Student Centered PBL
Student Centered PBL is where the student plays an active role in determining what their project will be. Rather than a teacher handing them a project idea, students are given the opportunity to develop their own project ideas, topics, driving questions, and timelines. They also choose how to demonstrate learning has taken place with a final project idea. The hope is that when students drive their project, they take ownership and explore their interests as it relates to the course credit they are working on. For example, if a student needs a quarter of World History or American History, they must create a project idea that relates to the topics at hand. The role of the teacher becomes more of an advisor or project coach. The idea is that students have choices in their learning and how they want to demonstrate or show how this learning has taken place. With teacher support, hopefully, students will develop better organizational skills, research skills, communication skills, presentation skills, and self-reflection skills.
This page has resources on it to help a student and teacher get started in Project Based Learning. Many of these ideas were taken and modified from the Project Foundry, Edutopia, and the Intermediate District 287 Project Based Learning Moodle.
The first phase of the process is the Project Request Form. This form can be modified or edited to fit individual student needs. The idea of the form is to get students to spend time up front to design their projects.
After students have submitted their Project Request Form, they are free to begin research on their projects. Both student and teacher have a good idea of a timeline and workload required to complete the project. Graduation standards and benchmarks have also been identified in the project request along with driving questions to be researched and presented.
After students have requested their project, created their project, and shared their project, they are asked to complete a Project Reflection assignment on their project. This allows for reflection of the project and an invitation to go deeper into their subject. It also gives the teacher and student an opportunity to discuss credit and grades for the project. A summary of what worked well and what part of the project could be improved.
As you and your students work with PBL you will soon discover how fun and rewarding the process can be when students are in control of their own learning. It may not work for all students because some of our learners have very little motivation and low skills. It is sometimes better to start small if you are getting push back. You may also need to be very active in the idea generation phase of the project. Sometimes students will want to do a project but the Project Request Form is overwhelming for them because if forces them to think a lot about their project before they get started. If you can modify the request form or get them through most of it, it will make for a much better student centered project.
A great resource is the 287 PBL Moodle. This Moodle has lots of resources to get you going with PBL in your classroom.