Your Students Might Not Learn Academic Stuff in Project-Based Learning. Here's Why.

Last year, I was invited to the Danish Parliament to discuss Project-Based Learning with a handful of other teachers, consultants and folks in the PBL world. Afterwards, I walked out with a colleague who I've worked with for many years.

She casually said to me: Did we miss talking about how hard PBL is?

We totally did. In the enthusiasm and success stories, I fear we did leave the conversation with a feeling that PBL is easy to do and that everyone can have success with it. I wrote an email to the politician who invited us the following day explaining some realities that were important for me to share.

In the discussion at Christiansborg, many of the participants shared how PBL could be coupled with the existing curriculum and lead to deep academic learning. There was a resounding agreement around the table that PBL was not in conflict to the national curriculum and could still prepare kids for the mandatory exams in 9th grade. The experiences represented in the group are true. They are compelling and without a doubt, PBL can be a powerful tool for learning in all of the subjects.

But this is not guaranteed.

It is not guaranteed that PBL will lead to deep academic learning. 

In fact, there is a lot of crappy PBL out there that will not lead to deep academic learning. 

Yes, I said it. 

It is a harsh reality that a lot of schools that work with "PBL" will never reach a point of planning, facilitating and evaluating real content in PBL. It's not to say that kids are not learning. They are. All of the time. In some contexts, that's enough and they have no desire to integrate more academic learning. Fine! Let's move on. 

But to say that PBL can keep up with the curriculum demands of the traditional system? 

That largely depends on what version of PBL we're talking about. 

Not all "PBL" is created equal.

It's both the gift and the curse of PBL. It's not a concept like basketball, where the rules are clear and universally agreed on. There's a ball, a hoop and a period of time. PBL is open to interpretation. There is no governing body that determines what is PBL and what is not. There are different brands of PBL, different definitions. A school that works with a 1-day project may call what they're doing PBL while other schools won't settle for less than 6 weeks. A consulting firm is OK when a project doesn't have an exhibition and calls it "PBL" while others refuse to consider it Project-Based Learning without one. 

It's beautiful because in an ideal world, we can all "cook" with the ingredients of PBL. 

But when we start to offer PBL it on a menu, it's a huge problem. 

When we start to talk with politicians about the promises and potential of PBL... it's a bigger problem. 

What great PBL schools do.

After the PBL Round Table, I did some reflection about the schools who were represented at the discussion and what they do that has led them to such success in deep academic learning. On the surface, this list is not rocket science and might be difficult to understand how schools working with PBL are not doing these things... most of them are to some degree but most lack the depth and commitment to developing each of these points. 

Here's what they do: 

The projects are very well designed. 

No project plan is perfect and I'm not talking about every little detail of a project being planned ahead of time. But getting down to a level where teachers are "reverse engineering" academic learning goals into their project design is key. When teachers can look at a question, look at a product or do the project themselves first to understand what kind of academic learning is needed... the is a much better chance that learning is experienced by students. This does not mean that teachers need to front load content and teach kids everything they need to know at the start of the project. This means they can be more confident to let go in the process because the elements of PBL will require new academic learning. Discovery. The project won't work without it. 

I have sat in schools where the project starts next week and teachers are just starting to plan. Where there is a mindset that projects are for "soft skills" and therefore do not need academic content thought in. Where they think we'll get back to the real learning as soon as the project is over. Where teachers plan with a hope and a prayer that the kids will learn something because they wrote it on the planning document. It is difficult to see in sessions like this how PBL can live up to it's promise. 

In schools where projects are poorly designed or just not prepared well enough, the quality of PBL is low. Projects are not much different from theme weeks and our collective understanding of what PBL is also suffers. 

The projects are long, allowing for deep learning. 

The reality is that short projects rarely lead to deep learning. Schools that outline longer project periods (6+ weeks) often lead to better planned projects and more academic learning. Projects that are only 2-3 weeks feel rushed, pressured and shallow. Finding time for a great launch, investigation, product development, feedback, testing, preparing for Exhibition, reflection AND understanding content? Not to mention the really awesome "teachable moments" that often come up during a great project... it's too much in a short period of time. 

When project periods are too short, it reenforces the idea for many teachers (and students) that PBL cannot include deep academic learning. This often means they are not willing to do more, especially as year-groups creep closer to exams. The Catch-22 is that longer projects lead to better designed projects which lead to deeper learning. Schools that cannot get to this level of experience will likely never spend more than a couple weeks a year on PBL and the cycle repeats: lack of learning, less PBL. 

Many schools have combated this situation by creating "project periods" where there is a period of time when the entire school is working with PBL or when individual teams must plan a minimum number of PBL weeks into their year plan but they cannot be shorter than 6 weeks. Frames like these can feel frustrating for teachers at first, but the nudge over time can create the necessary experiences for schools to shift their thinking. 

There are alternative ways to assess learning. 

Not many schools have a plan for how they will actually ensure that kids are learning in PBL. The traditional methods like tests and quizzes feel in conflict to PBL and most teachers do not think it's appropriate to use them. Most schools realize a few years into the process that they need something different: a different toolbox that helps them and students themselves see development and capture learning. 

Some ideas could be: 

• Student Portfolios. Students reflect daily or weekly on their progress. Prompts might be academically based or open reflection questions. Students might be required to take photos of their progress and discuss things that are not working and what they're learning from this. 

• Co-Created Rubrics. By looking at exemplar models of products, students co-create a rubric that outlines learning goals and the quality of work expected of them. These rubrics might include academic content designated by the teacher or create an opportunity for students to develop their own investigative areas within a subject. 

• One-On-One Check-In's. Creating short check-in's with each student as the project progresses can provide a space for teachers to assess and understand how they are progressing. This might be under a structure of academic learning, group-work or general development. Fridays are a great day to do this with a simple sign-up sheet during project work time. Portfolio time is also idea to check in with a few students each day. 

• Exhibition. When students have an Exhibition at the end of a project, it is the perfect time to understand what they have grasped academically. Preparing students to answer questions about their learning in each subject and evaluate their answers can be a powerful addition to an authentic audience in most Exhibition settings. 

• Student-Led Conferences. Students plan and facilitate their own Parent/Teacher conference by preparing evidence from their portfolios and project-work but also from their other learning experiences. 

• Presentations of Learning. Students reflect on how they have developed and what they have learned over a period of time. They prepare a formal presentation for their teachers, parents and a few classmates. After the presentation, there is time for reflective questions and feedback for what the student. 

There is a balance between teacher direction and student autonomy. 

With good intentions, many teachers want to turn projects over to students completely. They say things like "We'll let the kids decide!" and "The kids can choose what product they do..." I fully support this way of thinking but the reality is that adults still have a vital role to play in the organization and facilitating of PBL in traditional settings. There are some schools where academic learning does not present the same pressures as others and where projects can afford to be more loose and student-led, although I would argue that even in those settings there is a skillful role that adults play. 

In schools where PBL hits both student autonomy and academic learning, there is a balance between adult direction and places for students to have ownership. There is not a formula for this, only an intentional discussion before the project starts about where each of these should be placed. If adults are deciding everything about the project (the question, theme, academic learning, the process, the product, the audience, the exhibition) it's too much. If students are deciding everything about the project, for many kids it's too much: cast into the deep end of the pool without ever learning to swim. Finding the balance requires careful consideration and may change depending on what the project is and what it needs. 

In cases where students have a lot of autonomy, it is not likely they will be pushed to learn new academic content. Not because kids can't be curious and find information (they can!) but because most kids are not used to doing this. They stick with things they know. They will do the same Power-Point Presentation when asked to choose a product or put new information on a poster because it's on the check-list. 

Finding the sweet spot between pushing kids to learn something new and capturing their interests is part of the challenge of good PBL. Reflecting on each project through the lens of teacher-owned vs. student-owned can be a good way to understand what types of project designs will lead to deep academic learning and which kinds fall short of new learning. 

The school is committed to PBL. 

There is a long standing question about whether a school needs to be "wall to wall" PBL (projects most of the time) or whether a school can use PBL as another tool in the toolbox... and what the implications of this approach is. I have my own thoughts about this, but from the schools represented at Christiansborg, they are committed to PBL. They do PBL projects many times each year and consider PBL to be an important method for learning at their school. 

They have also committed to the time and resources that PBL requires. Nearly all of the schools at the PBL Round Table have been working with PBL for a minimum of 3 years. Some 6 years. A few 10+ years. These processes are long, especially from a school development perspective. 

What I see is that most schools do not believe it takes this long. They settle on whatever form PBL is in after a couple years and plateau in their development. They stop asking hard questions or pushing themselves. Most schools move away from ridged frameworks (like project periods) and planning tools believing they can just do it themselves now. They send a few teachers away to a special training and believe all challenges can be solved from a 2-day course. They call wherever they land "Project-Based Learning" and it becomes another tradition the school does two times each year. 

There are many problematic things about that approach, but the biggest is that it will not likely lead to deep academic learning. It's not enough time and enough experience to realize PBL's potential. 

Where do we go from here? 

The issues with great PBL vs. low-quality PBL and the potential for either of them to live up to their promises is not a new dilemma. About ten years ago, I sat with a group of PBL Consultants on a Zoom Call where we discussed this very issue. Dayna Laur, Ed.D. wrote her Ph.D. on the qualities of high-quality PBL and presented a very compelling argument for why we need to stop calling every project PBL. In 2018, a group of leading PBL organizations got together and made a Framework for High Quality PBL where they agreed on the qualities of PBL that lead to better outcomes for kids (https://hqpbl.org/). PBLWorks (the USA's largest PBL support company) has tried for years to battle the issues of scaling PBL by defining their own success criteria for great PBL. Russell John Cailey recently wrote a LinkedIn article about this dilemma and Thom Markham, Ph.D. has been talking about this for seemingly forever. 

Part of the discussion at Christiansborg was whether PBL should be named something different so it doesn't conjure up thoughts of chaos, fluff and glorified project-weeks. My opinion on this is, no. It shouldn't be called something different. We should all commit to do the hard work of understanding what types of PBL lead to great outcomes for kids and spend more time shining a light on the qualities of these PBL experiences rather than talking generally about PBL as a method. 

I realize that with this article, I am pulling myself into a rather decisive position that may turn people off. No one really wants a consultant telling them what they're doing isn't good enough. But I think we're beyond a "sales-pitch" here and into sharing every piece of learning that we have about what works for schools...

And being honest about what doesn't.