Project Based Learning
Empowering students for success with industry partnerships through Future Leaders Project Based Learning
Student-centred learning with Collaboration and real-world relevance
What is PBL?
Project Based Learning (PBL) prepares students for academic, personal, and career success, and readies young people to rise to the challenges of their lives and the world they will inherit.
In Project Based Learning, teachers make learning come alive for students.
In Limerick ETSS, we provide a learning environment that equip our students for the complex world of the 21st century. We emphasise the importance of developing lifelong learning skills that will enable students to reach their full potential while at the same time preparing them to become caring and active members of a culturally diverse society.
Active, engaging teaching and learning methods are used throughout our curriculum. As well as learning individual subjects, we often integrate our curriculum so that students can study some subjects in groups, exploring how they relate to, and overlap with, each other. This enables students to develop research skills, group work skills, time management skills, digital literacy skills, presentation skills and more. Project-based learning lends itself perfectly to enabling our students to develop what we call transversal skills.
We live in a project-based world. Project Based Learning is a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging, and complex question, problem, or challenge.
Students work on a project over an extended period of time – from a week up to a term – that engages them in solving a real-world problem or answering a complex question. They demonstrate their knowledge and skills by developing a public product or presentation for a real audience.
As a result, students develop deep content knowledge as well as critical thinking, creativity, and communication skills in the context of doing an authentic, meaningful project. Project Based Learning unleashes a contagious, creative energy among students and teachers.
Why PBL?
Project Based Learning engages students in learning that is deep and long-lasting, and inspires for them a love of learning and personal connection to their academic experience.
Impact on students
PBL blends content mastery, meaningful work, and personal connection to create powerful learning experiences, in terms of both academic achievement and students’ personal growth.
PBL can be transformative for students, especially those furthest from educational opportunity. Now more than ever, we need young people who are ready, willing, and able to tackle the challenges of their lives and the world they will inherit – and nothing prepares them better than Project Based Learning.
How?
1. Engaged hearts and minds
2. Deeper Learning
3. Exposure to adults and careers
4. A Sense of Purpose
5. Success skills
6. Rewarding teacher relationships
7. Creativity and technology
Setting the standard for PBL in our school
Student learning goals for projects include standards-based content as well as skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, communication, self-management, project management, and collaboration.
A research-informed model for measuring, calibrating, and improving your practice.
What is Gold Standard PBL?
Students actively engage with PBL projects that provide real-world relevance for learning. Students can solve problems that are important to them and their communities.
A Challenging Problem or Question
The project is framed by a meaningful problem to be solved or a question to answer, at the appropriate level of challenge.
Sustained Inquiry
Students engage in a rigorous, extended process of posing questions, finding resources, and applying information.
Authenticity
The project involves real-world context, tasks and tools, quality standards, or impact, or the project speaks to personal concerns, interests, and issues in the students’ lives.
Student Voice and Choice
Students make some decisions about the project, including how they work and what they create.
Reflection
Students and teachers reflect on the learning, the effectiveness of their inquiry and project activities, the quality of student work, and obstacles that arise and strategies for overcoming them.
Critique and Revision
Students give, receive, and apply feedback to improve their process and products.
Public Product
Students make their project work public by explaining, displaying and/or presenting it to audiences beyond the classroom.