Project Based Learning

Thank you miss moderator. From my perspective as a lecturer or so-called teacher trainer
project-based learning is a non-traditional education model that seeks to prepare students for
solving real-world problems and issues while teaching them what they need to know to
succeed in school right now. PBL allows students to reflect upon their own ideas and opinions,
and make decisions that affect project outcomes and the learning process in general.
All of us should know that putting kids (even the teacher trainees) to work on
meaningful projects can transform classrooms into beehives of inquiry and discovery. An
encouraging new report from School of Education of University of Colorado Boulder describes
preliminary, first-year outcomes from a study of 3,000 middle school students that shows kids
can, in fact, learn more in science classrooms that adopt a well-designed, project-focused
curriculum.
In teacher training institute (IPG), PBL approach is rooted in the progressive education
movement, which advocated for more student centred and experiential approaches to
education that support “deeper learning” through
active exploration of real-world problems and challenges. All of our coursework is well
designed based on this approach. The trainee especially for those who are major is Science
Education are trained through numerous types of different projects along their training period.
For example, they will be building some community-based, nature-based or even scientific
based projects when taking the courses such as Biological Diversity, Earth and Outer Space
and many more.
Although the implementation of PBL in primary school is still in the developmental
stage as we all know and there is no sufficient research or empirical data to state that PBL is
a proven alternative to other forms of instruction, but based on my experience and evidence
gathered over the past ten years, PBL appears to be an equivalent or slightly better model for
producing gains in academic achievement and good quality trainee although results vary with
the quality of the project and the level of their engagement.

I believe all of us are also concern about the implementation of PBL will oppose to our KSSR
science standard?
PBL planned and implemented correctly will catalyst the whole implementation of KSSR
Science along with the aim to inculcate interest and creativity of students in Science through
meaningful learning experience and investigation in order to master the scientific skills and
moral value.
Student finds their own sources, conduct their own research, and secure their own
feedback. PBL offers a creative and effective way to meet curriculum
objectives and address standards. It seems to be true when teachers successfully implement
PBL, students can be highly motivated, feel actively involved in their own learning, and
produce complex, high quality work. So it is not even a problem we need to concern.
Benefits or strength:
1. Such projects often force students to use multiple learning techniques to succeed, including
research, logical deduction, and iterative learning (trial and error). Since these projects are
usually too large and complex for one student to do alone, project based learning also tends
to encourage teamwork.

2. Connecting academic situations to the real world is one of the largest benefits of project
based learning. Students learn with the same approach they will eventually use in their
hobbies, passions, and careers. This ingrains essential problem-solving techniques within
them early on, drastically increasing their chances of success in whatever career they choose
once their education has completed. Part of this is that project based learning requires the use
of multiple problem-solving methods, which helps students not only cultivate a balanced
approach but also learn to switch approaches when their initial attempt fails to work.

3. Another benefit of project based learning is its affect on students' interpersonal skills.
Because projects are often large and complex, students are grouped together to work, which
fosters communication skills and encourages even students with diverse and possibly
conflicting personalities to find a common ground, or at the very least a way to work together
without constant tension. Part of this teamwork building helps introduce students to the
specialization and delegation that are extremely prominent in the real world. Some students
will naturally be more adept at some problem-solving methods than others, so students will
figure out how to allocate resources (themselves) optimally by having part of the group work
on one subset of tasks while another part works on another subset
Project based learning prepares students for success in the real world like no other
teaching style can.

4. One goal of the PBL is to develop students to manage themselves. PBL helps students to
develop long-term learning skills. Students gain information literacy skills and develop thinking
skills. Since students deal with relevant issues, their motivation is increased. The PBL students
also demonstrated greater self-confidence and improved learning abilities. Provides the
opportunity to reflect and involve students’ beliefs and values. The most evident results of PBL
are increasing feeling of
pride with regard to achievement and personal development of students (self-confidence,
responsibility, self-esteem etc.), increasing ratio of attendance, and empathy with others. With
PBL, a wide range of skills can be developed
simultaneously.

When researchers analyzed test scores from those classrooms by students’ gender and
ethnicity, there were no differences in learning performance. That’s a preliminary indication
that high-quality project-based curricula might be able to help narrow the science education
achievement gap in children from low-income backgrounds or other groups that are
underrepresented in STEM fields. The project-based science lessons “seem to work for all
kinds of kids,” said report co-author Christopher Harris, a senior researcher at SRI
International in Menlo Park, California. “Girls and boys learned at similar rates in this study.”
He believes that the personal engagement in meaningful classroom activities that teachers
can create through such curriculum materials “makes a difference.”

Thank you Miss Moderator. I agreed with the opinion

The benefit of PBL32397

As a field, PBL is still in the developmental stage. For example, there is no sufficient research
or empirical data to state that PBL is a proven alternative to other forms of instruction. Based
on evidence gathered over the past ten years, PBL appears to be an equivalent or slightly
better model for producing gains in academic achievement, although results vary with the
quality of the project and the level of student engagement.
Also, PBL is not appropriate as a method for teaching certain basic skills such as reading or
computation; however, it does provide an environment for the application of those skills. More
important, evidence shows that PBL enhances the quality of learning and leads to higher-level
cognitive development through students’ engagement with complex, novel problems. It is also
clear that PBL teaches students complex processes and procedures such as planning and
communicating. Accomplishing these goals, however, requires time for both teachers and
students to master the behaviours and strategies necessary for successful PBL.
In addition to research, convincing reports have come from teachers that PBL is a rigorous,
relevant, and engaging instructional model that supports authentic inquiry and autonomous
learning for students. Along with encouraging academic proficiency and meeting the traditional
goals of education, PBL has important benefits for today’s students. Teachers report that PBL:

Access to good science curriculum materials is a “vexing issue,” Harris said. In urban public
schools, science textbooks are often 10 years old and the standard curricula “provide very few
opportunities for students to really engage in the science, beyond emphasizing the scientific
canon or the knowledge that’s been developed over time,” he said. “They typically don’t have
a hands-on approach.”

Currently, PBIS is one of the few curricula available that are fully aligned with the new science
standards, and its structured activities emphasize core practices such as carrying out
investigations, constructing science explanations and developing and using models. For
instance, one physics project poses the driving question, “Why should I wear a helmet when I
ride my bike?” – an inquiry that’s compelling because it connects directly to kids’ everyday
lives, Harris said. To answer it, students work on a series of activities leading them to explore
related questions that build their knowledge of the principles of force, motion, acceleration and
gravity, so that they can grasp how a helmet would protect their heads from the impact of a
potential collision. With guidance from their teacher, “they’re conducting investigations, but
there’s also supports for kids to collect data, organize it, analyze it, share it, debate it, argue
about it”—similar to how real-life scientists work, he said.

Although students do work in groups, they also become more independent because they are
receiving little instruction from the teacher. With Project-Based Learning students also learn
skills that are essential in higher education. The students learn more than just finding answers,
PBL allows them to expand their minds and think beyond what they normally would. Students
have to find answers to questions and combine them using critically thinking skills to come up
with answers.

The material used doesn’t necessarily need to change that much. The lectures, resources,
and homework you’ve always associated with a unit will work just fine with a project based
learning approach. You’re simply offering students a different perspective, where the problem
presented at the beginning of the unit gives them a tangible reason to soak up the information
provided in a way that they may use it their whole lives through.

Throughout the course, my role was to facilitate and guide rather than provide information. In
particular, my task is
to consult with each group to assist them to clarify the PBL cases, consider variety types of
resources, make sure they
are still on the right tracks, suggest a better approach in group work and help them to meet
the deadline. During the
early semester, the facilitator can take a more dominant role in tutorial activity to guide
students towards self-direction,
and gradually reduce the facilitation and scaffolding as students become more and more
familiar with the academic
expectations being made of them (Ryan, 1993). In a more recent study, Mohd-Yusof et al.,
(2011) proposed more
motivation and encouragement is given to students who are new to PBL than experienced
students. This could be done
by having more scaffolding and guidance in the preliminary PBL cycles, and gradually
decrease the amount of
facilitation as the semester increase. Unlike in medical settings which allocate one tutor for
each of the PBL groups, but
in my class we adapt the floating facilitation style. We went around the groups to facilitate
group work, and probing
students´ group with questions that lead students to activating their prior knowledge and
experiences. Each group is
also required to keep group´s logbook to monitor periodically their progression and to
determine further scaffolding
needed by each group. In the early semester, intense and more structured facilitation style
was adopted to help students
in their learning, and more independent and less structured of facilitation took place as
students become more
accustomed with PBL. Although we are not planning to conduct any formal lectures throughout
the PBL sessions, we
are still prepared for it, depending on the need or only when it is necessary. Furthermore, it
may be necessary to
introduce topics or provide overview information for higher level subject materials related to
PBL scenario.

Challenges:
And teachers need substantial training, including support throughout the school year, to learn
how to coordinate kids to collaborate well on projects, and to ensure that important scientific
concepts bubble up and get discussed. So project-based learning is generally a huge
investment for school districts and more work for the teachers, but many of them “find that the
hard work pays off,” he said.

Roles:
Instructor role in Project Based Learning is that of a facilitator. They do not relinquish control
of the classroom or student learning but rather develop an atmosphere of shared responsibility.
The Instructor must structure the proposed question/issue so as to direct the student's learning
toward content-based materials. The instructor must regulate student success with intermittent,
transitional goals to ensure student projects remain focused and students have a deep
understanding of the concepts being investigated. The students are held accountable to these
goals through ongoing feedback and assessments. The ongoing assessment and feedback
are essential to ensure the student stays within the scope of the driving question and the core
standards the project is trying to unpack. According to Andrew Miller of the Buck Institute of
Education, formative assessments are used "in order to be transparent to parents and
students, you need to be able to track and monitor ongoing formative assessments, that show
work toward that standard."[29]The instructor uses these assessments to guide the inquiry
process and ensure the students have learned the required content. Once the project is
finished, the instructor evaluates the finished product and learning that it demonstrates
Student role is to ask questions, build knowledge, and determine a real-world solution to the
issue/question presented. Students must collaborate expanding their active listening skills and
requiring them to engage in intelligent focused communication. Therefore, allowing them to
think rationally on how to solve problems. PBL forces students to take ownership of their
success.

Conclusion;
I really hope to see more project-based science curricula coming out that are keyed to the new
standards and grounded in research on learning. Such approach is needed in elementary
schools, because too many children don’t get exposed to good science instruction on a
consistent basis until middle school. As an educator, catching kids earlier with PBL to help
them see the big picture of what science is about could spark their excitement and interest to
this subject.

Too often science education fails to engage student interests and is separate from
their everyday experiences. Curriculum and education reform efforts suggest that
when students “do science” they gain knowledge and skills that are transferrable to
future problems and that help prepare them to approach college and career with
the tools to succeed (Diaz & King, 2007). Research tells us that students learn best
when encouraged to construct their own knowledge of the world around them

It is undeniable that to bring high-quality PBL to scale, teacher preparation programs must
change and train pre-service teachers in PBL so that our teaching workforce becomes more
equipped with the correct mindset, technology, and know-how to carry out PBL in their
classrooms. I believe designing/writing high quality PBL requires a completely different
skillset than implementing high quality PBL.
Therefore, supporting teachers in PBL must be two-fold: while we nurture and amplify
the curricular/instructional talent of our project design teachers, we should put equal – if not
more – emphasis on training ALL teachers in the effective implementation of high-quality
PBL. When teachers are asked to teach via PBL without being given any resources, many of
them will not be able to do that even if they are provided training on how to design their PBL
lessons. However, when teachers are provided already designed high-quality PBL lessons,
many of them will be able to teach in this environment with a little bit of support in
implementation. So, to maximise the PBL approach’s benefits in teaching science, the
teacher training should be carry out in a more holistic way.
For example, in IPG, we encouraged modelling, sharing best practice, shifting
mindset of teachers, and well-known exemplars. Besides, to improve and produce a
sustainable model of PBL integration, it is necessary to provide ongoing professional
development, ample resources, and planned time for teachers to strategically create PBL
content and collaborate with teams of teachers across disciplines and community leaders to
facilitate authentic learning experiences