In my classroom at Media Arts Collaborative Charter School (MACCS), on any given day, you will see students in groups at tables perusing books and articles, making plans, negotiating decisions, producing physical artifacts, and collaborating intently. You will see them on their computers together, reading with each other, discussing the credibility of resources they discovered, reminding each other of their project’s essential question, striving to keep one another on task, performing specific roles, and communicating to solve problems. They are engaged in project-based learning. PBL involves a problem related to (but not limited to) the content of a class, in my case, social studies. Rather than be the sage on the stage, standing and talking while they sit and listening, taking copious notes for later use in studying to pass a future quiz, a become a project manager.
I offer an essential question, such as, “What does the state of New Mexico need to do to become environmentally and economically sustainable into the foreseeable future?” It’s an unstructured question, for which there is no single correct answer. I give students a choice about what kinds of problems they want to solve, in relation to this kind of a question. I put them in groups with peers who share similar interests, mixing and matching groups, based upon skill sets, attitudes and abilities. I assign them roles, I set up a framework for delving into the essential questions, I provide a wealth of resources for them to use, and then I set them to their work while I facilitate. I didn’t invent PBL. It’s been around a long time. It’s supported by the conclusions of a good number of theorists, most notable, for me, Lev Vygotsky and Albert Bandura.
Lev Vygotsky developed the theory of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Pictured in circles, the outer circle represents what a child can’t do, the middle circle represents what a child can do with help, and at the center of the circle is what a child can do independently. The Zone of Proximal Development is the distance traveled between can’t do, can do with help, and can do. (Driscoll, 1990) Vygotsky was adamant that peer interaction was required to get a child to traverse this distance, because, he concluded, it was by means of working with others as support that a child could have modeled for them and internalize the critical thinking skills and metacognition necessary to become independently resourceful. In project-based learning, peer interaction is an essential element. As higher developed students support lesser developed students this independent resourcefulness is very palpably nourished.
Albert Bandura set forth two theories that support work in PBL, the theory of Self Efficacy and the Social Learning Theory. (Dricoll, 1990) Bandura recognized that there are reasons student fail to learn. First, when a child is not naturally good at something, there is the immediate urge to avoid the effort learning will demand. Second, when a child not naturally good at something realizes that it will take a concerted and rigorous effort to become good at it, the child becomes too intimidated to make the attempt. Finally, and most significantly, when a child cannot see the value of expending the effort to learn something, why try at all? Bandura addressed this last concern most expressly. He determined that, in order to inspire a child to believe they can learn, to be willing to work at it, and to have faith in the process, teachers needed to be thoroughly open about everything. They needed to be clear about what effort was expected, leaving nothing out, they needed to be very specific about the learning objectives to be met, and they needed to be able to be as explicit as possible about the authentic usefulness of what was to be learned. In addition, a teacher mush be vigilantly optimistic about the learning. This also is fundamental to PBL.
With the Social Learning Theory, Bandura postulated that each of us has encoded our own behaviors based on our observation of others. Very specifically, when each of us has observed, in any particular setting, the manner in which people are punished and rewarded, we model our behaviors to seek reward and avoid punishment (Driscoll, 1990). Bandura asserts than a classroom learning environment should be an ongoing situation of positivity, consistency, and safety, in which the encoding of behaviors can successfully occur. Even as Vygotsky lauded the use of peer interaction, Bandura demands it just as much. It is through unswerving, continuous peer interaction that the greatest academic and interpersonal learning can occur. In my classroom, we have all grade levels working at once, and it proves Bandura right daily. The predictable jadedness of the 8th grader is counterbalanced by the nearly uncontrollable buoyancy of the 6th graders, and the 7th graders become a strong leavening influence. The 8th graders model maturity to the 6th graders, the 6th graders model enthusiasm and openness to the 7th and 8th graders, and the 7th graders give and receive on both sides effectively.
These theorists didn’t have MRIs or EEGs when they came to their conclusions, but modern brain science bears them out. Conclusions made by learning how the brain works, suggest that three things must be present in a successful learning environment: Active Processing, Orchestrated Immersion, and Relaxed Alertness. (Sprenger, 2014) Active Processing is when focused engagement in authentic experiences reinforces the brain’s natural function of making meaning. Orchestrated Immersion happens when the experiences students are involved in are genuine, authentic, and connected to them personally. Relaxed Alertness occurs when the challenge is high but the threat is low. These elements must all be a part of solidly practiced PBL.
The theory of the Zone of Proximal Development comes into play in a number of ways, but here are two. When groups are formed, they are based on shared interests on the part of students, but that takes second place to an analysis of complementary skills and abilities. The use of NWEA (Northwestern Educational Association) test score data informs me about which readers are fluent and which are not. Ensuring at least one or two fluent readers in a group means that fluent readers can help less fluent readers become better skilled. Highly motivated learners need to be grouped with lesser motivated students. Gregarious students need to be balanced by more introverted ones. It’s more of an art than a science, but when attention is paid to this, the distance between what a child can’t do, can do with help, and can do on their own becomes much shorter.
There is no greater way for a student to understand metacognition than to reflect upon their learning. In order for me and my kids to assess their movement from can’t do, can with help, and can do independently, we have End of Year Reflections. Students may select a project from the year from which they feel they’ve grown the most, not necessarily the most fun project or even the one they got higher skills ratings for, and they answers questions about the skills they feel they’ve developed. Taken cumulatively, over years in middle school, students amaze themselves about their own educational and personal journeys, seeing clearly what they can do now that they couldn’t do before.
This naturally segues into self-efficacy. When a student successfully answers an essential question, working through all the ambiguity of discovering an answer, unique to their group among other groups’ answers, there is a real sense of empowerment involved. I’ve evaluated them on specific skills related to accepting praise as well as criticism, the manner in which they view mistakes as opportunities rather than cause for self-loathing, backing up claims with valid arguments, and so on. The answer to their essential question, derived from much toil, is like a trophy, and when they do presentations of learning, which is the culmination of every project they do, one can see the evolution of their confidence.
Where the Social Learning Theory is concerned, much attention has been paid to creating a learning environment of safety, positivity and generous support. We have a house system, in which students are part of advisory groups, earning points for positive behaviors based on the Habits of Heart and Mind, we have mixed grades, students do peer evaluations of one another’s growth, and they learn to take on different roles in each group. Over time, as a student moves year to year in the middle school, they come to naturally recognize strengths and areas of improvement in one another, without harsh judgment, working together to play to one another’s strengths and effectively compensate and teach to one another’s areas of improvement. It’s taken a few years to cultivate this culture, but now that it’s in place, I believe it fully exemplifies what Bandura suggested would work best.
PBL is very different than traditional teaching, and for many it seems like an impossible dream, but the brain science supports it, and there are many great theorists that do too. There are any number of theorists, mostly constructivists and behaviorists who would agree that project-based learning is the way to go, but the theories that most inform my practices are those of Vygotsky and Bandura.
SOURCES CITED
Driscoll, M.P., 1993, The Psychology of Learning for Teachers, 3rd. Ed, Boston, MA., Allyn &
Bacon
Sprenger, Marilee, 2014, Rewiring the Brain for Learning: Brain-Based Strategies for Teaching
Literacy, Wiley & Sons