Project-Based Instruction

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Project-Based Instruction

For students in my history and social work classes I am increasingly using project-based instruction. The idea behind project-based instruction is that students now have access to a plethora of information over the internet. Although it is still important for instructors to help students gather, filter and evaluation information, the biggest challenge is no longer getting access to information, but what students will do with that information once they get it.

In addition to having greater access to greater amounts of information, everyone now has the power to produce and publish content, and to distribute it to the general public. This means that students no longer have to be merely consumers of knowledge, they now have it within their power to become producers of new information and to add to the overall body of knowledge. This is another  good reason for project-based instruction. Students who have taken the time and effort to read the literature on their topic, and to follow the discourse on it, will be in a position to add their voice, in meaningful ways, to topics they are interested in.

A third reason for using project-based instruction is that teaching is the best way to learn. When we teach others what we have studied, we learn to anticipate questions that others might have. We also learn how to put our thoughts into words and express those thoughts in a way that makes sense to others. Teaching what we have studied helps us to identify the gaps in our knowledge so that we can strengthen areas where we are weak. Project-based instruction turns students into teachers, which deepens their base of knowledge and their capacity to learn.

Project-based learning is important for future professionals. Increasingly professionals are discovering the benefits of blogging in order to reach more clients, customers and constituents. The most successful blogs and websites are not self-promotional; they focus on sharing information for free in order to build trust and credibility. Students, and even seasoned professionals, who develop the habit of blogging and creating websites to share information, will find that they have acquired a valuable tool for social networking, not only online, but also in their immediate environment.

One other thing; as a historian I am keenly aware of how difficult it is to re-construct much of  history because so few people, other than the elites, left records of their thoughts and experiences. Social science also tends to speak for populations, rather than allowing them to speak for themselves. Many people have been put in the position of being consumers of other people's interpretation of their lives and experiences, rather than having the power to generate their own accounts and interpretations. Project-based learning has the potential of getting more and more people in the habit of carefully formulating their thoughts so that their voices will be heard, remembered, and taken seriously in the public arena.

Using a Journal to Track Your Learning Process

The projects that I have my students work on result in "artifacts of learning," in other words, the evidence of their learning is in what they have produced by the end of the course. Usually this takes the form of creating and maintaining a public blog or a website. There is also a corresponding assignment, such as maintaining a journal, to document what they are learning as they work on their project for the course. Typically, journaling will focus on how they came across their sources, how they selected them, and choices they had to make about how to interpret these sources.

The early part of the journal will typically discuss what it is they think they know about the topic, and what they expect to find in their research. As they work on their project for awhile, the journal will begin to discuss some of the surprises, mistakes or difficulties they have encountered along the way. The final chapters of the journal should discuss what they have learned from the whole process.

Project-based instruction, which combines the process of creating an artifact of learning with the activity of keeping a self-reflective journal, can be a powerful way for students to learn by teaching and increase students' awareness of their process of learning. This empowers students to take ownership of their process of learning and contribute to the overall body of knowledge for others to sift through, evaluate and use in the future.

See also: How Teachers Teach and Students Learn , The Four Arrows of Project-Based Learning and Wikis, Discussion Boards, Journals, and Blogs

C. Matthew Hawkins