Additional Information Buck Institute's PBL Website

Project/Problem Based Learning (PBL) combines relevant curriculum, authentic work on real-life skills and exhibitions of mastery. By engaging students immediately in work that requires imagination, resourcefulness, organization, socialization and perseverance, PBL turns around the old learn-first-produce-later paradigm. It thrusts students into work that demands essential information and skills traditionally "covered" in most courses and state standards, but it also creates that all-important "need to know" for each student which defines the teachable moment.

Whether as a whole class, in small groups or individually, students in a PBL classroom are not "pushed" through curriculum to get to the project or exam; rather, they are "pulled" along by the urgency of completing work on a product they have largely chosen/designed themselves. Instructors move away from dispensing information in the front of the classroom and prodding students toward an ultimate assessment to creating from the sidelines discovery experiences designed to help students acquire skills and information they need to complete their projects, and guiding them one-on- one through that discovery process. Make no mistake, a PBL classroom looks, sounds and feels different from a traditional, teacher-centered classroom. Yet, there is still a place in the PBL classroom for lecture, quiet individual reading/study, quizzes, skill/drill and other more traditional, time proven learning methods.

The research on PBL clearly demonstrates marked improvement in retention of what is learned in a PBL program and even suggests the ability to learn more as reflected on standardized tests of academic achievement. PBL can function well in a single classroom or form the basis of a multi-discipline team or even whole-school approach.

If you are searching for ways to get your students more engaged in the learning process, more motivated to succeed by challenging themselves and each other to tackle work just beyond their immediate threshold, perhaps it's time to investigate Project/Problem Based Learning in your school or classroom.