I’ve spent the last couple weeks writing about why I think project-based learning is an effective and good way of educating students. Students who have the opportunity to choose what they learn are often more interested and excited, and motivation is a crucial component in determining a student’s success. They take ownership of their own education and learn material on a deeper, more thorough level. So why is there still so much resistance to project-based learning?
Many years ago, a good friend of mine was in her first year at Harvard Medical School and one of her classes was a project based learning class. Real medical cases were presented one week, topics were split up, and the expectation was that each group member would research their topic during the week and understand the material well enough to teach it to the rest of the group the following week. Theoretically, if each person did the necessary research, they could come together and have learned enough to understand and solve the case. She simultaneously loved and hated this class. The topics she researched were deeply learned and would remain with her much longer than her other lecture-based classes. She also loved being able to automatically see the connection between the information she was studying and the applications. But her major complaint was that it was too much work! The pressure of finding the appropriate information in a sea of seemingly unending amounts of facts and figures and deciphering it well enough to teach others in the span of a few days was a constant stress on top of her other classes.
I think her struggle pretty well exemplifies some peoples’ resistance to project based learning. Lecture based classes are definitely going to cover more information and often people question whether the time required for project based learning is worthwhile. We have a finite amount of time with our students so what is the best use of that time? It’s the common debate between Depth vs. Breadth and Covering vs. Uncovering information. And certainly I wouldn’t want to go to my primary care doctor and find out she has a great understanding of how the heart works but not the lungs or liver. Is it different for high school students? What do you think the balance is? Is one more important than the other at different stages of learning?
The business department at the college where we teach the Introduction to Business class using Modules 2 and 7, has set objectives that need to be addressed in order for the students to receive “Business 1010: Introduction to Business” credit. The way that we dealt with it was finding a balance between keeping the core of our class the project of writing their own business plan, while supplementing it with additional reading and writing so the college would find our course acceptable and our students would be ready for Business 1020. We feel like the activities surrounding the larger project allow the students to get a deeper understanding of the concepts. They now not only read about what Market Research is and how important it is, they actually engaged in their own Market Research and learned first hand how to do it and how necessary it is. The way that we’re able to incorporate all of it is that our class runs 30-60 min longer than other Busn 1010 classes at the college. But our students understand that they are high school students taking a college class and they’re willing to put in the extra class time.
Are there other ways you’ve struggled with finding the balance between the different ways of educating students? Please feel free to share your struggles and successes!
As a teacher, there are many difficulties we come across as our students engage in project-based learning. One thing that I often encounter is the difficulty of challenging students to go deeper into their projects when each individual project is so unique.
There are common business principles that all the students need to consider for their business that we go over as a class. Oftentimes we will pick one student’s business to use as an example so the concepts we are discussing are concrete. If we are talking about Promotions and Advertising for the first time, we might pick one student’s business, a hip hop recording studio for example, and together go through what questions to ask and what research needs to be done. What do existing recording studios do to advertise? What could they do better? What type of advertising really influences them personally? What is a realistic expectation for their business during the first year? Can they really afford to have a TV commercial during primetime? This often works well for the first level.
But how do you get the kids to individually go deeper? For me, there are two things that have really helped. The first is having small classes. That way meeting with each student is possible. But this isn’t always an option. And even when it is, it doesn’t always work well. The second thing that makes a huge difference is when students are paired with a mentor, someone in the community who preferably has some background in their particular type of business. These mentors not only help students go deeper, they also help students think realistically.
One business concept that students are often resistant to is the idea of starting small by finding a niche and being the best at it. One student wanted to open a restaurant that catered to everyone in every situation. She wanted to offer an array of different types of food (American, Chinese, Italian, Japanese and Mexican) and have different dining areas to accommodate everything from formal dining to casual, family-style dining. I repeatedly spoke to her about the benefits of starting small, but she refused to budge. I tried different lines of reasoning to dissuade her. “It’ll take a fortune to start a business like that!” “Is it really possible to have quality, authentic food when offering so many options?” “I personally would never order Chinese food from even a pan-Asian place because they’re never any good!” And on and on. Nothing. But, one word from her mentor, a restaurant owner, and she changed her plan. It was great to see, but still slightly insulting. =) She had the opportunity to spend time at the restaurant and see what it really takes to run one well. And the business plan that she was working on became much more than just an assignment.
Are there other things you’ve done to support your students in their project-based learning that has worked well? Please feel free to share!!
Last Friday, I was listening to NPR and the topic of discussion was, “What makes a great public high school.” I only caught a fraction of the show, but during those 5-10 minutes, they said that Newsweek’s latest “Top 100 High Schools” study shows that small, more personalized, project-based learning seems to be most effective. Afterwards, I thought about it more and reflected on my experience teaching small, project-based classes using the Ford PAS modules.
One of the classes I teach is Introduction to Business using Modules 2 and 7. The entire semester is one big project, culminating with each student presenting their business plan to a panel of their peers, high school and college staff and local business members. Like all other classes, the beginning of the semester is filled with enthusiasm and optimism. Students are excited with the idea of learning how to start their own business and they expect the process to be enthralling and captivating at all times. This lasts about… two weeks. Possibly a month. And then reality sets in. It’s a lot of hard work. At that point, many things can make a difference. If they’re self-motivated or if the overhanging grade motivates them, they’ll likely get the work done. If they have a parent or teacher who keeps them accountable, that always helps. But what I’ve observed truly makes a difference for my students is how real the project is for them, in other words, how likely are they to actually get the business running and start making money now. Immediate gratification, nothing beats it as a motivator!
A few semesters back, I had a stellar student who was interested in sustainable, organic and local farming. Her business idea was to start an organic café, and she did an excellent job completing assignments. Then, someone suggested to her that she could start smaller by having a stand at a local weekly farmer’s market that summer and the whole plan took on a life of its own. Once the idea became real, there was a lot more work that the assignments didn’t cover- finding out health regulations and certificate requirements, contacting city officials in charge of events, actually contacting local farms, etc.- but there was a real end goal that made it worthwhile for her.
I think a great thing about project work is that oftentimes, it requires/allows students to initiate and therefore take responsibility for their learning. I think one thing that many students struggle with when taking classes is they don’t buy into the assumption that the knowledge that they gain now is going to be necessary/beneficial for their future. (I struggled with that a lot when I was teaching Physics and Chemistry. It’s really hard convincing a student that knowing the difference between an Arrhenius and Bronsted-Lowry acid will be of importance later in life…) But if there is a concrete goal, and learning new skills and information could help them achieve that goal, then more often then not, they hop on board.
But even with project work, sometimes it can still be just an assignment to the students. What are some things that you’ve found really get students excited about getting their work done-especially the difficult, time-consuming parts that are just plain hard work?