define "project-based learning"

[annegables]

This is a sort of spin-off of the delightfully long thread about getting messy with EsterMaria's ideas. I have not made my way through it all, so I hope this isnt being hashed out on there. Even if it is, I would love a discussion about project-based learning, in part because it seems as though everyone defines it differently. I really want to have this conversation because I dont know if what I am doing is PBL, and if it isnt, what would a good name for it be?

It seems as though there are 4 types of PBL getting conflated (feel free to add more):

1. Crafty projects that might extend over a period of a few days. These may or may not lead to learning of the actual topic at hand. Examples are dioramas, lapbooking, anything with dough or jello, etc. Some kids and families love this stuff, others do not. 

2. Science demonstrations.

3. Experience-based. This could be planning a garden, figuring out the best soil for different plants, best conditions for each plant species, invasive species, pests, fertilizer, etc. with this I would include longer-term science investigations, such as building different structures out of recyclables to test certain properties. I would include what @lewelma did with science with her son in this category.

4. ??? what this should be called? I will use an example from my own life. My kid is into fossils. We own a lot of fossils (Christmas gifts from family), a microscope, and a field scope for close inspection. We classified the fossils by type and geological era. We watch a ton of documentaries (how the Earth Was Made, etc). We go to several world-class localish museums and talked to docents for extended periods of time about the fossils there. We went on a long road trip (that we had to go on for a reunion) through fossil country and saw awesome fossils out in "the wild". His writing is based on this learning, so if we are doing hearing the vowels in every word and developing good topic sentences, this happens around the topic of fossils. 

I think all of these categories have merit, some moreso than others. I think that each category could be done well or poorly, but I think it is easier to do #s 1 and 2 poorly. I also think that given certain constraints, #s 1 and 2 are what happen most often in conventional schools. 

[smfmommy]

In the 90's and 2000's #4 would have been simply called a hands on unit study.

I always considered PBL to be #3.  #1 was what people did when they wanted to make learning fun or needed a way for their child to express what they learned without writing.  #2 is something the teacher does to, well, demonstrate a topic, but isn't PBL since the child is just watching not creating the demonstration themselves.  But I am no expert and haven't read the 'official' PBL books/web sites that have been created.

I agree that they all have merit and can be enjoyable.  But the level of actual learning is different (and dependent on the child).  

 

[annegables]

4 minutes ago, smfmommy said:

In the 90's and 2000's #4 would have been simply called a hands on unit study.

I always considered PBL to be #3.  #1 was what people did when they wanted to make learning fun or needed a way for their child to express what they learned without writing.  #2 is something the teacher does to, well, demonstrate a topic, but isn't PBL since the child is just watching not creating the demonstration themselves.  But I am no expert and haven't read the 'official' PBL books/web sites that have been created.

I agree that they all have merit and can be enjoyable.  But the level of actual learning is different (and dependent on the child).  

 

Thank you for this! I find it funny, because in my mind, unit studies are slightly different, but this really helps. I always thought of unit studies as an almost artificial way to try to incorporate lots of skills around one idea. So, the unit might be on apples, and in that study is the history of apples, counting apples, apple legends (Johnny Appleseed, etc), baking with apples, etc. Part of it seemed so forced to me (and at some point, not enough math at higher levels). But now I understand.

and with #2, I meant that the student does the work, but as many people here point out, most of these are not experiments in the scientific definition, but merely demonstrations.

[Noreen Claire]

I read a fabulous book about PBL and homeschooling, Project-Based Homeschooling: Mentoring Self-Directed Learners by Lori Pickert. It's actually on my list to read again, as my 7yr old really benefits from this type of learning. She used to have a website and run courses for parents, but I can't seem to find them anymore.

[Sneezyone]

19 minutes ago, HeighHo said:

PBL as practiced in my district for elementary was not as shallow as your examples of 1,2 and 4.   Essentially in PBL, the student and teacher make an independent learning contract; everyone takes an idea (their own or proposed by instructor) and dives in, rabbit trails and all.  Culminates in a sharing, whether thats a poster session, a video, an applet, a talk, etc.  The idea is the student learns what he  needs to as he goes along.  Its very very good for developing the idea that one is expected to use resources, rather than never take the initiative to learn or use higher order thinking skills.  Also good to remind that what one learned in class the last few years is used in one's life....calendar, project planning, graphing, identifying main idea, planning, visualizing, artistic sense, etc.  My kid learned the basics of decimals via PBL in 2nd, as he needed to know how to interpret some of the stats he was seeing.

 

PBL as it is practiced in the schools I worked with is exactly like this...#3. Learning begins with a big idea/question and other subjects/information are taught  'on demand'. When DD homeschooled 8th grade for ex., I designed her language arts study around a few big ideas/concepts. One of those was GROUP DYNAMICS. The question was "How do people behave in groups and why?" In order to answer that question, DD did lots of reading. She read articles that offered a social science perspective, she read novels, she sat in the mall on the weekend and observed groups of teens, she did a variety of things to give her different ideas and ways to answer that question. You could obv. expand this to include original research too, some form of scientific process work. All of that was incorporated into a single paper, argumentative in style. DD still says every writing assignment she's had in school since then has been a cake walk in comparison to what we did and the things she learned still inform her writing today.

Edited December 20, 2019 by Sneezyone

[smfmommy]

5 minutes ago, annegables said:

Thank you for this! I find it funny, because in my mind, unit studies are slightly different, but this really helps. I always thought of unit studies as an almost artificial way to try to incorporate lots of skills around one idea. So, the unit might be on apples, and in that study is the history of apples, counting apples, apple legends (Johnny Appleseed, etc), baking with apples, etc. Part of it seemed so forced to me (and at some point, not enough math at higher levels). But now I understand.

and with #2, I meant that the student does the work, but as many people here point out, most of these are not experiments in the scientific definition, but merely demonstrations.

Yes, I guess unit studies can be rather contrived to make sure they add in everything.  But your description just sounded like a quality interest based unit study since there wasn't a single project that was the foundation.  But, like I said, I am not an expert and so my perception may be backward.   But apparently what I considered PBL was much more complicated (months long projects where the child had to learn various skills and content to accomplish the project).  

Your description of science demonstration sounds, sadly, like most of the "labs" we did in high school.  To me, demonstrations were things like blowing up balloons with different elements inside to show how you can get the various firework colors.  Great fun, but not something the kids actually did.

I'll just listen and learn now.

[MerryAtHope]

For us, I would say that a science fair project (done well--not thrown together at the last minute!) would also be pbl. My dd usually spent several months researching, building, trying things, creating models to demonstrate concepts, writing a research paper, and then preparing an oral presentation for judges (and also spending the day teaching about the concept to kids and adults who visited the booth). It was a great learning experience!

[lewelma]

[lewelma]

The above is from the Wikipedia commons.

I was listening just recently to the difference between problem based learning and project based learning. They are similar, but not the same.

Sorry, had to deal with my crackers in the oven!  Give me a sec

Edited December 20, 2019 by lewelma

[lewelma]

So the science fair projects we did are considered Project-Based Learning in the formal sense. 

And the Geography projects I have done with my younger are Problem-Based Learning. He just spent 150 hours over 15 weeks understanding and writing a paper on the impact of the first leaders after independence (Mobutu vs Khama) on the social and economic development of the DRC vs Botswana.

As I see it, it is a sliding scale, but Project based learning is a multi-week or month inquiry unit that produces a product at the end.  Problem-based learning is also a multi-week or month inquiry unit that focuses on exploring an idea.

Unit studies in my mind are about a broader topic, say rocks, where you hit rocks from all sorts of angles with many different fields.  But it is not focused on a central question like my son's Geography Problem. 

About as clear as mud. 

Edited December 20, 2019 by lewelma

[Sneezyone]

1 minute ago, lewelma said:

So the science fair projects we did are considered Project-Based Learning in the formal sense.  And the Geography projects I have done with my younger are Problem-Based Learning. He just spent 150 hours over 15 weeks understanding and writing a paper on the impact of the first leaders after independence (Mobutu vs Khama) on the social and economic development of the DRC vs Botswana. As I see it, it is a sliding scale, but Project based learning is a multi-week or month inquiry unit that produces a product at the end.  Problem-based learning is also a multi-week or month inquiry unit that focuses on exploring an idea.

Unit studies in my mind are about a broader topic, say rocks, where you hit rocks from all sorts of angles with many different fields.  But it is not focused on a central question like my son's Geography Problem. 

About as clear as mud. 

 

I always used project- and problem-based learning interchangeably but I can see from your link that the difference may be more in terms of the desired output/outcome (a solution or some kind of proposed resolution) vs. a firmed up perspective on/analysis of possible answers. Under this definition, what we did was more problem-based.

[chocolate-chip chooky]

I've never really pondered the definitions, but to me project-based learning is where the learning is based around a real-world, practical project, with a real-world, practical outcome.

[Sneezyone]

26 minutes ago, HeighHo said:

Note: nothing was taught on demand.  He had to use previously learned skills & knowledge and community resources. Dictionary, library, neighbors...it was actually pretty cool because he went back and talked to a local person who had hosted our cub scout group as he needed some expert help.  

 

That is somewhat unfortunate. I'm certainly not opposed to students using external resources independently but the whole point, especially when students are working in groups, is for the teacher/or other adult to facilitate their learning, filling in gaps and directing them to things as the students identify issues (not necessarily explicitly asking for help either) that they are unfamiliar with. If students say, hey, we're supposed to answer this questions but we don't even know what X, Y, or Z means! That's when you do a mini-lecture, offer printed hand outs, show videos, refer them to the library, etc. Lots of times, your learners just don't know what they don't know. That's where *some* expertise is helpful.

Edited December 20, 2019 by Sneezyone

[Little Green Leaves]

This is such an interesting topic!

How do you guys handle scheduling, especially for the longer projects that span months? I can see how in some cases there's a natural end-product (a paper or a science fair project) but what if there isn't? 

I guess part of the benefit is that the kid learns how to plan out their time and stay focused over a long period of time?

[lewelma]

So one of the key features of both Project Based Learning (PBL) and Problem Based Learning PrBL) is that you learn content/skills on a need-to know basis to solve the question you have.  So for example, my ds did not study probability and city planning first, and then do a project on timing the traffic lights. Instead, he wanted to actually time specific traffic lights in our city and learned probability and city planning in direct context of the question he was answering. And he only learned the pieces of these fields (probability and city planning) that were directly relevant to his needs. It is kind of the opposite of a classical education or neo-classical education where you learn content from textbooks in an ordered manner organized by experts in the field. In PBL and PrBL, you learn by *doing* the project or solving the problem. They are based in true inquiry by students that can be guided by teachers but definitely not taught. 

#1 and #2 in your list are neither PBL or PrBL because they are not based in inquiry.  They are pre-designed activities to clarify learning specific content. They are teacher driven with expected outcome. This is not PBL or PrBL.

[lewelma]

52 minutes ago, Little Green Leaves said:

How do you guys handle scheduling, especially for the longer projects that span months? I can see how in some cases there's a natural end-product (a paper or a science fair project) but what if there isn't? 

For Project Based Learning, students must complete a project. This is by definition. 

For Problem Based Learning, students must solve a problem. You don't need output, exactly. But in my experience, it would be impossible to tell if the problem was solved without some sort of output. It could be a presentation, a question/answer delivery, a poster, a slide show, a paper, a video, etc. But I do think that to insure PrBL doesn't slide into various rabbit trails on a topic (a unit study), you need to keep tight control over the *answering* of the specific question. 

[lewelma]

Scheduling. 

Project Based Learning - scheduling is part of what students are learning with PBL.  Having a deadline (the science fair in our case) meant that the product (the poster) had to be completed by a certain day.  I kept my kids *very* involved in the scheduling and adjusting it because that was part of what I wanted them to learn. 

Problem Based Learning - With our geography problems, I have set an arbitrary deadline.  Some questions were given 5 weeks, some 10, and one went 15. I am new to PrBL, so ds and I have meandered our way through how to set these up.  For a 10 week problem, we pick a topic (comparing DRC to Botswana) and research *anything* we want for 2 weeks. No notes, no output, just read read read. We do this side by side on the sofa. In week 3 we clarify the question. We start brainstorming and making sure we have enough resources to answer the question. In weeks 4-10 he answers the problem.  This is an iterative process, where he decides he needs certain information, researches it, outlines, writes, and then moves on to the next paragraph. But he is constantly looping as he learns more.  And for his paper on the Mobutu vs Khama, it ended up that his research paper that took 7 weeks to write and 10 weeks in total, actually ended up being pre-writing.  And he took 5 more weeks to write two separate papers (one on the impact of leadership, and one on the impact of resources) each of which had a very clear thesis and harvested content from the original research paper.  

In the process of answering his question, ds had to study: qualitative vs quantitative economic statistics and their pros and cons, comparative government, the history of European intervention in Africa, leadership styles, types of corruption, bill of rights, city planning, transportation, insurgency, mineral extraction, government owned enterprise, health, demography, physical geography, etc.  This is Problem Based Learning. Everything was learned to help him answer a specific question. 

[lewelma]

1 hour ago, Little Green Leaves said:

I guess part of the benefit is that the kid learns how to plan out their time and stay focused over a long period of time?

Because these projects and problems have been interest led, my kids have never struggled to stay focused.  They were keen to learn because they had picked the topic. 

[lewelma]

When my kids were little we did lots of unit studies.  The one I remember was rocks. We read books, we collected fossils, we looked at road cuts, we joined a geology club, we studied the chemistry of minerals, we went on field trips to geologic sites, and ds wrote about rocks. But there was no central problem or project.  The goal of the unit study was learning content in an interest-based way. Rabbit trails were encouraged. 

PBL and PrBL must be more tightly managed by the teacher to keep students focused on the project/problem at hand. For Geography, I would ask my ds if his bunny trail was actually useful to answering the question or only interesting.  If it was just interesting, he would write down the question to get back to later, and redirect his efforts to the question at hand. PrBL is incredibly useful for training kids to focus on a goal and work to complete it.  We have found this style of learning very very challenging and very very interesting.

Edited December 20, 2019 by lewelma

[Corraleno]

6 hours ago, annegables said:

1. Crafty projects that might extend over a period of a few days. These may or may not lead to learning of the actual topic at hand. Examples are dioramas, lapbooking, anything with dough or jello, etc. Some kids and families love this stuff, others do not. 

2. Science demonstrations.

3. Experience-based. This could be planning a garden, figuring out the best soil for different plants, best conditions for each plant species, invasive species, pests, fertilizer, etc. with this I would include longer-term science investigations, such as building different structures out of recyclables to test certain properties. I would include what @lewelma did with science with her son in this category.

4. ??? what this should be called? I will use an example from my own life. My kid is into fossils. We own a lot of fossils (Christmas gifts from family), a microscope, and a field scope for close inspection. We classified the fossils by type and geological era. We watch a ton of documentaries (how the Earth Was Made, etc). We go to several world-class localish museums and talked to docents for extended periods of time about the fossils there. We went on a long road trip (that we had to go on for a reunion) through fossil country and saw awesome fossils out in "the wild". His writing is based on this learning, so if we are doing hearing the vowels in every word and developing good topic sentences, this happens around the topic of fossils. 

1. DD really likes crafts so initially we did some lap booking stuff (like 3rd/4th grade), but it just seemed like busywork to me and she didn't seem to actually learn anything from it, so I decided it made way more sense to do actual crafts and make real art instead of doing fake crafts that were linked to study themes. For example, I had purchased some kind of curriculum package for elementary age American history, and when I started printing stuff out it just seemed nonsensical to me — why make a "quilt block" out of construction paper instead of making an actual quilt block? Why fill in a worksheet with a picture of a spinning wheel on it instead of learning to actually spin wool? So that was the end of "curriculum-based crafts."  Instead we took classes in spinning and felting, churned our own butter, learned about glass-blowing and blacksmithing from friends who did that, went to various history museums and archaeological sites, etc. 

2. When the kids were little we spent a lot of time at the local science museum, so we saw, and did, a lot of demonstrations (some led by staff, some self-teaching). I do think the kids learned a lot from those, although they were not true experiments. To me, they were more like living illustrations of textbook concepts, and in that sense they were a lot more useful and memorable than just reading about the topic in books. (But we also did real experiments.)

3. Numbers 3 & 4 are the kinds of things that comprised most of our homeschooling through elementary and middle school, and some of high school. A good example of #3 is that we set up an "ecosystem tank" with water and plants and critters from the river, and monitored the water quality, looked at all the microscopic organisms under the microscope and researched them, etc. When Mr. Krabs the crayfish died, the snail population absolutely exploded, so that spun off into a broader study of ecosystems. There also happened to be some leaches and planarians in one of the mud samples we collected, so DS did some experiments with those. We raised silk worms and meal worms, and we kept a praying mantis and fed it grasshoppers that DD caught, and observed how she hunted and ate. For example, although she ate small grasshoppers the "normal" way, when DD started catching really HUGE ones, she very quickly learned to grab the XL ones in a different way and immediately pull their back legs off, so she could eat without getting kicked in the face by her lunch, lol. DS noticed that she always ate in a certain order and then at the end she would throw away one tiny part. So he researched grasshopper anatomy and discovered it was the fecal sack she was discarding. We also caught a male mantis and watched them mate, then watched her lay eggs, and when the eggs hatched we released them outside. DS also, totally on his own, started studying all the different ant species we had on the property (we had 3 acres at the time, and lived within a few blocks of a huge nature reserve), correlating differences in anatomy to differences in habitats and diet. He did experiments like putting dead insects near the opening of the nests and discovered that the ants would remove the wings before taking the insect into the nest; he figured the wings were the least nutritious bit and removing them made it much easier to drag the food through the tunnels. He found a colony of forelius ants who were maintaining a "herd" of wooly aphids in a tree and we caught some of both and watched them "milk" the aphids under a microscope. However, none of these activities really started with a plan or a specific problem in mind, nor did they really have a "product" at the end — the goal was just to learn interesting stuff. So I although I might have previously called this sort of thing PBL, I guess it doesn't meet the formal definition of it.

4. We did a TON of this, including all the same fossil stuff! DS was obsessed with paleontology from about age 4, so he got lots of fossils (he was especially into mesozoic marine reptiles) for Christmas and birthdays. At 10 he went on a week-long paleo dig at Ghost Ranch that was designed for families, and the grad students and post docs were so impressed with him that they invited him to dig with them (the real digs not the "family fun" ones) several weeks a year for the next few years. The way an ADD brain is constantly "scanning" may be a detriment in a classroom but it's a bonus on a dig site — he could spot a tiny dark gray bone fragment in a huge field of light gray gravel better than anyone else on the team. He actually (on his own, while part of the dig) found, excavated, cleaned, and consolidated multiple Triassic dino fossils, one of which was quite significant and is now in a major museum collection. We also had an annual membership to the excellent natural history museum near us and spent a TON of time there, and visited lots of other natural history museums in other cities. I really thought he was going to stick with paleo as a career, but he eventually got into ancient mythology & warfare, which led to a passion for Greek language and history, which led to tours of Greek & Roman archeological sites in Greece, Italy, and Turkey, and lots more museum visits and Great Courses lectures on those topics. Which eventually led to a much broader interest in the science of language, self-teaching other languages (like Old Norse and Turkish),  and exploration of lot of other (ancient and modern) cultures. And now he's a college sophomore majoring in Linguistics and minoring in Turkish and Central Asian Studies — subjects I doubt he wold have discovered if he'd been limited to a standard high school subject list. So I don't really have a label for #4 that specifically references the experiential nature of a lot of what we did, because to me the defining characteristic and most valuable component is really that it's interest-led, not the methods or approaches we used to follow those interests. Interest-led learning can be just as easily accomplished with books and lectures, if those suit a student's style better, and in HS we did use a lot of books and Great Courses in addition to field trips and other hands-on stuff. 

So I guess I would call our overall homeschooling style "interest-led, with a lot of hands-on, experiential learning."

Edited December 21, 2019 by Corraleno

[EKS]

Here is an explanation of project based learning from the college where my son went to school.  

[Corraleno]

2 minutes ago, lewelma said:

When my kids were little we did lots of unit studies.  The one I remember was rocks. We read books, we collected fossils, we looked at road cuts, we joined a geology club, we studied the chemistry of minerals, we went on field trips to geologic sites, and ds wrote about rocks. But there was no central problem or project.  The goal of the unit study was learning content in an interest-based way. Rabbit trails were encouraged. 

We did a lot of this, too, although I tend to think of "unit studies" as being more top-down than most of what we did. For example, one topic we covered in a way that I think would qualify as a "unit study" was astronomy. Watching a meteor shower piqued the kids' interest in astronomy, so we built galileoscopes, downloaded some cool apps that let you point an iPad at a section of the sky and get information about what's there, joined an astronomy club and attended lots of viewing parties, learned about the different constellations (which tied in nicely with what we were learning about classical mythology at the time), watched tons of documentaries, attended various planetarium shows, etc. One of the planetarium shows we saw was about Mayan cosmology and their versions of the constellations, so that spun off into a cool study of Mayan mythology and astronomy. Another "unit study" type thing we did was on birds: they got into watching an "owl cam" so I ordered owl pellets for us to dissect, DS read a book about a biologist who studied owls, we studied bird evolution and anatomy, cut up Cornish game hens and compared them to our (living) chickens, watched the fabulous BBC series on birds, etc. Although those activities were all sparked by the kids' interests, they were entirely orchestrated by me: I did the research, supplied the learning materials, supervised the learning, and in a sense pre-determined what they would learn. That's how I think of "unit studies."

OTOH, a lot of what we did with the river-critter tank and insects and other topics were much more free-form and student-led. DS designed and carried out his research on ants and planarians and daphnia on his own, and I just followed along. Other than driving him to museums and signing him up for the first paleo dig, everything he learned about paleontology he learned on his own, by reading, doing, observing, or asking questions (that he formulated) of various experts. So I guess those sorts of things would count more as "unschooling" — but then unschoolers can get very defensive about their definitions, too, and many would probably say I shouldn't use that label! So I guess I will just stick with "interest-led, with lots of hands-on experiential learning."

[Farrar]

Some random thoughts.

I'm glad Ruth posted that graphic. I'd not seen it, but I've tried to explain this terminology difference to folks before and not seen a lot of recognition of it.

I think the lines between ALL the things being discussed are actually pretty fuzzy and depend a bit on implementation, goals, etc. but might look very similar on the ground or feel similar to the student, depending.

In the OP, I'd call the final thing Reggio Emilia. I know that's only applied to little kid stuff, but the whole idea of following what a kid is interested in, compiling stuff, figuring it all out as you go, and then at the end having the curriculum, that's the backwards Reggio thing. I'd say that's distinct from "Unit Studies" simply by direction. In unit studies, the teacher pre-plans all that stuff based on their own idea of what needs to be done. In the backwards way, you do it with the students as you go. Of course, fuzzy lines again. Like, the methods that 8FillstheHeart talks about using in her book and her posts here are really a hybrid - starting with a kid and their needs, designing around them.

On some level... I don't think the terminology matters as much as some of the various seeds of things. Like, the only reason to parse it all is to think intentionally about which aspects of these methods you're actually hoping to emulate and which learning goals you actually want.

[2_girls_mommy]

Project based learning is big in educational trainings right now. We definitely incorporate done into our school in purpose. Plus we use scout awards (like the Gold Award and some other badges and journeys,) and incorporate them into our school. The steps for these awards teach how to do it. My dds have three very open ended projects/assignments for their government credit from me this year. I really like to incorporate this when I can. 

[cbollin]

My middle dd learned the basics of PBL in her Creative Development (early children ed department) class last semester.  She still had this link to a video and quick article how it looked at one school with kindergarten age.  Several articles show up on the link but it was the first one with the video from Auburn Early Ed Center.

https://www.edutopia.org/kindergarten-project-based-learning

What my dd's take away in that class on how PBL differed from unit studies was role the teacher took. In unit studies it was more of the teacher makes (or buys) lesson plans and picks and chooses what to do with the kids and takes main lead role in what gets done. (much like what I did in homeschool)  PBL, it's not like that. And the kids might not always do the same thing with the same theme.   She also described it to me as It's more of an "unschool" (what the student is interested in) meets "unstructured but productive afternoons"  (ala charlotte mason ideas where students do stuff and have more control of what to read that day (like she did with book basket).   I wouldn't expect my 20 y.o to be able to debate and discuss it much more than that as it was a short discussion topic in her online class at community colllege.

 

[Farrar]

One of my complaints about PBL and PrBL is that the materials that are out there are either deeply geared toward groups in a classroom and not really adaptable or they're LAME with a capital L. Like, super lame.

[Ellie]

4 hours ago, annegables said:

Thank you for this! I find it funny, because in my mind, unit studies are slightly different, but this really helps. I always thought of unit studies as an almost artificial way to try to incorporate lots of skills around one idea. So, the unit might be on apples, and in that study is the history of apples, counting apples, apple legends (Johnny Appleseed, etc), baking with apples, etc. Part of it seemed so forced to me (and at some point, not enough math at higher levels). But now I understand.

I think unit studies are different, because they don't always include projects. 🙂

The most well-known unit study is KONOS. It teaches history, geography, science, Bible, arts and crafts, drama, literature, while studying godly character traits such as attentiveness, obedience, inquisitiveness, and loyalty. It does NOT teach English skills or math; some activities might use math or English skills, but they aren't *taught* there. Most activities don't do projects; or, to put it another way, someone who really liked doing projects would find suggestions for those, but for the rest of us, we could do KONOS for many years without doing a single project. 🙂

Your apple unit *could* be a unit study, but yes, the activities you describe seem contrived (although maybe a younger child would enjoy it?).

I've always thought it would be fun to do a unit study on lighthouses; we could find out where all the American lighthouses are; the different kinds of lighthouses; how mariners know which light is which when they're out at sea and trying to get home; what the life of a keeper was like; and there would be lots of rabbit trails and field trips. 🙂 We'd be getting history, geography, and science, and we'd be reading lots of nonfiction books as well as, possibly, fact-based historical fiction. We might or might not do some written work. We'd still be working on composition and grammar and math, apart from our unit study.

[lewelma]

I think there is a continuum in 2 different dimensions:

1) Teacher led vs student led

2) Question focused (inquiry is the goal) vs linked topics (content is the goal)

This creates 4 quadrants which most of what we are talking about seems to fall into, but obviously on a continuum. Not sure, but trying to sort through these different impressions everyone has. 

 

 

[Corraleno]

10 minutes ago, lewelma said:

I think there is a continuum in 2 different dimensions:

1) Teacher led vs student led

2) Question focused (inquiry is the goal) vs linked topics (content is the goal)

This creates 4 quadrants which most of what we are talking about seems to fall into, but obviously on a continuum. Not sure, but trying to sort through these different impressions everyone has. 

I think that's a really useful way of framing it!

[annegables]

2 hours ago, Farrar said:

Some random thoughts.

I'm glad Ruth posted that graphic. I'd not seen it, but I've tried to explain this terminology difference to folks before and not seen a lot of recognition of it.

I think the lines between ALL the things being discussed are actually pretty fuzzy and depend a bit on implementation, goals, etc. but might look very similar on the ground or feel similar to the student, depending.

In the OP, I'd call the final thing Reggio Emilia. I know that's only applied to little kid stuff, but the whole idea of following what a kid is interested in, compiling stuff, figuring it all out as you go, and then at the end having the curriculum, that's the backwards Reggio thing. I'd say that's distinct from "Unit Studies" simply by direction. In unit studies, the teacher pre-plans all that stuff based on their own idea of what needs to be done. In the backwards way, you do it with the students as you go. Of course, fuzzy lines again. Like, the methods that 8FillstheHeart talks about using in her book and her posts here are really a hybrid - starting with a kid and their needs, designing around them.

On some level... I don't think the terminology matters as much as some of the various seeds of things. Like, the only reason to parse it all is to think intentionally about which aspects of these methods you're actually hoping to emulate and which learning goals you actually want.

Thank you! You put into words what I couldnt. And my fossil example morphs into PBL a bit because there is also a final presentation that we spend several months scheduling what has to be accomplished by when. But it is very much interest-led with me trying to find lots of different ways to support his interests. 

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

5 hours ago, annegables said:

I always thought of unit studies as an almost artificial way to try to incorporate lots of skills around one idea. So, the unit might be on apples, and in that study is the history of apples, counting apples, apple legends (Johnny Appleseed, etc), baking with apples, etc. Part of it seemed so forced to me

I think this problem tends to arise when the units are teacher/parent/curriculum-lead rather than student-led. They feel artificial & forced because they ARE. They take a lot of energy on the teacher’s part because the learner largely isn’t putting work into the planning or implementation. For the same reason, I don’t think as much content is absorbed as would be from a study that is driven by the learner.

That’s not to say that they have no value; they  can be fun if everyone involved enjoys them... but my preference is to follow the learner’s lead. 

[Farrar]

1 hour ago, lewelma said:

I think there is a continuum in 2 different dimensions:

1) Teacher led vs student led

2) Question focused (inquiry is the goal) vs linked topics (content is the goal)

This creates 4 quadrants which most of what we are talking about seems to fall into, but obviously on a continuum. Not sure, but trying to sort through these different impressions everyone has. 

 

 

Yes, I agree. The second is sort of also tied to product vs. process focused education. Is the goal the journey or is it a big presentation/solution/product that you create at the end or by the end? Of course, these can have a lot of overlap, but the focus is a little different.

[Farrar]

35 minutes ago, Expat_Mama_Shelli said:

I think this problem tends to arise when the units are teacher/parent/curriculum-lead rather than student-led. They feel artificial & forced because they ARE. They take a lot of energy on the teacher’s part because the learner largely isn’t putting work into the planning or implementation. For the same reason, I don’t think as much content is absorbed as would be from a study that is driven by the learner.

That’s not to say that they have no value; they  can be fun if everyone involved enjoys them... but my preference is to follow the learner’s lead. 

I think this is easy to say... and for some kids it's easy to do. But sometimes... it's just not. I have experienced this with so many students and also with my own kids at times where a lot can go very wrong if you put the kids in charge. Kids can be super flighty. They want to study one thing one day and ditch it the next. Which can be fine. But also can be a problem if your goal is a deep dive into something, which is a totally worthy goal. They can also feel anxiety about that amount of control. I've seen a lot of families try to be super child-led and end up with kids who are too overwhelmed to really do or learn anything and parents who just aren't great guides around that.

There can be something really beautiful about the gift of having something really planned for you. About having a challenge, a path to follow. It's sometimes a lot *more* educational - especially with young kids who have so little experience of what's out there to know what to want to learn in the first place. And it doesn't have to be less educational or real or genuine. It can be more educational with deeper learning. 

Another pitfall I've seen with a lot of families who are just super child-led is that they eschew key skills if the kids don't engage in them themselves. So then the learning never has a chance to grow because you've got a kid who is in middle school who is multiple grade levels behind on some key math and reading skills. Those skills start to limit what kids can do. They can't solve a big science PBL if they have limited writing or math skills. And the knowledge that they're behind often makes them self-conscious so then they avoid those skills even more.

I don't mean to say that I'm against child-led learning. Quite the opposite. But when I started in education, I definitely had a vision that said, oh, if kids are left to their own devices, they'll naturally want to dive in and you just have to be their guides. I thought the "little expert" thing was something all kids did if you just let them. I really learned that's simply not true. Some kids will dive deep and want to explore things and you just have to be their guide. But many, many kids need more than that. They need you to draw them a map. And then show them how to read the map. And then walk them down the path. I think of it like, "What do you want for dinner?" vs. "Would you like this, that, or that for dinner?" I'm much more of a fan of a more hybrid approach, especially in the early grades. To alternate between approaches intentionally, to watch them and envision great projects and problems for them instead of putting that burden (and it is a burden for many kids) on them to "pick something," to plan it out with them individually in mind. 

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

10 minutes ago, Farrar said:

I think this is easy to say... and for some kids it's easy to do. But sometimes... it's just not.

Oh, I totally agree that it isn’t easy! 😅 

We actually have moved away from unit study style work toward more project-based & problem-based work because I found contriving unit studies exhausting for the pace at which DS moves through material. There was never enough, or there was far too much (he lost interest) & my effort felt wasted. Attempting to let DS lead them brought us face-to-face with some of the pitfalls you mentioned. So for now we stick to micro-units inspired by rabbit trails he’s already had his interest piqued by or things with a definite scope & finale!

Edited December 21, 2019 by Expat_Mama_Shelli

[....]

6 hours ago, Noreen Claire said:

I read a fabulous book about PBL and homeschooling, Project-Based Homeschooling: Mentoring Self-Directed Learners by Lori Pickert. It's actually on my list to read again, as my 7yr old really benefits from this type of learning. She used to have a website and run courses for parents, but I can't seem to find them anymore.

 

I have her book, too.  Here's the blog:  http://project-based-homeschooling.com/camp-creek-blog

I'm not sure why she's not updating it much - probably because her kids are older now and she's busier.  I think they were like 7 and 4 when the book first came out (if I remember correctly).

Other blogs/pages for the OP or anyone else interested:

http://project-based-homeschooling.com/resources

https://fearlesshomeschool.com/project-based-homeschooling/

https://blogshewrote.org/using-project-based-learning-in-high-school/

https://mamaofletters.com/project-based-homeschooling/

https://blog.mamaliberated.com/sew_liberated/project-based-homeschooling/

https://www.thesweetersideofmommyhood.com/blog/art/2013/03/project-based-homeschooling-interview-with-lori-pickert/

https://www.movingbeyondthepage.com/curriculum/strategyprojectbasedinstruction.aspx

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

19 minutes ago, Farrar said:

To alternate between approaches intentionally, to watch them and envision great projects and problems for them instead of putting that burden (and it is a burden for many kids) on them to "pick something," to plan it out with them individually in mind. 

This sort of approach to unit studies - where the individual learner is being watched & planned for - prevents the issues I mentioned above. The child is already intrigued by / engaged with the idea & that is the key to absorbing the material.

The problem lies in assigning unit study topics arbitrarily - either because the curriculum said XYZ unit should be next or because when you, as the teacher, planned out the year you decided December’s “theme” would be weather.

[Farrar]

I have the Lori Pickert book too and it's a lovely little book. I wish there was one like it geared toward older kids. I mean, so little of what she says or the examples are applicable to high schoolers and only some to middle schoolers. 

Samantha Cook and Blair Lee (the Pandia science author) have a PBL book that's sort of for homeschoolers, sort of... it's okay. It has a lot of academic stuff about why PBL is worth your time. The projects in the back were very, very meh in my opinion so in the end I didn't love it. Like, if you need to know why do PBL because you think it's not academically worthy, complete with lots of citations, then yes, useful. But I had already read about that stuff and the text wasn't inspiring like the Pickert book. I actually thought it would be better for a classroom teacher because it had a lot of ed jargon. I had hoped the implementation stuff would be better, but it's more like "if you've never come up with a PBL idea in your life" so it was truly for absolute beginners in thinking about it, not for people who want to get inspired with new ideas or deepen their toolbox.

[annegables]

1 hour ago, Farrar said:

I think this is easy to say... and for some kids it's easy to do. But sometimes... it's just not. I have experienced this with so many students and also with my own kids at times where a lot can go very wrong if you put the kids in charge. Kids can be super flighty. They want to study one thing one day and ditch it the next. Which can be fine. But also can be a problem if your goal is a deep dive into something, which is a totally worthy goal. They can also feel anxiety about that amount of control. I've seen a lot of families try to be super child-led and end up with kids who are too overwhelmed to really do or learn anything and parents who just aren't great guides around that.

There can be something really beautiful about the gift of having something really planned for you. About having a challenge, a path to follow. It's sometimes a lot *more* educational - especially with young kids who have so little experience of what's out there to know what to want to learn in the first place. And it doesn't have to be less educational or real or genuine. It can be more educational with deeper learning. 

Another pitfall I've seen with a lot of families who are just super child-led is that they eschew key skills if the kids don't engage in them themselves. So then the learning never has a chance to grow because you've got a kid who is in middle school who is multiple grade levels behind on some key math and reading skills. Those skills start to limit what kids can do. They can't solve a big science PBL if they have limited writing or math skills. And the knowledge that they're behind often makes them self-conscious so then they avoid those skills even more.

I don't mean to say that I'm against child-led learning. Quite the opposite. But when I started in education, I definitely had a vision that said, oh, if kids are left to their own devices, they'll naturally want to dive in and you just have to be their guides. I thought the "little expert" thing was something all kids did if you just let them. I really learned that's simply not true. Some kids will dive deep and want to explore things and you just have to be their guide. But many, many kids need more than that. They need you to draw them a map. And then show them how to read the map. And then walk them down the path. I think of it like, "What do you want for dinner?" vs. "Would you like this, that, or that for dinner?" I'm much more of a fan of a more hybrid approach, especially in the early grades. To alternate between approaches intentionally, to watch them and envision great projects and problems for them instead of putting that burden (and it is a burden for many kids) on them to "pick something," to plan it out with them individually in mind. 

I think a lot of the challenge that you seem to be describing in child-led learning is that, at least for my kids, they dont know what is out there, they dont know what they dont know, and they have no means of getting to cool opportunities. For instance, while my one kid is really into all things fossils, he is only in 2nd grade. So I scour the internet for the best bang-for-the-buck fossils for Christmas gifts. I research museums, field sites, etc and I drive everyone there. I interlibrary loan the really good books. I research the documentaries. And I steadily guide the learning towards something greater than its parts. I help them with all those executive functioning skills. On top of that, this is in addition to our actual "school work". I do this in different topics for my three kids. 

[Sneezyone]

12 hours ago, Expat_Mama_Shelli said:

I think this problem tends to arise when the units are teacher/parent/curriculum-lead rather than student-led. They feel artificial & forced because they ARE. They take a lot of energy on the teacher’s part because the learner largely isn’t putting work into the planning or implementation. For the same reason, I don’t think as much content is absorbed as would be from a study that is driven by the learner.

That’s not to say that they have no value; they  can be fun if everyone involved enjoys them... but my preference is to follow the learner’s lead. 

There’s no question in my mind that effective PBL is HARD. It requires a facilitator to anticipate needs and sometimes even ask the big questions that learners can not fathom because they don’t yet know enough to ask them. I don’t think most kids are sufficiently motivated/driven to do that without significant scaffolding and years of modeling/practice. Teacher or facilitator imposed questions (or a menu of them from which a learner can choose and make modifications) can be equally beneficial when the learner is engaged with the question/problem and treat it as their own personal quest.

Edited December 21, 2019 by Sneezyone

[Sneezyone]

3 hours ago, Farrar said:

One of my complaints about PBL and PrBL is that the materials that are out there are either deeply geared toward groups in a classroom and not really adaptable or they're LAME with a capital L. Like, super lame.

I never did find what I wanted for DD so I made it myself. I’ve never had so much fun puzzling that out and she had a great experience with it.

[Roadrunner]

I have nothing to contribute here, but so glad people are reviving Ester Maria’s old threads. I still miss her. 😞 

 

All I have to say PBL looks and smells Silicon Valley, and therefore it goes into my “detest” pile. 

 

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

3 hours ago, lewelma said:

I think there is a continuum in 2 different dimensions:

1) Teacher led vs student led

2) Question focused (inquiry is the goal) vs linked topics (content is the goal)

This creates 4 quadrants which most of what we are talking about seems to fall into, but obviously on a continuum.

I really liked this idea & spent some time kind of tinkering with it. I’m sure others’ perceptions shift these pieces around a bit, but this is what I came up with as an interpretation of my own perspective: 

[lewelma]

Fun!  Not how I perceived of it, but super cool to compare to what I had in mind. 🙂 

[lewelma]

The main difference in the way I saw the overlap was in the vertical axis. 

North would be question driven and include *both* PBL and PrBL with one being focused more on a physical project and the other on answering a question from more of an ideas point of view. 

South would be content driven, so not trying to answer a specific question, but rather trying to collect knowledge on a subject. 

I'm curious where to put process.  

[annegables]

@Expat_Mama_Shelli I adore coming up with two-dimensional graphs like that! And I love seeing them! It helps me think non-linearly. I have an idea for another thread topic... 

[....]

11 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

I have nothing to contribute here, but so glad people are reviving Ester Maria’s old threads. I still miss her. 😞 

 

All I have to say PBL looks and smells Silicon Valley, and therefore it goes into my “detest” pile. 

 

 

The Reggio Emilia approach was developed in Europe in the 40s.  The author of the Project-Based Homeschooling book that was mentioned here founded and ran a Reggio Emilia school (I'm not sure where? - boy, this lady really dropped out of cyberspace!).  Both Project-Based Learning and Problem-Based Learning sounds to me exactly like Montessori schools for older kids (but that's just from looking around at Montessori high school websites).  

My oldest graduated and starts college in a couple of weeks.  My time discussing educational philosophies is probably over.  At the end of the day, no one at the college cared what kind of homeschoolers we were.  During the college tours, the admissions advisors looked at me like I was insane when I asked if they wanted a booklist.  *sigh*. Oh, well.  lol