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===Structure===
Project-based learning emphasizes learning activities that are long-term, interdisciplinary, and student-centered. Unlike traditional, teacher-led classroom activities, students often must organize their own work and manage their own time in a project-based class. Project-based instruction differs from traditional inquiry by its emphasis on students' collaborative or individual artifact construction to represent what is being learned. Design principles thus emphasize "student agency, authenticity, and collaboration."
Project-based learning also gives students the opportunity to explore problems and challenges that have real-world applications, increasing the possibility of long-term retention of skills and concepts.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Crane|first1=Beverley|title=Using Web 2.0 Tools in the K-12 Classroom|date=2009|publisher=Neal-Schuman Publishers|___location=New York|isbn=978-1-55570-653-1|page=7}}</ref>
===Elements===
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The instructor's 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. Upfront planning is crucial, in that the instructor should plan out the structural elements and logistics of the project far in advance in order to reduce student confusion once they assume ownership of their projects.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Tawfik |first=Andrew A. |last2=Gishbaugher |first2=Jaclyn J. |last3=Gatewood |first3=Jessica |last4=Arrington |first4=T. Logan |date=2021-08-17 |title=How K-12 Teachers Adapt Problem-Based Learning Over Time |url=https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/ijpbl/article/view/29662 |journal=Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning |language=en |volume=15 |issue=1 |doi=10.14434/ijpbl.v15i1.29662 |issn=1541-5015|doi-access=free }}</ref> 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, "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."<ref>{{cite web|last=Miller|first=Andrew|title=Edutopia|url=http://www.edutopia.org/blog/effective-assessment-project-based-learning-andrew-miller|publisher=© 2013 The George Lucas Educational Foundation|access-date=22 October 2013}}</ref> 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 the learning that it demonstrates.
The student's 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 about how to solve problems. PBL forces students to take ownership of their success.
==Outcomes==
[[File:Cover to cover reading versus problem or project based learning.png|thumb|370px|Example of problem-/project-based learning versus reading cover to cover. The problem-/project-based learner may memorize a smaller amount of total information due to spending time searching for the optimal information across various sources, but will likely learn more useful items for real-world scenarios, and will likely be better at knowing where to find information when needed.<ref>Image by Mikael Häggström, MD, using source images by various authors. Source for useful context in problem-based learning: {{cite web|title=Understanding Medical Education - Problem-based learning|author=Mark A Albanese, Laura C Dast|date=2013-10-22|url=https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118472361.ch5|website=Wiley Online Library}}</ref>]]
In addition to learning the content of their core subjects, students need to learn to work in a community, thereby taking on social responsibilities. Some of the most significant contributions of PBL have been in schools in poverty stricken areas; when students take responsibility, or ownership, for their learning, their self-esteem soars. It also helps to create better work habits and attitudes toward learning.The pedagogical practice is also linked to conversations revolving around equitable instruction, as it presents opportunities to provide learning experiences that are "equitable, relevant, and meaningful to each and every student while supporting the development of not only students' academic learning, but also their social, emotional, and identity development."
In standardized tests, languishing schools have been able to raise their testing grades a full level by implementing PBL.{{Citation needed|date=December 2012}} 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. Teachers who implement Project-Based Learning assert that this approach emphasizes teachers helping their students track and develop their own processes of thinking, making them more aware of problem-solving strategies they can use in the future.
PBL is significant to the study of (mis-)conceptions; local concepts and childhood intuitions that are hard to replace with conventional classroom lessons. In PBL, project science ''is'' the community culture; the student groups themselves resolve their understandings of phenomena with their own knowledge building. Technology allows them to search in more useful ways, along with getting more rapid results.
Blumenfeld & Krajcik (2006) cite studies that show students in project-based learning classrooms get higher scores than students in traditional classroom.<ref>Sawyer, R. K. (2006) The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences. New York: Cambridge University Press.</ref> Student-choice and autonomy may contribute to students growing more heavily interested in the subject, as discovered by researchers in a 2019 study in which they evaluated student engagement in a Project-Based after-school program. After learning more about environmental concerns and implementing a small scale community project, students in this program reported more positive attitudes towards science and literacy.
[[Problem-based learning]] is a similar pedagogic approach; however, problem-based approaches structure students' activities more by asking them to solve specific (open-ended) problems rather than relying on students to come up with their own problems in the course of completing a project. Another seemingly similar approach is quest-based learning; unlike project-based learning, in questing, the project is determined specifically on what students find compelling (with guidance as needed), instead of the teacher being primarily responsible for forming the essential question and task.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Alcock, Marie |author2=Michael Fisher |author3=Allison Zmuda |title=The Quest for Learning: How to Maximize Student Engagement |date=2018 |publisher=Solution Tree |___location=Bloomington |url=https://www.solutiontree.com/quest-for-learning.html}}</ref>
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Since PBL revolves around student autonomy, student's self-motivation and ability to balance work-time both inside and outside of school are also imperative to a successful project. Deadlines are a realistic component of many academic environments, resulting in the implementation of PBL to often present challenges to teachers in providing students with an ample amount of time, flexibility, and resources.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ramos-Ramos |first=Pablo |last2=Botella Nicolás |first2=Ana María |date=2022-08-31 |title=Teaching Dilemmas and Student Motivation in Project-based Learning in Secondary Education |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.14434/ijpbl.v16i1.33056 |journal=Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning |volume=16 |issue=1 |doi=10.14434/ijpbl.v16i1.33056 |issn=1541-5015}}</ref>
Opponents of project-based learning caution against negative outcomes primarily in projects that become unfocused, as underdeveloped assignments or lessons may result in the waste of class time. While no one teaching method has been proven more effective than another, critics argue that narratives and presentation of anecdotal evidence included in lecture-style instruction can convey the same knowledge in less class time. Given that disadvantaged students generally have fewer opportunities to learn academic content outside of school, wasted class time due to an unfocused lesson or project presents a particular problem. If the project does not remain on task and content-driven, the project may be ineffective in reaching the learning objectives. Thus, a source of difficulty for teachers includes, "Keeping these complex projects on track while attending to students' individual learning needs...[this] requires artful teaching, as well as industrial-strength project management."
A specific concern is that PBL may be inappropriate in mathematics, the reason being that mathematics is primarily skill-based at the elementary level. Transforming the curriculum into an over-reaching project or series of projects does not allow for necessary practice of particular mathematical skills. For instance, factoring quadratic expressions in elementary algebra requires extensive repetition {{citation needed|reason=While traditionally taught with extensive rote repetition, more recent & research-driven mathematics pedagogical practices vary on this (ex. in Montessori approaches) |date=March 2019}}.
Another criticism of PBL is that measures that are stated as reasons for its success are not measurable using standard measurement tools, and rely on subjective rubrics for assessing results.{{Citation needed|reason=Research on the fundamental informativeness of quantifiable assessment methods has demonstrated their inaccuracy & inefficacy for educational practice for approx. the last 80 years (see Alfie Kohn's "The Case Against Grades" for an overview of such research). Maybe just needs contextualization for this concern's basis, not citations?|date=March 2019}}
==See also==
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