PBL Blog

An elementary school teacher tells how she starts with the standards, connects subject areas, and collaborates with colleagues to map out interdisciplinary PBL units for the year.

In a computational thinking and coding project, teachers taught collaboration and communication skills by having students define good teamwork, set roles, make agreements about how to work together, engage in team-building strategies, and use a collaboration rubric.

Many resources are available now to help jump-start a teacher’s practice of PBL, but how do you know if they’re good? PBLWorks Editor in Chief John Larmer offers 10 questions to consider when choosing a project to adapt.

A closer look at the need to better teach students how to read informational text, and how to do meet this important goal all 4 phases of a project.

An instructional coach tells how teachers have student teams use a tool from the business world to take ownership of their work in projects.

PBLWorks Editor in Chief John Larmer recaps a classic article from 1991 about urban education, race, and control-based schooling—and finds parallels between the author’s call for “good teaching” and Project Based Learning.

How a school created a tool to guide professional development for PBL teachers seeking to make their projects more authentic.

Suggestions for scaffolding student agency in PBL, giving students greater control as they gain experience with independent work.

PBLWorks Editor in Chief John Larmer recommends and links to recent articles, blog posts, research studies, and other resources related to Project Based Learning.

A math teacher and PBLWorks facilitator explains how to turn “dessert projects” you find online into Gold Standard PBL units, and how to identify standards that can be the focus of PBL units.