Traditionally, lots of college work looks like a ladder to climb. Modernist teaching methods advocate for teachers to follow a set of lesson plans in a sequence. The routine of college is then a set of activities that are ruled by a timetable. The bigger the college, the more subjects offered usually means the timetable determines almost every moment of the college day. I’m sure many parents remember the college bell sounding the end of fifty minutes of ‘chalk and talk’. Understandably, the idea of college being organised differently goes against the consensus, which is why approaches to college such as project based learning (PBL) is seen as an alternative style. When we think about how the world works, how universities work and how the vast majority of sport is organised – PBL is how most of us learn outside of college.
This sketch illustrates the learning process in a unit of study that is looking at architecture, the Olympics, societies and more, in Stage 4. On the left, are three strands of research. This is the hard up-hill slog of gathering and selecting the best information for the ‘end product’. Where traditional colleges might have a test or an exam when the research stage ends – the teacher has handed out the information and wants to see what they remember – our students start to organise the research into groups of information and use all their research to plan their final presentation. Many students write notes and use the notes for a test. But in PBL students highlight, cut up and select the most important information using their notes – and then apply it. In this case, they might choose to make a website – but it could be anything, as long as it allows them to defend, justify and create a new ‘product’ that shows what they have learned – and decided what was most valuable.
Rather than move ever upward – where a test is seen as something on top of everything else, or a student having to write an essay on top of their research – the planning stage is all about creativity and thinking how to move into the downhill run of creating something from that uphill section. Just like sport or university, PBL moves through stages, and doesn’t require a rigid set of lessons and handouts. Learning is not just about the research, nor remembering information – it’s also about developing an insight into how to go about research, planning and application of what has been learned … which is really what life is about – and what is meant by the idea of ‘authenticity’.
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