FQAS: Teaching Methods

A teaching strategy which involves a group of students collectively completing a specific project, and acquiring the knowledge they need in the process. The Macquarie Dictionary.

A project-based curriculum is built around project work, where students—guided, rather than directed, by faculty—gain responsibility for their own learning by tackling tangible, open-ended problems faced by real people. But why should institutions adopt a culture of project-based learning, and what are the benefits to doing so?

Project-based learning (PBL) involves students designing, developing, and constructing hands-on solutions to a problem. The educational value of PBL is that it aims to build students’ creative capacity to work through difficult or ill-structured problems, commonly in small teams.

The HQPBL Framework below is intended to stimulate reflection and conversation about ways that projects can be improved and deepened. The six criteria were chosen as a necessary starting point for providing students access to high quality Project Based Learning because they are an essential baseline, but they are not all-encompassing.

When transitioning to PBL, one of the biggest hurdles for many teachers is the need to give up some degree of control over the classroom, and trust in their students. But even though they are more often the “guide on the side” than the “sage on the stage,” this most certainly does not mean that teachers don’t “teach” in a PBL classroom. Many traditional practices remain, but are reframed in the context of a project.

PBL routinely uses creative thinking, problem-solving, production, and performance are the natural focus of instruction, but it’s useful for nearly every discipline. PBL makes connections between disciplinary boundaries more apparent. For example, a PBL course that studies water quality will need to consider how to synthesize considerations from several sciences, business, public health issues, etc. to best understand the problem.

The Center’s PBL Research Brief series addresses the research behind the pedagogy as related to a variety of applications and institutional environments.

The HQPBL framework contains six criteria: Intellectual Challenge and Accomplishment, Authenticity, Public Product, Collaboration, Project Management, and Reflection. Each is described below, with a brief discussion of relevant educational research and theory.

This chapter focuses on project‐based learning in colleges of business, a concept that offers the student a “hands‐on” approach to knowledge by working on actual projects with business community organizations. However, it may take more than such partnerships to assure graduates become “educated people” as well as those vocationally trained. Solutions to balancing theoretical and universal knowledge with practical application are explored. New Directions for Teaching & Learning. Spring2016. Education Research Complete (EBSCO).

The article focuses on the establishment of a classroom which will make a different connection among teachers, students, and their community in the U.S. It states that the projects are carefully planned, managed, and assessed to assist students practice 21st-century skills, create high-quality presentations and products, and academic content in project-based learning (PBL). Techniques: Connecting Education & Careers. Oct 2012. Education Research Complete.