Project based learning is the process of
teaching students skills to be successful in a n educational setting as well as
a real world setting. PBL is about breaking down the traditional barriers and
utilizing the plethora of resources we as educators and students have access to
enhance and update our teaching techniques to keep up with the world around us.
As we start the journey to discover and explore PBL, it’s important that we
remember that learning is a lifelong, everyday process, although our formal
education will eventually come to an end, our everyday adventures through the
world will not. We also need to keep in mind that although we may be educated
and intelligent human beings, there is someone out there who knows something we
don’t and to discover more knowledge and information, we must effectively socialize
and communicate with each other in order to receive said knowledge. The PBL
approach will allow students to pursue their own specific interests but also to
aid in their peers interests as well therefore giving them a stake in their
learning and give it more importance. PBL allows all types of learners to
actively participate in the classroom, no matter if you are an auditory learner
compared to a visual learner. PBL also allows students to collaborate on work,
think critically, and to problem solve with the teacher standing in the
background monitoring it all, rather than leading a discussion in the
forefront. The benefits are endless because it truly is the process of
“shifting the teachers role” from what we all are used to. PBL allows educators
to work with small groups and determine what they specifically are struggling
with rather than having to move on as an entire group because it “seems like”
the majority understands. The only problem or issue that seems to come about
with the PBL approach is special education and non-typical learners. Although
special education students have a very large range of function, is PBL the best
possible learning style for these children who may not even be in the classroom
all day? Does PBL truly provide them with the information they need to prosper
and succeed or does the social aspect of it exclude them yet again? Overall,
PBL the main idea of PBL is to prepare students for the outside world and
special education students are included in that. A perfect example of a working
PBL model was New Technology High. The first thing that stood out was the smaller
class sizes within the school. 100 people per grade and a maximum of 400 for
the school truly allows each student to have the chance to develop a
relationship with most if not all of their teachers and to feel more at home
because of that. New Technology High seems to run like a business does, rather
than a school, and that seems to be a good thing. Teachers are given incentives
to collaborate with each other rather than just working on their own which in
turn will only benefit the students from year to year. New Tech High seems like
they really care about learning as whole, rather than just the grades they will
receive at the end. Although it is a bit drastic, hopefully one day the
majority of our schools can effectively run like New Tech High and all students
can come out of their formal educations prepared and ready for the real world.
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