Why Project-Based Learning IS "Best Practice" Education

"By better integrating academic, career and technical education, and work-based learning, the nation’s secondary schools can increase student engagement, boost student achievement, and provide students with more options after they graduate from high school, according to a new policy brief from the Alliance for Excellent Education."
---from Alliance for Education

We all want to prepare our students for the future, a future we cannot see. We want our education to be work relevant and we aspire to make our assessments authentic. We are ever more aware of the push for this environment. In my state, Kansas, I am looking at multiple movements in this area: Kansas Common Core Standards and CTE (Career and Technical Education Pathways). I, like many, find myself in this mix. Here's what I know. First, we need to look for methods (and tools) to help us shift accountability of learning from a teacher-based model to a student-learning based model. Please understand, I am not removing the concept of "accountability" from my plate at all. I believe we must share it. When we engage the "stake holders" in education, students are often overlooked; I feel they are the most important "stake holders" of all. Thus, in redesigning my curriculum two years ago, I used project-based education to drive my advanced level courses. Here was my concept:

1. Create individual project-based learning driven by content that engaged individual students.
2. Use self-regulated learning techniques in the process.
3. Use a "learning plan" to drive the process. Students would set goals, search for learning resources, and develop a time flow plan (with my guidance) that would drive the learning.
4. Each week, I monitor the process with progress reports/updates. The student and I evaluate the work flow progress and adjust/modify the plan accordingly.
5. Product output is held accountable to high standards established at the beginning of the process.
6. "Raise the bar" for production by broadcasting product to the public and making the creator the showcase representative on a public stage.
7. Finalize the project by using reflection interventions to help the student evaluate their learning process in a meaningful manner.

Sound easy? It's not. I work LONG hours. I guess you have to trust me on that, but let's just say that this is engaging learning, but it requires a different manner of teaching. I facilitate learning this way; I guide and manipulate my students into making themselves great. It works for my students, and for me, that's what matters most.

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