PBL Blog

Have you tried assigning group projects to your students that ended up failing miserably. I did. When my students started working on projects in teams, I encountered a series of problems that I was not prepared to solve. I had students complain that they did all the work, while others did nothing. Some high ability…

Did you try to do project-based learning in your classroom, but had to give it up because it seemed too complex to handle? As much as I have been a great believer that project-based learning was the best way to learn, I had to admit multiple times that my students were struggling with the driving…

Have you had several attempts at implementing project-based learning in your classroom that ended up failing? Back when I was a computer teacher, my students used to come to my computer lab to work on project-based learning, which they wrongly interpreted as a traditional topic report instead of an investigative report tailored to respond to…

There is forty years worth of research confirming that project-based learning is one of the best ways to learn. Yet, the number of schools that have successfully implemented a project-based learning program in their school is small. The motivation to be part of this successful learning method produced repeated attempts by schools all over the…

Project-based learning was introduced in schools in the 1980s. Despite its existence for over 40 years and its reputation as one of the most effective learning methods, its widespread adoption has been limited. The reasons for this vary: some schools, initially eager to implement it, find it overly complex and require more time and resources…

Like many other things in education, collaborative learning has different interpretations by different people. Some believe that using a platform in which students can upload their file inputs to a team project is the essence of collaboration. Others believe that having students work together on a document that allows multiple students to edit together is…

The question whether students should be exposed to learning how to code had many ups and downs. It started in the 70s when Seymour Papert, a professor at the MIT Education Lab, invented Logo programming and the turtle it helped to program. Since then there were periods of widespread adoption of coding and periods of…

When OpenAI released ChatGPT in November 2022, teachers and schools were amazed with its ability to write essays, solve science and math problems and produce working computer code. At the same time, a growing feeling of alarm started taking over when teachers realized that it can also mean a new era of rampant cheating and…

Project-based math education Math education faces a significant crisis. Recent results from The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a test mandated by Congress, reveal a concerning decline in student math scores over the past two and a half years. These findings offer a measurable insight into the educational disruptions caused by the pandemic and…

Human and AI interaction Concern is the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about AI. Teachers are trying to figure out how to adapt to a technology that abruptly upends the way they used to teach. Sticking to the old conventional method of asking students direct questions may no longer work because tools…

Students collaborating on project It has been less than a year since the release of ChatGPT and teachers are still trying to figure out how to adapt to a technology that abruptly upends the way they used to teach. Its effect on education or almost any other field for that matter is so fundamental that…

It has been less than a year since the release of ChatGPT and teachers are still trying to figure out how to adapt to a technology that abruptly upends the way they used to teach. Its effect on education or almost any other field for that matter is so fundamental that it forces teachers or…