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What is Project-Based Learning?
"To me project-based learning is where outcomes for students are based upon a project that learners feel that they can identify with."
Susan Gaer, Santa Ana College, Assistant Professor of ESL
Project-based learning has tremendous potential for creating a learning experience which is both interesting and meaningful for adult students whether they are learning English, preparing for their G.E.D. or transitioning into the workforce.
As adult educators, we are always looking for innovative ways to facilitate learning. We are all too aware that, when used alone, textbooks, drills and even computer technologies are limited in doing this. In project-based learning, students become actively engaged in their learning experience; the instructor takes a backseat while students initiate, facilitate and evaluate a project that is both meaningful and applicable to their lives. Instructors no longer actively create and direct exercises for passive students, but instead become coaches, facilitators, and sounding boards for student ideas.
It is no secret that students learn better and are more actively engaged in leaning when they have a concrete, meaningful goal to aim for. In addition, learning does not naturally occur in discrete, separate exercises but instead makes its greatest strides when the leaning experience demands a variety of cognitive skills which incorporate the student's own individual experiences. Successful learning is leaning that is meaningful, usable and seems effortless to the student.
In addition to encouraging successful learning, student generated projects develop the workplace competencies asked for by employers throughout the nation and outlined by the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (S.C.A.N.S.) in their 1991 report, "What Work Requires of Schools-A SCANS Report for America 2000."
High among the many workplace skills generated by projects in my class have been successful team building, cooperative decision making, group problem solving, time management, and even fund raising.
These are the skills most valued in the workplace and also the hardest skills to teach through traditional instruction.
Visit the Culebra Mom Student
Generated Projects!
Traditional Teaching
Versus Project-Based Learning
"Something to Think About": A Junior High Presenation
Read my article on this project in
"Focus On
Basics"
"RULER": A Student Orientation Handbook
To go back to Anson Green's home page Click Here
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