“Project Based Learning; a Real Learning Experience” ” is an integrated learning approach. A project is meaningful if it fulfils two criteria. First, students must perceive it as personally meaningful, as a task that matters and that they want to do well. Second, a meaningful project fulfils an educational purpose. Well-designed and well-implemented PBL------------ -----------------

1. Project Based Learning; a Real Learning Experience
Researched and Prepared by
Rajeev Ranjan
Principal
B.Ed(English)
Post Graduate Diploma in Teaching English (PGDTE)
English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad
&
BA & MA (English)
Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi
www.rajeevranjan.net
Email .Id: rajeevbhuvns@gmail.com
“Project Based Learning; a Real Learning Experience” ” is an integrated
learning approach. A project is meaningful if it fulfils two criteria. First,
students must perceive it as personally meaningful, as a task that matters
and that they want to do well. Second, a meaningful project fulfils an
educational purpose. Well-designed and well-implemented PBL------------
-----------------

2. Project Based Learning; a Real Learning Experience
A systemic teaching method that engages students in learning essential
knowledge and skills through an extended, student-influenced inquiry
process structured around complex, authentic questions and carefully
designed tasks and products. In other words, a task or problem engaged in
usually by a group of students to supplement and apply classroom studies.
It is considered as an alternative to paper-based, rote memorization,
teacher-led classrooms. Proponents of project-based learning cite
numerous benefits to the implementation of these strategies in the
classroom including a greater depth of understanding of concepts, broader
knowledge base, improved communication and interpersonal/social skills,
enhanced leadership skills, increased creativity, and improved writing
skills.
“When teachers and their students are “connected” through project based
learning, the “world” becomes an indispensable curriculum resource.”-
(NCF 2005) Teachers are no longer their students’ primary sources of
information. Instead, they are the designers of learning who created the
conditions for the students to conduct their own enquiries, and advisers to
whom learners can come as they create their product. It is in fact, also
known as enquiry-based learning /inquiry-based learning, and problem-
based learning. Initially, John Dewey promoted the idea of “learning by
doing in ‘My Pedagogical Creed’. It was popular at the beginning of the
20th century and again in the current century. Project-based learning has
been associated with the "situated learning" perspective of James G. Greeno
(2006) and on the constructivist theories of Jean Piaget.
Today, teachers around the world are designing projects for their students
because they ignite a shared passion for learning in both students and staff;
they foster a wide range of skills (such as time management, collaboration,
and problem solving) that students will need at school, college, university,
and in the workplace; and they can be tailored to suit students with a wide
range of abilities and learning needs. Fortunately, designing projects help
students to master the content which they are required to learn. The best
way to do this is by using ‘backwards planning’. (The Teacher’s Guide to
Project-based Learning). PBL provides a new life experience for
collaborative learning i.e. how to share, care and come out from real

3. situation of conflict (working in group) where a certain number of people
is working to achieve a single goal.
Objective of Project Based Learning mentioned in (Project-Based Learning ,
A Resource for Instructors and Program Coordinators, National Academy
Foundation and Pearson Foundation). Project based classroom is dynamic
and interactive. Teacher is an active learner and facilitator. It starts with a
problem, facts and skills in a relevant context.
Well-designed projects ask students to:
• Tackle real problems and issues that have importance to people beyond
the classroom. Projects emanate from issues of real importance to students
and adults in the community and answer the age-old student question
“Why do we need to know this?”
• Actively engage in their learning and make important choices during the
project.
Projects make room for student choice and creativity while still demanding
student mastery of essential content, enabling students and teachers to
interact as co-learners in the experience, rather than in the traditional
student-teacher relationship.
• Demonstrate in tangible ways that they have learned key concepts and
skills.
Projects provide opportunities for students to produce observable evidence
that they have mastered rigorous curricular standards as they apply their
learning and solve the problem at hand. PBL empowers students with life
skills i.e. critical thinking, problem solving, decision making, and various
forms of learning skills. Projects and exhibitions also provide extensive
evidence of process work and self-directed learning.

4. Key Points of Project Based Learning:-
1. A project is meaningful if it fulfils two criteria. First, students must
perceive it as personally meaningful, as a task that matters and that
they want to do well. Second, a meaningful project fulfils an
educational purpose. Well-designed and well-implemented Project
Based Learning (PBL) is meaningful in both ways.
2. In terms of making a project feel meaningful to students, the more
voice and choice, the better.
3. Teachers should design projects with the extent of student choice
that fits their own style and students. On the “the more the better”
end of the scale, students can decide following points:
A. What product they will create?
B. What resources they will use?
C. How they will structure their time?
4. “PBL integrates knowing and doing. Students learn knowledge and
elements of the core curriculum, but also apply what they know to
solve authentic problems and produce results that matter.” Markham
(2011)
5. ‘PBL refers to students designing, planning, and carrying out an
extended project that produces a publicly-exhibited output such as a
product, publication, or presentation.
6. PBL emphasizes learning activities that are long-term,
interdisciplinary and student-centered.
7. PBL differs from traditional inquiry by its emphasis on students'
collaborative or individual artefact construction to represent what is
being learned.
8. PBL organizes around an open-ended driving question or challenge.
9. PBL project plan should include the essential curriculum content for
the project.
10. PBL promotes critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and
various forms of communication, often known as "21st Century Skills.
11. PBL promotes students to use technology in meaningful ways to help
them investigate, collaborate, analyze, synthesizes and presents their
learning.

5. 12. PBL is an effective strategy for teaching complex skills such as
planning, communicating, problem solving, and decision making. (
Dr. John W. Thomas, 2000)
13. PBL can help increase student attendance, attitude, and self-reliance.
For teachers, PBL can help increase professionalism and
collaboration. ( Dr. John W. Thomas, 2000)
14.Role of student is to ask questions, build knowledge, and determine
a real-world solution to the issue/question presented. PBL allows
them to think rationally on how to solve problems. PBL forces
students to take ownership of their success.
I. Collecting information
II. Developing question
III. Exploring material and discussing outcome with peers
IV. Reflecting on the result
15. Role of teacher Project Based Learning is that of a facilitator. The
instructor regulates students and ensures that students should
remain focused and have a deep understanding of the concepts being
investigated. The students are held accountable to these goals
through ongoing feedback and assessments. We always face
challenges while implementing a concept and learning new things.
PBL is students’ friendly learning approach under kind guidance of a
teacher to involve students in working on tasks. However, there is
several questions arise for implementing PBL in real life teaching
learning situation. We can also see the teachers’ role in following
areas.
I. Offer guidance on subject/theme/topic
II. Formation of different types of learner and their performance
level
III. Holding meeting for further course of action
IV. Facilitating learners in different layers of project
Teachers can also meditate on following points:-
1. Will this project engage my students?
The Learning Futures schools use a checklist to gauge the likely
engagement of students in any given project idea. We call it ‘the Four Ps of

6. Deep Engagement’. Before going too far with an idea for a project ask
yourself whether the project is:
• Placed – is it located in a place that is important to students (e.g. their
home, community, town, city or virtual environment)?
• Purposeful – will it result in a product, service or body of knowledge that
others will make use of? Will the process seem authentic to students?
• Pervasive – will students be sufficiently engaged in the project’s
activities that they’ll want to voluntarily take the learning outside school
and school hours? Is it likely to broaden students’ horizons?
• Passion-led – Does the project tap into students’ passions?
2. Will this project engage me?
It’s important that facilitator is personally curious and involve about the
project’s outcome, that s/he will learn new things from it.
3. Will my students learn something meaningful from this project?
It’s a good idea to make a list of the things you expect your students to
have learned: this should include subject content, skills, as well as
attributes to be developed (e.g. confidence, resilience, and
resourcefulness).( The Learning Futures school)
During the project planning phase, teachers must make sure that the
project will result in student-generated evidence of learning that aligns
closely with intended skill and content standards. (National Academy
Foundation and Pearson Foundation)

7. Integration of Inter- Disciplinary Subjects
PBL promotes integrated learning approach in this fast growing world
where technological integration requires at every step of learning. It is
combined learning approach where we can integrate different subjects into
one project work i.e. a language teacher asks students to prepare a project
on ‘bird migration’. He enquires other subject teacher that, is there a lesson
related to nature/environment or other interdisciplinary theme or not in
respective subjects. He finds several correlated lessons in different subjects.
He finds that students can get good ideas from subject English (unit –
Environment), Science (Diversity in Living Organism), Social Science
(Natural Vegetation and Wild Life) and Mathematics (Statics). (PBL,
CBSE) Teacher guides his students to collect the material/content from
different subjects, students collect ideas which help student to work on the
given project. This activity increases not only interest of students to read
other subjects but also to give equal importance to all subjects. PBL
approach provides opportunity for the teacher to become a facilitator in
real sense. He becomes the torch bearer in developing tools and techniques
on how to examine and analyze issue, the information they need to collect,
planning, organizing the framework of the project. The projected action
will be initiated by the students.
Difference between “Activity” and “Project”
There is much confusion among teacher about the difference between
‘activity’ and ‘project’ in regular teaching learning process. Project based
learning guide developed by National Academy Foundation and Pearson
Foundation clearly mentioned the difference i.e.
ACTIVITY PROJECT
Students in a history class study
Westward Expansion for three
weeks, culminating with a “Frontier
Feast” where students dress in
period costumes and eat typical
western fare from the era.
Students in a history class spend
three weeks focused on the essential
question “How did Westward
Expansion impact our community?”
Students learn about the period,
research local connections, and
design a museum exhibit featuring
historical artifacts, primary source
documents, and expert commentary

8. from local historians. The exhibit is
mounted in the community center
lobby, and students serve as docents
to the general public.
Advantages of Project Based Learning:
A. Rivet & Krajcki, 2004 and William & Linn, 2003 state that "research
has demonstrated that students in project-based learning classrooms
get higher scores than students in traditional classroom."
B. PBL develops responsibility, or ownership among students for their
learning, their self-esteem soars. It also helps to create better work
habits and attitudes toward learning.
C. Project-Based Learning students also learn skills that are essential in
higher education.
D. PBL allows pupils to expand their minds and think beyond what
they normally would.
E. Project-Based Learning students learn skills, in fact, more than just
finding answers.
Disadvantages of Project Based Learning:-
Unplanned lessons can result in the wasting of precious class time. If the
project does not remain on task and content driven the student will not be
successful in learning the material.

9. Assessment in Project Based Learning:-
Assessment isn’t just about the final product. In fact, final assessment will
focus on the products that students have produced, and how they went
about producing them (the process). Despite this, it is worth enough to
remember that not everybody needs to produce the same product in order
to demonstrate their learning. Questions that final assessment should
address are followings:-
A. Does the product meet or exceed the criteria we set at the start at the
project?
B. Has the student developed the skills required for the execution of
this project?
C. Has the student learned the curriculum content required for this
project?
Ron Berger rightly states that real assessment take place when a teacher is
minute observer and observes his students holistically. Teachers often
mistakenly presume that a project’s final product is the only thing they
should assess, which leads them to assume that they should be able to tell
whether the kids learned what they needed to learn by looking at the final
product.
Actually, assessing what kids know is ongoing throughout a project. The
product is the motivation for learning the material, but it won’t
demonstrate that they learned it all. For example, in the physics standards
project, each kid only demonstrated one physics concept, so how do you
know that they learned the rest of the material?
The answer to this question is that the book isn’t the assessment. You can
assess what they’ve learned before the book comes out, and afterwards. In
Physics Standards they gave all the students a physics test with all the
concepts in it. You need to do assessment throughout the project so that
when they’re doing great artistic stuff, you know that they know what
they need to know. You can’t leave it all to the end.
(Ron Berger, Chief Programme Officer, Expeditionary Learning)

10. Conclusion:
Blumenfeld et al. says that, "Project-based learning is a comprehensive
perspective focused on teaching by engaging students in investigation.
Within this framework, students pursue solutions to nontrivial problems
by asking and refining questions, debating ideas, making predictions,
designing plans and/or experiments, collecting and analyzing data,
drawing conclusions, communicating their ideas and findings to others,
asking new questions, and creating artefacts. Projects vary greatly in the
depth of the questions explored, the clarity of the learning goals, the
content and structure of the activity, and guidance from the teacher.
The core idea of project-based learning is that real-world problems
capture students' interest and provoke serious thinking as the students
acquire and apply new knowledge in a problem-solving context. The
teacher plays the role of facilitator, working with students to frame
worthwhile questions, structuring meaningful tasks, coaching both
knowledge development and social skills, and carefully assessing what
students have learned from the experience.

11. References and resources for further reading:-
Article, 7 Essentials for Project-Based Learning(John Larmer , John R. Mergerndoller, In
Educational Leadership, Buck Institute of Education)
The Buck Institute for Education (http://www.bie.org/)
Using Project-Based Learning to Increase Student Engagement and Understanding
March 2012(TEXAS INSTRUMENT)
Project-Based Learning, A Resource for Instructors and Program
Coordinators(National Academy Foundation and Pearson Foundation)
PBL is consistent with best practices in instructional design. To learn more, visit
ASCD’s Understanding by Design Exchange.
(http://www.ubdexchange.org/default.html)
PBL as an instructional strategy to create rigorous and relevant learning experiences by
Dr. John W. Thomas’s (http://www.bobpearlman.org/BestPractices/PBL_Research.pdf)
Stanford University’s School Redesign Network includes links to many resources that
help define and understand PBL.
(http://www.schoolredesign.net/srn/server.php?idx=850).
The Small Schools Project boasts an amazing collection of resources to assist those
educators creating small learning communities and small schools where PBL can thrive.
(http://smallschoolsproject.org/)
The High Tech High network features schools designed to support PBL in the
classroom.
(http://www.hightechhigh.org/)
Project Examples
PBL at NAF, Digital Storytelling for Academy Students and Instructors
(http://pearsonfoundation.org/NAF) The NAF/Pearson Foundation Digital Storytelling
Project is modelled on exemplary PBL principles.
What Kids Can Do (http://www.whatkidscando.org/index.asp) This national
nonprofit organization focused on student voice has links to several outstanding
projects in their “projects and products” section (under “Student Work & Voice”).
STEPs (link to http://itd.usd259.org/steps/pbl.htm) The Standards for Teachers
through Educational Projects site includes video downloads of exemplary projects.
Edutopia – The George Lucas Educational Foundation (http://www.edutopia.org/) The
George Lucas Educational Foundation’s includes video clips highlighting exemplary
projects.
Great Student Work (http://www.bobpearlman.org/BestPractices/StudentWork.htm)
Educational reform expert Bob Pearlman offers links to exceptional project examples
and assessments from around the globe.
Best Wishes