In PBL, we often think about the role of a public product. However, community involvement is actually something we can embed into every area of the PBL process. In this week’s article and podcast, we take a deep dive into how we can make this a reality.

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An Ongoing Approach to Community Involvement within PBL

Recently, I led a workshop in Grand Rapids called PBL by Design, where we explored the overlap of project-based learning and design thinking. There are a few advantages to this model. It adds structure and accountability by breaking projects into distinct phases. This can reduce cognitive load as well. It incorporates a creative framework used by industry professionals, non-profits, and public sector employees. But I think the biggest advantage is how it moves beyond the PBL notion of a “public product” and into a larger idea of empathy within the greater community. If your curious about this overlap, check out the following video.

Design thinking expert Tim Brown (CEO and President of IDEO) describes the role of empathy in design this way:

“It’s not ‘us versus them’ or even ‘us on behalf of them.’ For a design thinker it has to be ‘us with them’”

As I led this workshop, I shared a story of a project that failed because it was a “design for them” mindset. My students had gained some initial understanding of their audience and then began working on the project. They failed to partner with the audience. In fact, we didn’t even bother to do basic check-ins along the way. The end result was a project that didn’t fit the audience. I contrasted this with a story of a teacher who did a board game project that connected her students to a senior center and nursing home. This ongoing partnership not only allowed for the games to be co-designed but it also led to an entirely new oral history PBL.

I then had participants complete a chart with each phases of the LAUNCH Cycle and a list of potential community connections. It was a rapid fire, fifteen minute activity, but it led to a great conversation during a break. One woman walked up to me and said, “This was really eye-opening for me.”

“How so?” I asked.

“I teach the littles,” she began. Instantly, my mind raced with images of pointy-eared, three inch tall mini-people with tails. But that’s probably because I grew up on The Littles as a book series. But, it turned out that she wasn’t talking about the book. She was talking about early elementary students.

She continued, “I feel guilty because our projects don’t have a big public display at the end. We do a family night and that’s about it. I mean, it doesn’t seem that authentic to me. The kids love it, but they’re second graders. They get excited about doing a dance for a brain break. But then, as I started to plan out potential community connections, I realized that we partner with the community when we start out and do the field trip or when we invite guest speakers or when we have expert guests give them feedback on their prototypes. I mean, I’m not sure how authentic that is in the PBL world but it’s a big deal to the kids.”

“I think it’s great. If it’s relevant and age-appropriate, then that is authentic. It sounds like you’re already making community connections.”

This is a reminder for me that authenticity isn’t defined by the PBL world. It’s defined by our students. If it feels real to them, then it’s real. If it meets their developmental needs and challenges them academically, it’s authentic. If it tackles a real-world problem and connects them to the larger world, then that’s authentic.

I share this because I used to get jealous of some of the teachers who could do big, splashy public products. We were a Title One middle school with a limited budget and I would feel like I was somehow less of a PBL teacher because my students weren’t on the news. Our documentaries were never screened at a film festival. I heard stories of high school students who designed sneakers that were then created as real prototypes by an industry partner and I would feel embarrassed by our prototypes made from duct tape and cardboard. But over time, I’ve realized that authentic community connections don’t always need to be newsworthy. Often they are humble moments where you break out of the four walls of your classroom and develop empathy with the larger community.

 

Integrating Community Connections in Each Phase of a Project

Over a decade ago, I began co-writing the book Launch with my good friend AJ Juliani. In the book, we shared the student-friendly LAUNCH Cycle we had co-developed when we were both K-12 classroom teachers. One of the core tenets was that something powerful happens when students launch their work to the world:

While I still love the book, I now realize that we placed a high value on that finished launch of the public product even though there are some times when a project totally succeeds but a student might not share their finished product because the process worked but the product was a failed experiment:

So, how do we ensure that students make those critical community connections even if there’s a chance that the public product doesn’t work out? The solution lies in crafting our PBLs in a way that incorporates community connections throughout the entire process. Let’s take a deeper dive using the LAUNCH Cycle.

 

Phase One: Look, Listen, and Learn

In this first phase, students gain awareness of the project, the problem, and the process they will use throughout a PBL Unit. In PBL circles, this is often referred to as an “entry event.” Others call it a “provocation.” Still others call it a “project launch.” The core idea is that students gain a basic understanding of where they are going. This is a great opportunity to connect with community partners.

It might involve a field trip. When we did a Civil Rights Museum project, my students visited two museum right next to each other and used rubrics to judge exhibits. They talked to curators and volunteers. This process broadened their understanding of a why museums exist and what they might need to do as they created their own exhibits. It doesn’t have to be a huge event, though. When a third grade classroom worked on a “design an inclusive playground project” (as part of our Boost PBL materials) their teacher had students visit three playgrounds and practice observing the spaces and looking for simple machines in action. It was a bit like a scavenger hunt.

Other times, a teacher might have a guest speaker present an idea or a challenge for the students. For example, in an environmental science class, students began a water quality project by interviewing an environmental scientist who explained the role of climate and habitat on toxic algae growth. In an entrepreneurial class, students did a station rotation activity where they interviewed three four different entrepreneurs to hear about the starting point, the challenges, and the approaches used by each entrepreneur.

This phase is a great chance for students to build empathy with their audience. In some cases, you might not even use the term “audience” and instead think about a horizontal partnership with the community. I’ve seen design projects where students engage in a virtual mentorship with a local entity and co-design a solution for a particular challenge that business or non-profit is facing. At a younger grade, this might simply involve having a conversation with a community partner where they talk about pain points, challenges, solutions, etc. In a Global Food Truck PBL (another Boost PBL project), one teacher had students start with small group interviews where they did a “day in the life” protocol as a way to introduce the idea of global healthy food options.

 

Phase Two: Asks Tons of Questions

This phase is typically something entirely student generated. Here, students jot down as many questions as they can about the project (especially as it relates to the driving question) but also the larger topic that the PBL covers. However, teachers can also integrate strategic community connections in this initial inquiry phase. For example, if they are doing a “designing with” approach for an inclusive playground, they might meet with parent volunteers or neurodiverse adults and use a structured brainstorming process to combine questions from the students and the community. So, those participants could share questions they have as they think about their own childhood experiences. Then, when students engage in research, they not answer their own questions but they tap into some of the questions that the audience might have.

Other times, you might invite community partners to help students learn to ask specific kinds of questions. For example, when I taught photojournalism, I brought in a journalist who helped students learn how to ask open-ended questions and follow-up questions. This particular journalist modeled the process in a way that helped students learn how to think like journalists. In doing a documentary, I had a documentary film maker share what types of initial research questions she asked. During a STEM project, I had an engineer walk us through the types of questions engineers tended to ask. In each case, I was able to design sentence stems as a scaffold and support for multilingual students but also for anyone who wanted some extra help crafting questions.

 

Phase Three: Understanding

In this phase, students go from an initial awareness (phase one) to curiosity (phase two) into a space where they will answer their questions and develop a deeper understanding of the process, the problems, and the content that they are learning. The goal here is an authentic research experience. In some cases, they might do online research with their devices and engage in the five C’s of critical consuming:

They might also use AI tools and engage in a prompt engineering process like the FACTS Cycle.

Notice that neither of these processes rely on community involvement. Students might meet up with community members to share findings or to engage in a co-researching process. However, that’s not very common.

There are, however, some research methods that get students out into the community. Here are a few of them:

• Expert Interviews: Invite local experts, such as business owners, government officials, or specialists in the field of study, to either visit the classroom or participate in virtual interviews. These experts can provide firsthand insights, data, and guidance relevant to students’ projects. Students might meet with a museum curator who can explain artifacts, an engineer who can explain a process, or a community organizer who can share insights about the local community. I’ve noticed that post-pandemic, more and more experts are willing to use video conferences for short interviews.
• Field Trips: Organize visits to local businesses, museums, or community organizations that are relevant to the students’ project topics. Sometimes students simply need to engage in observational data and a short field trip can help them gather that observational data. Virtual tours can also be used if in-person visits aren’t feasible. Sometimes students simply need to see what a project looks like in action. Again, hearkening back to the documentary project, one of my favorite field trips was to the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at ASU. Students can also work with local historical societies or libraries to access archives, records, and other materials that help them understand the community’s past and how it relates to their project.
• Surveys: Have students design and conduct surveys for community members, collecting data on their views or experiences related to the project’s focus. This could involve sending out digital surveys or conducting face-to-face interviews in public spaces. In our Project Social Voice PBL, students did community needs assessments and cross-referenced that to some of the readily available public data relating to local issues. This can be a powerful way for students to build empathy with the local community; especially when combining quantitative and qualitative data.
• Internships: Collaborate with local nonprofits, government agencies, or businesses that are invested in the same issues or challenges students are exploring. These organizations can offer mentorship, resources, or data that students might otherwise not have access to. Here, the research looks more like experiential research related to applied academics (such as how STEM is used in actual industry).
• Service: Allow students to participate in hands-on community service relevant to their project. For example, if they are researching environmental issues, they might help with a local cleanup effort or volunteer at a sustainability-focused organization. Sometimes service can function as a method for research because students see how the content looks in a real world setting.

This research process helps students develop a deeper understanding so that students can then navigate ideas.

 

Phase Four: Navigating Ideas

If we go back to Tim Brown’s idea of “designing with” rather than “designing for,” we might want to incorporate the audience into the navigation of ideas. In this phase, students brainstorm, narrow down ideas, and ultimately design a plan for their project. Here’s a short video of the initial brainstorming process:

If a community member can’t be there in person, you can have them submit these ideas anonymously to a Google Form that the small group then uses as they navigate ideas. You might also have students find the PARTS of the project (product idea, audience, role, tasks, and solution) and then invite community members to give feedback via a shared document.

I watched a first grade class do a design thinking challenge where community volunteers helped students generate ideas in a structured brainstorm. These volunteers didn’t create any ideas of their own but simply asked questions and offered some gentle feedback. I also saw a high school entrepreneur program where small group teams came up with an initial concept for their project and then met with actual entrepreneurs to help them come up with a “pre-mortem” that they used to refine their plan. If you’re not familiar with the pre-mortem concept, here it is:

 

 

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The bottom line is that students don’t need to be isolated in the classroom as they navigate ideas. They can find small ways to connect to the community, whether that involves asking for ideas, getting feedback, or helping find areas that they might have overlooked.

 

Phase Five: Creating a Prototype

One way we can connect with the community is by encouraging students to share their process, rather than just their finished product, with the larger community. Austin Kleon describes this as “showing your work.” It’s the idea that we should share our creative journey with others. It’s what happens when you make videos showing your creative process or when you share snapshots of your work on social media. It’s what happens when you put yourself out there in a creative community. I love this quote from Kleon’s book Show Your Work:

 

You see this with kids who engage with an online community centered around their interests. I saw this when a girl in my eighth-grade class showed me the five novels she had already published on Wattpad and then shared her Tumblr where she asked for feedback in the characters and plots she developed. I noticed this years ago when my own kids started playing Minecraft and began watching and creating Minecraft videos.

We might also have moments where students meet with experts who can help them with specific prototyping methods. In a STEM course, students connect with an engineer or industrial designer who can help them with a CAD machine or 3D printer. In nearly every community, there are members with some type of expertise that you, as a teacher, might lack. If you can go through the hurdles of getting volunteer clearance, these community partnerships can be invaluable.

I still remember doing a Tiny House project and receiving an email from a parent. “Mr. Spencer, I noticed that you invited my nephew Carlos to talk to your students about engineering. We are so proud of him! I also want you to know that when students start doing the construction, I can teach them about resource management. I have a whole idea of how you can add a budget to your project. As a general contractor, I had to learn these things the hard way.”

A week later, we had a revised project based on this parent’s input. I also had a team of four volunteers who helped students during the prototyping phase of that project. From that moment on, I began sending surveys home at the start of the semester asking family members what types of skills they had and what they might be able to share with students. On a side note, I notice that low-income schools sometimes have a low view of the community and this was a great chance to change that perception.

 

Phase Six: Highlight What’s Working and Fix What’s Failing

I still remember talking to a retired English teacher in our staff lounge. “How did you do it? How did you give that much feedback on student writing?” I asked.

The teacher walked me through his process and shared how he integrated peer feedback and self-assessment. But then he said something surprising. “You need to tap into the larger community.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I used to get volunteers from the university. I would try and get people to commit to giving feedback on three papers. These were my community editors. It counted as volunteer hours for people who were getting an undergrad in education.”

I tried to do the same but quickly found that I didn’t have the same community connections as this teacher. What I did have were friends and family with a background in English, Literature, or Journalism. From there, I connected with an online community of retired English teachers. Eventually, I had a team of 40 volunteers who each committed to reading a single script from a small group and offering constructive criticism. This was totally anonymous and vetted through our district. But it was also powerful! My students were getting feedback from Community Editors.

As we think about this phase of PBL, we can find ways for community experts to offer critiques and ideas for students as they revise their work. If students are doing a performance (like a speech), we might have performance coaches who are available to help them rehearse it. A guest artist might share a quick technique.

I’ve found that it helps if the expectations are clear and the opportunity to serve is short-term and convenient. It doesn’t have to be a massive volunteer role. It can be a simple 15-minute asynchronous activity two or three times in a single month.

Phase Seven: Launching Your Work

I love what happens when kids create work and it doesn’t just end up on the refrigerator. I love to see the change in motivation and student agency when they get to choose the audience.

Too often, though, we hold back on the launch. Some of this comes from a genuine sense of humility. We don’t want to brag. Yet, we forget that when we are promoting our students’ work, we aren’t self-promoting. We’re saying to kids, “The world needs your creative voice.” But I wonder how often the motivation is different. We are so used to these amazing things that we forget that they are amazing. They’ve become normal to us but they are still amazing to someone else.

Now, what if the work isn’t perfect? What if kids struggle? What if the finished product is flawed? I  wrestled with this idea a few years back when we did our Geek Out Blogs. It was easy when Isabel wrote beautiful posts about biology and ecology or when Miguel wrote hard-hitting, honest, thought-provoking pieces about his lived experience as a biracial boy and the larger issues around race and racism. But then we had one boy, Marco, who struggled as a writer. It took him a full class period to write one paragraph. He was nearly silent each class period, saying nothing when they engaged in cooperative learning activities. One day, Marco pressed publish instead of “save as a draft” and his unedited work showed up in a Gamer group on Write About. He had sent his work to a massive audience. My heart sank. Kids can mean. I was sure there would be at least one snarky comment. But that’s not what happened. Instead, there were ten comments affirming his post and asking questions about video games.

For the rest of the semester, he shared his knowledge, his hidden expertise, and the cheat codes he had discovered, with an authentic audience. It was powerful  to see him go from the “quiet kid who struggled with reading and writing” to  “the video game expert.” His blog posts weren’t perfect. But that didn’t matter. He had changed in small ways. He was more confident and more social.

That’s the power of the launch. You’re saying,  “I’m not afraid to be known.”

This is why I love having students create a public product that they share with the world.  So, this final launch might involve community connections through a community celebration. If you’re filming a documentary, it might involve a screening at a theater. In an entrepreneurial project, you might have a Shark Tank style committee that judges each student’s finished work.

We can take this community partnership concept even further, though, but connecting students to people who can help them market their ideas. We might connect students to people with a background in public relations as they write a press release connected to their project. Students might interview marketing experts to learn strategies for marketing their finished product as they share it with the world.

Note that we don’t need to include a public launch in every phase of the project. As a teacher, you might pick and choose where to include it. But the more we can find those little ways to connect to the community, the more likely we will be to craft meaningful and relevant PBL projects. When that happens, students see an authentic connection to their local context. And in a world of AI, contextual understanding and empathy become vital human skills that machines lack.

Looking for More?

If you’re interested in getting started with project-based learning, check out my Getting Started with PBL page, complete with articles, videos, and resources. You might also want to check out my PBL toolkit, which includes a set of projects and mini-projects, along with a Getting Started with PBL guide and a set of assessment resources you can use within the project-based learning framework. I will also send you a weekly email with free, members-only access to my latest blog posts, videos, podcasts and resources to help you boost creativity and spark innovation in your classroom. Just sign up below!