INTEC: What is Project Based Learning

What is Project Based Learning?

Glad you asked. First let us say what it is NOT. Project based learning is not doing 'science projects' for a science fair. We all have had experience where one couldn't tell the child's work from the parent's efforts. On whom does one pin the blue ribbon?

The best definition of Project Based Learning is learning through extended inquiry. The dispositions, context, and tools for inquiry are set out in smaller activities. Students then engage in an extended inquiry in a topic of their choosing or more closely guided by the discipline or institutional constraints. Direct student engagement with problem posing, answering, and defending answers is the central feature. Extended inquiry can occupy large parts of a curriculum, or it may be limited to a couple of days per week over a period of time.

Tales from the Electronic Frontier provides examples and personal accounts of teachers who use project based learning in their classrooms. Other examples and formats for project based learning will be studied in the INTEC netseminar.


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