March 2006 — Features

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25 Tools, Technologies, and Best Practices

by Dan Page

Discover how your district, school, or classroom can engage in meaningful, real-world learning experiences.

PROJECT-BASED LEARNING is a great way to immerse students in a fun, rich, and challenging learning environment. Based on real-life learning simulations, PBL is appropriate for all ages and multiple intelligences. Critical thinking, goal setting, problem solving, and collaborative skills all come into play in PBL, helping to build the skill sets considered essential for knowledge workers in the 21st century.

PBL allows students to see and experience connections across disciplines, while providing a versatile platform for discovering learning strengths and individual interests. When coupled with valid assessment methods, PBL produces measurable and positive results—even in a standards-driven educational environment.

The Web offers an abundance of PBL activities for all grade levels. Adventurous and creative teachers design their own activities and often share them over the Internet. School and district-level administrators can feel confident in promoting PBL because it engages student interest through relevant and meaningful learning projects. What follows is 25 of the top PBL tools, techniques, and resources that will spark up your classroom and take your students to new heights of collaborative learning.

Assessment: Making Sure PBL Is Working

1 ] Key Elements in PBL Assessment. From building teacher/student connections to encouraging student self-evaluation, PBL assessment benefits students and teachers alike. With Global SchoolNet Foundation, gain insights into key questions about assessing PBL. Discover the importance of “authentic” assessment, which fosters skill development, reflects student learning over time, and builds a measurable mastery of subject matter. Teachers will appreciate the inclusion of ideas and strategies for planning assessments in connection with PBL. Visit www.globalschoolnet.org.

2 ] Creating Checklists. Checklists help educators organize PBL activities and proactively avoid bumps in the road. In addition, checklists offer a systematic way to view assessment in finite pieces and ensure that students have met the requirements of a project. From the students’ viewpoint, checklists are a way of knowing what is expected of them and how they will be graded. Create your own customized, printable checklists and discover examples suited to various grade levels that include several different curriculum topics. A simple online form makes it fast and easy to create assessment checklists. Go to pblchecklist.4teachers.org.