Project-Based Learning Engages K–12 Students with Real-World Challenges

McKissack, which uses Promethean interactive whiteboards and mobile technology carts outfitted with Dell Latitude laptops and Office 365, recently showcased its students’ STEAM projects (in science, technology, engineering, art and math) at an education event held at Tennessee State University.

“It’s just good teaching and learning,” Chappelle says. “We’ve found PBL combined with technology to be one of the best ways to engage students in their academics and expose them to different real-world topics.”

The concept of “learning by doing” isn’t entirely new, but it’s come roaring back into vogue in recent years.

“It really is a phenomenon that is accelerating at elementary and secondary schools all around the world,” says Suzie Boss, coauthor with Jane Krauss of Reinventing Project-Based Learning, Third Edition, published by ISTE, the International Society for Technology in Education.

A key reason for PBL’s popularity is that, combined with technology, it provides the real-world relevance needed to fully engage students.

“It allows students to answer that age-old question that they have always asked: Why do I need to know this?” says Krauss. “And that’s because what they’re doing and learning is more like the outside world that they’re going to enter — whether it’s college or career — and how they’ll interact within it, whether it’s problem-solving through collaboration and critical thinking or creating things or having opportunities to learn new technology skills.”

CHECK IT OUT: Here are 5 Steps to a Successful K–12 STEM Program Design

At-Risk Students Gain Practical Skills in Problem-Solving

ACE Leadership High School in Albuquerque, N.M., has a curriculum based solely on technology-enhanced PBL as a way to retain at-risk students.

Tori Stephens-Shauger, ACE Leadership HS Photography by: Photography by Steven St. John.

“It provides the learning relevancy that these older students need to really engage and find their purpose in school,” says Tori Stephens-Shauger, ACE Leadership’s executive director and principal. “They’re not just doing a project at the end of a book unit. We design real tangible problems, real situations for them to explore and solve, and it sets up kind of a pressure system for learning, where kids are now willing to take some academic risks to learn the hard skill or concept that they may have previously struggled with, just so they can have their answer to this project.”

Among other tools, students have access to Chromebooks and Acer laptops, which they use to complete six projects throughout the year.

ACE Leadership is unique in that all PBL is designed to help students develop problem-solving skills common to three industry areas: architecture, construction and engineering. 

As part of a project highlighting medical innovation, for example, students were tasked with creating a prosthetic hand that included a second opposable thumb. Students used 3D modeling applications such as TinkerCAD, 3D printers and laser cutters to produce their prototypes.

“Some of the results were better than others, of course, but the learning that took place was so much more than just creating the best possible product to specification,” says Stephens-Shauger. “They learned about the history of medical innovation, the engineering that goes into design over time, how to understand and build on precedents that have been set, how to empathize with someone in need of a prosthetic, how to present a prototype to a client, and how to take constructive advice and go back and make improvements.”

LEARN MORE: Read about how modern classrooms are addressing current and future academic and technology needs.

PBL Helps Students Tackle Complex, Ambiguous Subject Matter

Schools don’t have to limit PBL to the upper grades, says Jim Bentley, a middle school teacher at Foulks Ranch Elementary School in Elk Grove, Calif.

For six years, he’s been teaching fifth and sixth graders using the National Geographic Geo-Inquiry process, which is PBL from a geographic perspective.

“Educators have long tried to streamline, simplify or make easy what is really complex, messy, frustrating, ambiguous and challenging,” he says. “A PBL approach allows for a little bit of ambiguity, a little bit of uncertainty to creep back in because you’ve got students working as explorers of thoughts and skills.”

For Bentley, it’s all about “asking questions, collecting data either by going into the field or through research, visualizing information in a way that’s compelling or revealing to other people and then creating a story or narrative that will drive an action.”

For example, his students read the novel A Long Walk to Water, based on water scarcity in South Sudan, and then embarked on a project to figure out how to make water more accessible in their own community while also reducing plastic waste.

To explore this topic, he and his students visited 146 parks, restaurants and coffee shops to determine the location of drinking fountains and places to obtain a free glass of water. All of the collected data was entered into Esri’s Survey123, a geographic information system tool, which created a story map about project methods, significance, findings and recommendations.

Ultimately, the students determined that the best solution was to install filling stations for reusable bottles at several sites, including parks, sports complexes and every school within the Elk Grove Unified School District.

In other projects, whether determining the human impact on water quality or how plastic gets from the suburbs to the sea, Bentley has relied on numerous types of technology, from Google Docs and Slides to Flipgrid and video tools.

The key to success, he says, is making sure the tools actually further project goals.

“The wow factor should never be the motivation for why you’d use the technology,” he says. “Technology is a tool that enables PBL, but it’s not the driver. The exploration and the reflection on it — that’s where the learning happens. That’s where the magic is.”