This article is excerpted from Hands & Minds: A Guide to Project-Based Learning for Teachers by Teachers, and published here with minor edits.
The product is often what distinguishes project-based learning from other education methods—but be careful: project-based learning is about more than just making fancy stuff. The product, and the audience it is intended for, provides a focus for student work from the beginning, and students continue to develop it over multiple drafts, until they have created something worthy of exhibiting. And, well-designed products demand that students discover, practice and master a variety of skills and content in order to create them; exhibitions of student learning motivate critique, revision, deeper learning and ongoing reflection.
There are generally four types of products found in project-based learning classes:
For example:
Project-based learning guided by the creation of an object:
Staircases to Nowhere
Andrew Gloag, Physics, High Tech High
Jeff Robin, Art, High Tech High
To understand the intersection between physics, math, engineering, and the arts, students designed and built staircases to nowhere. Students began by individually exploring, measuring, and documenting existing staircases and then playing with materials and their imaginations to design and build a 1:10 scale staircase by themselves. With a partner, using trigonometry and computer-aided design, they created and built a 1:5 scale staircase. Students selected specific design ideas and in a group of ten they created life size staircases to nowhere at various locations in the school. Students photographed every staircase that they built, saved all of their math and physics classwork and related blueprints, and published a book that documents the project. The model staircases are displayed in the hallways with posters showcasing the blueprints, physics and math, and the full sized staircases became an element of the school’s physical campus.
Project-based learning guided by the creation of a performance:
#Ferguson
Matt Simon, Humanities, High Tech High Chula Vista
After studying a number of different current events, students in Matt Simon’s class decided to write a play focusing on a specific current event: the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, following the shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer. In order to create the play, students listed characters necessary to provide multiple perspectives on what happened in Ferguson and what the root causes were. Next, they made a timeline of events from Brown’s death to the grand jury decision not to indict the police officer. Students worked in teams to write three scenes per team following the same characters through the timeline. The result was a play that combined multiple intertwining stories and perspectives on a controversial news story
Project-based learning guided by the opportunity to provide a service:
Trout in the Classroom
Shelley Glenn Lee, Science, High Tech Elementary North County
Chris Olivas, Physical Science, High Tech Middle North County
Johnnie Lymann, Chemistry, High Tech High North County
Matt Leader, Biology, High Tech High North County
Students at High Tech Elementary, Middle, and High North County developed interdisciplinary projects based on “Trout in the Classroom,” a national project in which students work with their regional Fish and Wildlife Service to raise trout eggs for later release into a local approved freshwater habitat, in an attempt to restore native fish populations in rivers, creeks and watersheds. Elementary, middle, and high students partnered with the Escondido Creek Conservancy and California Fish and Wildlife to raise trout on campus with tanks placed at each school. Each of these science classes worked with other partner classes on projects that aligned service learning with necessary academic curricula. Third graders integrated this experience into their “Great Migrations” project in which they learned about why animals migrate and created maps of local animal migrations. Eighth graders integrated Trout in the Classroom into their “Ripple Effect” project in which they learned about local and global oceanic ecosystems, ocean acidification, and plastic contamination in the ocean. In addition to raising trout in the classroom, they worked to reduce plastic waste by placing water bottle filling stations on campus. Tenth graders learned about water’s role in moving other chemicals through local ecosystems and how to test for levels of specific nutrients and pollutants, and created a website to help other schools do this project. Eleventh graders collaborated with local biologists to study and publish their research into the genetics, anatomy, physiology, evolutionary history, and conservation of Southern Steelhead Trout. All of these students raised Rainbow/Steelhead Trout in their classes and released them into approved local waterways as part of larger effort to reintroduce these trout to the watershed.
Project-based learning guided by an implementable solution to a problem:
The ReVision Project
John Bosselman, English, High Tech High Chula Vista
Megan Willis, Engineering, High Tech High Chula Vista
The ReVision Project is a consultation and design firm run by 50 twelfth-grade students and two teachers. In the 2015/16 school year, ReVision worked with eight clients in the community on a number of different design challenges, ranging from engineering a system to divert trash from the Tijuana Estuary to designing an outdoor coffee shop in the back of a thrift store.
In order to design solutions to these complex issues, students used architectural and visual design strategies, together with human-centered design processes, to create solutions to challenges faced by non-profits, charities, small business, and local government.
Do the Project Yourself
By making your own prototype version of the product, you will deeply understand what students will learn from making the product, whether making it was a valuable use of time, whether you were excited about doing it, what resources (tangible, social, and mental) you needed in order to do it, where you had problems, and how long it took (though remember, it will take the students much longer than it took you!).
Later, when you share your prototype with your students, you may decide as a group to take the project in a different direction from your prototype. This is valuable learning in its own right, and is much more productive than the class coming up with a project as a group without critiquing a teacher’s prototype.
