others who admire and learn from their work.  They, in turn, are empowered to learn even more.

This dialogue about project based learning is rich and relevant.   In the Orange Schools, we are actively designing – I agree, Suzanne, that “design” is the key – our work to engage students in learning that which we know they need to learn and “be able to do”.  The significant phrase is “be able to do” in terms of demonstration of learning in an authentic and relevant format.  We spent much time over the last several years identifying the essential learnings that students need to know, sequencing from the introduction to mastery, and aligning with the state (Ohio) standards.  However, as we talked about assessment, we realized that tests do not provide enough information about depth of learning, ability to integrate or translate or apply what has been taught.  Project based learning does provide those insights as we see students’ work in progress, watch the integration of knowledge and evaluate students’ responses to the experience.

Last year and into this year, we have been exploring the intentional integration of 21st century skills into the content areas.  As work progressed, a rubric was developed to help us to “see” what students were learning and how the 21st century skills were involved.  Project based learning was a natural result of this work and clearly demonstrated student involvement, engagement and level of learning.  One project that was particularly striking to me occurred in a History and Democracy class of seniors.  The unit was focused on the victims, perpetrators and the rescurers and resisters of the Holocaust and the project was to be multigenred.  I was amazed at the depth of knowledge, the personalization and the authentic connections that came through the project.  Another result of the project based learning is the ability to communicate to parents and the community what we mean by 21st century skills.  Our recent newsletters have focused on these projects and the pictures and stories about the teams working together clarify for many the meaning of the “vocabulary” of the 21st century skills discussion.

  Catherine,  I find your comments at the outset of this discussion to be very important in reflecting that we must give students opportunities to apply those skills they will need to be successful in an unknown future.   Certainly technology integration is essential and it is through some of these projects that not only will students refine and focus their technology skills but teachers are, in some ways, forced to move into new forms of technology such as ning, twitter, bookmarking programs and other technology uses our students are already applying.

I really like the parent quote! Thanks for sharing this, Katie. 

I can’t help but think about how learning could be transformed if project based learning was the norm in schools.  Students would be engaged in meaningful work and solving real problems. Think about how these students would be ready for the real world.  After all, this is what most of us in the world of work do – - solve problems and make things better.

Just recieved this e-mail from an elementary principal:

I am a believer in project/product based learning.  During the last two years our system has taken dramatic steps to increase and improve our focus on product based learning.  We began with a collegeal conversation as to how to design and customize experiences to meet the needs of every learner.  We asked students about their learning and when hey felt challenged, successful and engaged.   It became clear that the work that they valued and were most proud of was that which they produced, using the skills we often identify as survival skills for the 21st century learner.  Collaboration, problem solving, critically thinking, etc.  seemed to be inherent in the design of the work.  We made a bold move by investing in professional learning by providing about 50 teachers and 10 administrators the opportunity to travel from our district in Georgia to High Tech High in San Diego, Californina.  There, our team saw first hand a significant difference in what we often call project based learning and what it really is.  Product focused learning is the work.  It is not a culminating event at the end of a unit, chapter, etc.   Althiough we are in infant stages of this work, we have already seen great results.  I would have to describe product focused learning as the best way to make the content come to life. 

You are right; planning (or designing) is key.  This is why I think it is crucial for teachers to intimately know their content at a deep level and be able to see how it relates to real world learning. In other words, make learning relevant for students.  

Let me share a little more about the notion of designing. In our system (Trussville City Schools), we actually talk about designing rather than planning.  Our teachers identify difficult to teach and hard to learn concepts; then they design experiences that cause students to learn the content at high levels. Planning is determining what teachers and students will do. However, designing starts with the “who” and the “who” in this case is students.  In other words, we must know our students and their interests so that they will be engaged in the work.  Student engagement is important because we know that if students are engaged, this will increase the likelihood that they have ownership over their learning and the learning is meaningful to them. When learning is meaningful to students, they retain what they have learned versus just learning something for a test and forgetting it shortly thereafter.      

Very interesting question to discuss. Project based learning, or, in Chinese term, student-research based learning is a required course for grade 10-12 students for 270 class hours. The school or the teacher decides the way to implement the course. Mostly team-work is encouraged. Course contents vary in different schools.When the project is finished, students will present their work to the class with PPT slides. Teachers or/and student peers will grade each group’s work.

standardized test is rigorous in China, as is wellknown in the world. student-research based learning is a new course requiring every student to take part in ,so that the students can develop their problem-solving abilities.

But of course, text-book learning in the traditional classroom is still a prevailing way of learning in China today.

I think project-process-product approach is a great way to making learning authentic.  However, I think teachers must be clear about the content and ensure that the project enables students to learn the content at high levels.  I have seen some instances (not many), in which students are doing a project, but it is not anchored in the content (busy work or having fun, but not really learning anything significant). I do think that project learning can really make learning come alive for students and this is more consistent with how we function in the real world. 

In our Spanish II classes, Nick Lemonds (teacher) designed an activity in which students researched real estate websites in Spain, selected an actual apartment to rent under a specified amount of Euros, and created a slide show with actual pictures of the apartment, which included a written description (in Spanish) of each room.   

In our engineering academy, our students and teacher Chris Bond are working with NASA engineers through Skype to design a rack for the International Space Station. They receive feedback on their work and redesign as needed. This rack will help isolate vibrations and thus increase the likelihood of successful experiments.

Students in our architecture class with teacher Jason Dooley, were given the assignment to design a lake house for a teacher of their choosing. Each student interviewed their teacher and then designed a lake house using Revit software. As part of the process, they had to comply with building codes. Each student presented his/her final project to their client (original teacher of their choosing). These students are now designing a restaurant.  Bon appetite!

I share these examples because I think they show how a project-process-product approach can make learning come alive for students and enable students to learn at high levels (profound learning versus superficial learning). If we teach the right content through project based learning, I think students, for the most part, will score high on most tests (this may be dependent on what content is being measured). Phillip Schlechty uses the analogy of losing weight.  He says that learning is like eating right and exercising; he goes on to say that weighing ourselves is the measurement (stepping on the scales). He reminds us that repeatedly stepping on and off the scales (over emphasis on testing), is not enough exercise to lower our weight. However, if we focus on eating right and exercising, our weight will go down.  In other words, if we focus on designing high quality work and learning experiences that are anchored in the content, test scores should go up.  Let me take this analogy a few steps further. If we are on a crash diet (like test preparation or drill and skill narrowly focused on superficial learning) and constantly weighing ourselves, we might lose weight (test scores go up), but we might be unhealthy (anorexia, bulimia, damage our heart or other vital organs, etc.) and we might not keep the weight off (retain what we have learned).  Also keep in mind that if we are building muscle, our weight might go up (muscle weighs more than fat).  So measuring our weight (standardized test scores) may not show the whole picture.  This is why we need multiple forms of assessments.  This is why when we are trying to get healthy, we might measure body fat, measure our waist, arms, and legs, measure our blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. This is why we must use a variety of assessments (formative to inform us as about learning along the way and not after the fact, portfolios showing actual samples of student work or products, real live demonstrations of learning or knowledge, etc.) to evaluate student learning.  

I am concerned that our emphasis in school is increasingly becoming driven by standardized testing.  This has always been a pressure that teachers and administrators have felt and has become even more so after NCLB and now Race to the Top.  However, wonder if we are measuring the wrong things? Wonder if we are just measuring low-level learning? Wonder if students can do algorithms to multiply and divide, but don’t think mathematically? My concern is that filling in bubbles on a test does not always translate to students who can think at high levels, apply their learning, analyze a situation, synthesize key points from an abundance of information, distinguish fact from fiction, seek answers to difficult questions, reflect and learn from their mistakes, stretch themselves to solve complex problems, use the internet to find information and publish content, work with others from different cultures, and so much more.  Project based learning (if done correctly) enables students to develop these skills, while learning the desired content. It prepares them for real life, because it is real life.

You raise some tough questions.  I know many teachers are hesitant to have students complete more relevant and rigorous projects, as they fear they will not be able to meet curriculum standards.  This makes proper planning all the more important.  It also alludes to a need for more resources betweeen teachers of ideas and plans for such projects that have proven successful.  These type of projects should deliver on a promise of stronger student engagement, the development of creative processes, better retention of facts, and a deeper understanding of knowledge.

Is it viable to use a project-process-product approach that is interdisciplinary and reflective of higher-order skills in today’s test-driven environment?

Is this an approach that can be used at all grade levels and with all students? What barriers would need to be removed and what problems would be solved by this approach?  

Project-based learning is widely discussed in the blogosphere, and many teachers are using it in their K-12 classrooms. But assigning a project to students once or twice a year (usually when state testing is over) is not enough to transform students’ learning experiences from rote, repetitive test prep to meaningful, personalized, deep learning.

Instead of having students “do projects” as a different way to learn about a topic, savvy teachers are integrating interdisciplinary content goals and 21st century skills (such as researching, analyzing online information, solving complex problems and communicating digitally) into a formal work process that reflects real-world work projects.

Students are energized by the opportunity to produce a relevant piece of work that is published to an interested audience. 21st Century schools such as High Tech High in San Diego embed the project-process-product strategy into daily learning activities across all subjects, and this then becomes a pervasive pedagogical approach.