Talk:Project-based learning

Untitled

On 22 Mar 2005, this article was nominated for deletion. See Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Project Based Learning. Rossami (talk) 04:57, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC) I am writing extensivly on this topic now. I am basically dog tired exhuasted at the moment, but I will recover sometime soon. Then I will straighten out grammar errors, and insert supporting links.

About Project Learning

Project learning is highly constructivist; the best book on the topic, What Children Bring to Light by Bonnie Shapiro, describes it that way, and further more shows how education is beneficial in ways similar to therapy. Constructivism is not unique; it is similar to Synergy from Benedict and Maslow, and also self-acutalization from Rogers and Maslow.

I immediately felt that project learning can be called "project science" or "group learning," with my preference being "project science." Project science does not exclude art; both in independent or group modes, the creative facilities work mentally to create conceptualizations, or collaboratively to create an actual project. These efforts are either imaginative or social: the key components of the "art of life."

Since I first contributed to this article, the above ideas have become my life in education. I worked in a teenage homeless shelter, and in an autistic school, and applied my learning as best as I could in the short times I worked in those places. I am likely heading back to autism where I will try to apply my extension of these ideas in my own way: "empathy as emotional communication."

I have been trying to find a position in a school that would propel me through to my masters and licensure, and then through to my doctorate. From my various "letters" I created a short paper describing my experiences. In every environment I successfully helped my students, but I was at constant odds with management. Empathy in education and therapy: My learning and experiences

Key components of science learning through projects are knowledge construction, along with the questioning of its components, and community: a new and more social version of the scientific method. Social revision of the scientific method

Project science and group learning are the polar opposite of didactic learning, especially top-down learning. I have learned that facilitating innovative learning is nothing new, it predates structured learning; it is tribally native. Benedict derived Synergy from successful Native Tribes, and it could be that the power that the US has had has been native all along.

Having said that I do not personally oppose testing, just the type of social engineering of the "high stakes testing" or the NCLB. I do not even oppose rote learning, such as with arithmetic drills, as long as it includes group participation. I do believe that project learning with a specific responsibility to the community has to replace didactic learning, and that didactic influences need to be resisted.

From Middle School Science on Wikiveristy

The word "project" from project Science is loaded.

I think I can put the issues that inspire project Science in bullet form:

• kids develop a relationship with the world as they become more aware of it
• as they begin to socialize and interrelate, this relationship develops into a shared conception
• when they get to school, and teachers try to straighten them on certain misconceptions,
• they think the teachers are crazy

Kids will tell you what you want to hear, but they think they are really being taught patience with elders. As soon as they back with their friends, the misconceptions are restored, and all is well from their perspective.

The project, or group, science, strategy is to allow them to discover the realities of science on their own by providing them with much the same equipment that our early scientists had, such as prisms, telescopes, microscopes. Their misconceptions are not actually wrong so much as "intelligently wrong," and often the entire community holds the same misconceptions. Here is were the true value is; as the students develop scientific technique and learn how things really are, they go back home and tell their parents what they did. In this way the entire community gets educated -- now that's value.

Science today is seeing a rise in the social science; as we apply scientific technique to social situations, we are far better able to get from these situations the kinds of results we are looking for. When kids do this, they can better experiment with life and conclude earlier what it is that they are good at, and what they like to do. This gives them factors better chances of getting the highest potential out of life, of self-actualizing.John van v 23:12, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

PROJECT BASE LEARNING IS A WASTE OF TIME GEES 21ST CENTURY LEARNING MY ASS TO HELL WITH PBL —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.107.7.75 (talk) 10:27, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

This vandalism should be removed, but I opt to keep it as an example of the limited psychology of those who hate constructive learning. --John Bessa (talk) 14:50, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that there are people out there (such as myself) who dislike project-based learning and cooperative learning simply because they don't click for us. I mean, it's nice that it works for the majority, but the rest of us are given an "F" and told we're not trying hard enough, even though the problem is simply that the way the modern classroom is designed just doesn't work for everybody. Randomnessu (talk) 17:25, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Well if there is to be a space left to weigh in on the subject itself in this talk section, I'd input that: From my perspective it seems that from a community standpoint the PBL education systems and the more traditional education systems they tend to be compared to might just as well turn out to be complementary to each other as each would be a repository for the other in sharing programs or steering students, who might better thrive in one or the other of the divergent learning structures, toward the more appropriate educational setting. When the divergent systems are managed cooperatively it would offer the widest range of options to the students,their families(who may have specific learning priorities in mind for their children) and their own personalized educational goals if not more teaching workload options the educators also. That said the PBL learning system would likely gain greater strength in any given community considering that its greater reliance on social cooperatives would result in a self supporting tendency from alumni regardless if the educational quality could be determined to be inferior. Put more simply the alumnis, students,and staff will naturally have a greater tendency to present a more cooperative effort to any challenge to their alma mater or the applications it will inevitably develop specifically for the communities it serves. Speculative I know but logical. SoNetMedia's Alfred O. Mega (talk) 09:02, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Article Has Odd Tone

This article seems very slick, as if someone is selling my on the value of Project Based Learning not simply informing of what it is and how it works. True, there is a criticism section, but it seems more token than anything else.

For example, "The PROMOTE Georgia Project[2] is an excellent example of iPBL." The word "excellent" sticks in my craw. It is an example that exemplifies the tenets of iPBL. They have success in doing A, B, and C. By calling it "excellent" it gives the entry a weightless quality that is more suitable to a puff-piece than an authoritative entry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.218.166.54 (talk) 01:35, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

If its not a quote from a source, I imagine some of that criticism could probably be easily rectified by using more neutralized expressions eg "excellent" could probably be replaced with a word like "comprehensive" which would more properly convey the likely intended context of the sentence. The best thing to do would probably make such edits in tentative fashions that don't degrade the overall informative integrity of the article. Its likely that much of the article was pulled and produced from a few original sources by a few editors who were familiar with the subject and has simply not been given the proper amount of attention by a rank and file of wikipedia editors who are less personally interested and more objective to the topic to make a more neutral article more fully conformed to the prevailing wikipedia standards. SoNetMedia's Alfred O. Mega (talk) 08:07, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Not psychology

This is purely educational. There is no psychology involved except to say that psychology describes all human activity at a low level. I will remove the psy portal material. --John Bessa (talk) 14:51, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Right, but if it so happens that conclusions drawn from the fields of psychology or sociology are established to have played a notable key role in the conceptualization, development, or modern deployment of this kind of education system, then it may be counter intuitive to divorce reference to that information from the article. I'm not saying this is the case, because I don't know, but I only mention the rationale as a matter of consideration.SoNetMedia's Alfred O. Mega (talk) 08:40, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

POV

This is a very poorly written article that suffers from a distinct slant. Rather than simply explaining what project-based learning is, from the get-go it presents a biased contrast between PBL and "traditional" education that is disingenuous at best. I will work on the bias issues in the future when I have time to get to it. 32.218.41.189 (talk) 16:29, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

I imagine that might be a bit of an unavoidable tendency given the typically competitive and contested social nature of the subject matter. My meaning is that strategically divergent education systems tend to be very competitive and socially contested especially in terms of practical value and community funding. Its criticisms and comparisons are likely an inextricable aspect of explaining PBL,its history, concepts,and legacy and I would expect the same of any education system or philosophy that is seen as alternative to the more established traditional systems. What is probably most surprising is that the criticism section is not more fully fleshed out with detailed citations,references, and direct practical,statistical, and theoretical challenges to the conclusions drawn by proponents of PBL mentioned in the article. eg it is mentioned that the system (and I paraphrase) is most often criticized for the shortcomings associated with relying on group dynamics to assess individual student learning and retention outcomes. The idea of that criticism is conveyed but I don't recall any real citation of such criticism or identification of any notable persons in a relevant field of study who may have made the criticisms or if,when and where the issue has been debated in a forum noteworthy of having an effect on any known deployment or analysis of the system. Again this is an aspect of the article that I'd expect to improve as interest in the topic grows on wikipedia and in educational practice as more data becomes more readily available. In other words the more such education systems proliferate into real world practice the more the article will be forced to undergo that kind of scrutiny and improvement. SoNetMedia's Alfred O. Mega (talk) 08:31, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

I have removed the POV tag from the article. I did not assess it for POV but since the tag has been on there for over 3 years and no one has really discussed the problems it must not be that bad. If it is a concern a new tag with discussion should happen. ~ GB fan 13:52, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Project-based learning/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Comment(s)

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Project-based learning and problem-based learning processes are both derived from the popular concept of outcomes-based teaching and learning methods. However, these processes have serious flaws if they are introduced into the academic stream too early. Mature and experienced people bring a wealth of knowledge and information into a project or problem-solving environment. But, immature, inexperienced and limited knowledge students are not yet equipped to make valuable contributions to these group analyses and decision making projects. In fact, the brightest students and the hardest working students provide a major proportion of the outcomes in these projects. Yet, the group is given a group grade and thus the weaker contributors inevitably benefit more than they earn. Unfortunately, primary education has deteriorated substantially during the past 50 years in equipping students with good fundamental knowledge and skills. A comparison of english and math test requirements and results will poignantly verify this. However, primary graders may demonstrate a slightly broader range of knowledge nowadays due to the impact of extra-curriculum exposure. But their demonstrable skills in the 3R's and other subjects is significantly less than what their grandparents' skills were. Of course, at the root of this issue is the classroom time being under-utilized by group assignments and projects at the primary school levels. If this time were dedicated to effective teaching of the fundamental learning blocks and skills at the primary level, the quality of outcomes based projects at the higher educational levels would dramatically increase. 64.229.236.170 16:30, 3 April 2007 (UTC)Jim Reid, Toronto, Canada

Last edited at 16:30, 3 April 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 03:26, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Lede too long

This article's lede is too long. I propose cutting it into a new section starting on the second paragraph. Perhaps we can title it, "Description," better yet, "History," even when it lacks a well-planned historical timeline, or something similar. Any thoughts? Caballero/Historiador ^⎌ 01:58, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi, Caballero/Historiador. I have edited the lede and created a History section. The tag citing the issue has been removed accordingly. Regards, Darwin Naz (talk) 23:13, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Language and Literacy Acquisition and Development

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 30 August 2022 and 21 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Amazingfaith Yes (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by LehmanProf (talk) 15:00, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: EDFN 508 Introduction to Research

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