While it’s easy to reject traditional teaching practices as “less authentic” in PBL, we explore why these ten strategies actually belong in PBL unit plans.

Why Do Some Students Hate Projects?

It’s about fifteen minutes before our Mock Trial practice and a student walks up to me. “Coach Spencer, what do you usually talk about when you go to conferences and speak?”

“I usually give a keynote about AI or . . .”

He cuts me off and says, “I don’t really understand the terms. I’ve heard of generative AI. How is that different from non-generative AI?” I walk him through the basics of LLMs, machine learning, and the various models. We talk about bias and hallucinations. But then he says, “Are there any other topics you talk about?”

“I also give keynotes about student voice and choice or project-based learning,” I answer.

His face drops.

“Is something wrong?” I ask.

“Sorry. I just. Um, I hate project-based learning,” he answers.

“Do you mind me asking why?” I ask.

“It’s always so big and overwhelming and there’s never enough class time, so I have to do it at home. Plus, I end up being the only one in the group that does any work. And it feels meaningless. Like busy work.”

“How so?” I ask.

“Well, I think we’re supposed to be learning the subject but I don’t see the connection between the science concepts and the project. Plus, I’m not that artistic and I feel like there’s always this finished product we have to turn in. It’s just a lot of time and stress and not a lot of learning,” he says.

“But you like Mock Trial, right?” I ask.

“Absolutely. It’s my favorite class,” he answers.

“That’s project-based learning,” I point out.

“But it’s not really. We have deadlines and due dates. Each member is accountable. Every one of us has a role with clear expectations. Plus, our teacher actually teaches us. He does this short mini-lectures and we practice a skill afterward. And . . . there’s no product. It’s a performance.”

It’s at this point that I share the key elements of project-based learning and ask him if Mock Trial fits these descriptors:

And, while there are many different PBL models, PBL Works identifies the following seven project design elements:

1. Challenging Problem or Question
2. Sustained Inquiry
3. Authenticity
4. Student Voice & Choice
5. Reflection
6. Critique & Revision
7. Public Product

 

One of the key realizations for him was that the public product didn’t have to be a tangible product. It could be a digital work, a system, a service activity, or a performance.

But I left that conversation thinking about the some of the negative experiences people have had with PBL when a teacher abandoned all things “traditional” in order to embrace authentic PBL. It’s the same mistake I once made in my PBL journey.

 

What do we mean by authentic PBL?

When I first began my PBL journey, I designed highly structured projects that lacked student agency. When a student said, “I’m confused” or “I don’t what to do,” I provided detailed instructions. An initial one-page project handout grew into a guidebook with detailed daily instructions. Without realizing it, I fell into what Chris Lehmann describes as “recipe-based learning.”

I remember attending a PBL conference and listening to experts talk about the need for student ownership of the entire process. They shared a story of how their students had generated the project idea, helped craft the driving questions, and then managed their own time through the entire process.

“Authentic PBL is messy and students need to learn to navigate the chaos and create their own order,” the presenter said.

So, I abandoned deadlines and structures. I scrapped the protocols we had used. I wanted to see how well they could self-manage. What I learned is that this free-for-all approach led to cognitive overload. Students didn’t know where to go or what to do (a mistake I would repeat once again in my Genius Hour fiasco).

I wanted my students to engage in authentic PBL but I learned something valuable. Authenticity doesn’t to be at odds with structure. A project is authentic to a student if it feels relevant to them. So, a PBL that includes  predictable protocols might actually be authentic to a student. One of the most authentic things you can offer an English Learner might be sentence stems and front-loaded vocabulary because those are the strategies we want them to use as they navigate the language.

But it’s more than that. If we move outside of the four walls of our classroom and explore how people engage in projects, we’ll notice that they often use protocols. They follow deadlines. They break projects into key phases. They often assess their work through self-assessments and peer assessments but they might even use a rubric. They might pause the project for a moment to read a manual or watch a tutorial.  So, with that in mind, I’d like to share ten so-called traditional strategies that belong within a PBL unit.

Ten Traditional Teaching Practices that Still Belong in a PBL Unit

The following are just a few traditional strategies you might use in a PBL unit.

 

1. Learning Targets and Agendas

For decades, researchers have pointed out that students will rarely transfer the knowledge from project-based learning (and other experiential approaches to learning) into new domains without the teacher making it explicit for them. In Teaching for Transfer, David Perkins & Gavriel Salomon differentiate between “low-road” (automatic) and “high-road” (deliberate, abstract) transfer. They argue that teachers need to clarify where the transfer is happening and engage students in guided reflection. Similarly in How People Learn, John Bransford, Ann Brown, and Rodney Cocking that transfer is highly context-dependent. It simply does not happen automatically. Students often struggle to apply knowledge learned in one domain to another unless explicitly taught how to make those connections.

This is why learning targets and agendas are still important in PBL. If a key goal of project-based learning is for students learn through the project, we need to ensure that students know what they are learning. True, we have essential questions and guiding questions, but we also need to have a learning target that states what they will learn (tied to the standards) and how they will demonstrate it. We can then break it down into a simple agenda. This helps students grow aware of the connections between the project and the learning outcomes and it helps with this transfer process. It can also reduce extraneous cognitive load, meaning students can focus more of their attention on the learning at hand.

 

2. Quizzes

When I first began implementing PBL, I would take a break every Friday for a test. I needed to know that students were actually learning the content within the project. Eventually, I abandoned that approach and used other forms of formative assessment. But then . . . I brought back quizzes. But I changed it up a bit. These were short, four-question multiple choice quizzes that students did as a warm-up or an exit slip. They filled them out in Google Forms that ungraded. Students gained immediate feedback as well.

So, what was going on?

The real value of short quizzes is at the student rather than the teacher level. Quizzes are one of the best practices for engaging in rehearsal and recall. From an information processing standpoint, the learning is more like to stick:

When this occurs, students are more likely to discover what they know, what they don’t know, and what they need to do next. This helps students develop metacognition:

 

3. Direct Instruction with Explicit Modeling

Early on in my project-based learning journey, I made a vow to go 100% project-based. My students would learn everything through exploration and discovery. I would remain the guide on the side observing the process and helping out only when necessary. After leading students through a highly-structured documentary project, I decided to pull back entirely. This would be more student-centered and authentic. Students would be in the driver’s seat.

It tanked.

Not a week later or a month later. Two days into the project, I realized my mistake. My students didn’t have enough background knowledge to navigate the complexity of the project. I had skipped the concept attainment lesson with the goal of learning through the project. However, my students didn’t have a conceptual understanding of the topic (in this case, forces and motion in science). Still, I pushed forward, though the inquiry phase and into research, where I realized that most of my students were unable to do online research. They lacked key skills needed in order to own the research process.

At that moment, I took a timeout. I used direct instruction to build some conceptual understanding of the topic. We did some mini-experiments and a review of content vocabulary. I then used direct instruction and guided practice to help students learn how to do research. We practiced the skills together.

I learned something valuable through those mistakes. Authentic projects can coexist with direct instruction. If authenticity involves making the learning real and relevant to students, then there might be moments when direct instruction might be the authentic choice. Yes, we want the learning to be student-centered, but as teachers, we still have moments when we need to use direct instruction. And sometimes students will even need additional time to practice key skills. Which leads to my next point . . .

4. Skill Practice

In terms of skills, sometimes we need to model a skill for the entire class and have students engage in guided practice together before applying it to the project. We might even need to pull small groups and do some additional skill practice as an intervention. And, again, that’s still authentic. If I’m working on a project in my own life and I don’t know how to do some key component, I might need to view a tutorial and practice it before going back to my project.

 

5. Cooperative Learning Structures

We’ve all been there before as students. The teacher announces a group project and your stomach sinks. You glance at the assigned group and try to determine just how much extra work you’ll need to do in order to pick up the slack for the members who do nothing. You’ll have the floater, who wanders around the room chatting with others. You might have the helpless hand-raiser, asking incessant questions every step of the way while you simply want to get the work done. Then you’ll have that feisty fighter who dominates group conversation and might even stir up drama. Chances are, you’ll have to spend a few nights and weekends finishing random tasks only to see a shared grade at the end.

But looking back on it now, you get it. As a teacher, you recognize that it is hard to encourage full participation in group projects. This is why it helps to build interdependent structures into PBL. Interdependence is the overlap between autonomy and group cohesion. It’s what happens when each student has voice, choice, and personal accountability while also depending on one another to accomplish their tasks. In these moments, they create something better together than what they would have created on their own.

This is why I love using Kagan’s Cooperative Learning structures. Here are some of my favorites that I’ve used:

• Think-Pair-Share: Students think individually, then pair up to discuss their thoughts, and finally share with the larger group.
• Timed Pair Share: Students share ideas with a partner for a set amount of time, then switch partners after each round.
• Round Robin: Students take turns sharing answers or ideas in a round-robin fashion within their group.
• Rally Robin: Students take turns rapidly sharing answers or ideas with their partner, one at a time.
• Jigsaw: Each student becomes an expert on one part of a topic, then shares their knowledge with their group.
• Pairs Check: Students work in pairs to solve a problem, then check and explain their answers to another pair.
• Carousel: Students rotate around stations, collaborating on a topic or question at each stop, contributing their ideas before moving to the next station.
• Stand Up, Hand Up, Pair Up: Students stand, raise their hand, and pair up with someone nearby to discuss or solve a problem, then repeat with new partners.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. But the core idea is that they are short, structured protocols that require interdependence. Students know exactly what is expected of them. So even with the voice and choice of a project, we can implement these cooperative learning structures as a form of soft accountability.

 

6. Note-Taking

In Mock Trial, the teacher and head coach has a saying that I love. “Ink it to think it.” In other words, we need to take notes if we want to ensrue that the knowledge will transfer. Note-taking helps our working memory prioritize information so that we remember it later. I share this because taking notes can feel so traditional. I remember hating classes where the teacher lectured and we had to sit there taking Cornell Notes. And yet, note-taking has a place in PBL.

Students might take sketchnotes, Cornell notes, or guided notes during the aforementioned direct instruction. However, they might also use graphic organizers thorughout the project itself. Here students fill out a chart or a Venn Diagram when comparing ideas during research. They might use a note-taking protocol to capture their process during prototyping. They might take notes on their research using a question / answer / source graphic organizer. But the core idea is that note-taking can be an authentic, integrated aspect of PBL.

Part of why we do is that it makes the learning visible. Which leads to the next key point . . .

 

7. Visible Thinking Strategies

One of my favorite practical education books is Making Thinking Visible, formed through Harvard’s Project Zero and written by Ron Ritchhart, Mark Church, and Katrina Morrison. It outlines various strategies and thinking routines designed to make students’ cognitive processes more transparent where they actively express and reflect on their thinking processes. The goal is to make students’ thinking visible through activities like thinking routines, group discussions, and written reflections.

The neuroscience suggests that when students are given the opportunity to articulate their thinking, they engage deeper cognitive processes, enhancing learning and retention. By externalizing thought, it helps learners build stronger neural connections and allows teachers to assess comprehension in real-time. This approach fosters critical thinking, metacognition, and deeper understanding by making abstract thought more concrete and accessible.

In project-based learning, this means that I still have students access anchor charts. I might have students do a see-think-wonder structure during research. During ideation, students might do a Circle of Viewpoints, where they consider a topic or issue from different perspectives, helping them understand diverse viewpoints and foster empathy. Students might leave the small group for a moment and do a Connect-Extend-Challenge, where they reflect on how a particular source connects to their prior knowledge, how it extends their thinking, and what challenges it presents in the moment.

You can also take certain PBL structures and make them more visible. Consider something like project management:

To make the process more visible, students might create a shared scrum board together. Or you might have a large sheet of butcher paper as a calendar and students could create task cards with single sentences describing what they will do along with a stick figure showing what it would look like. Or it could be a project management log as a shared spreadsheet.

 

8. Scaffolds and Supports

I believe that all students deserve access to meaningful project-based learning but that also means we need to provide the necessary scaffolds and supports so they can be successful.

Some common ELL accommodations might be:

• Front-loading vocabulary
• Providing additional think time within group projects so that ELL students can process information
• Providing translating help or partnering them with someone who is multilingual
• Incorporating resources in their first language
• Providing leveled sentence stems to help with discussions and writing
• Providing mini-lessons on verb tense structures or providing verb tense formulas for complex texts within a project
• Using visuals within the project to help facilitate language development
• Incorporating technology tools such as the option to slow down videos or audio during the research components of a project (the x .5 or x .25)
• Paying attention to a students’ affective filter and finding ways to reduce fear and anxiety they might experience during a project
• Use structured listening/discussions within the project, including sample questions, scripts, and sentence stems

While the accommodations will vary even more with special education students (and you should always check the IEP), here are some examples:

• Providing additional handouts to facilitate task-analysis and executive function
• Pulling small groups for additional interventions
• Differentiating the tasks within the groups so that each student can participate
• Providing the necessary assistive technology
• Teaching special education students how to access necessary tools and tutorials
• Being flexible with deadlines and requirements around specific tasks

Ultimately, every student deserves access to meaningful PBL. However, it takes time and intentionality to make a PBL classroom truly inclusive. For a deeper dive into how we can use AI for this process, check out this blog post.

 

9. Deadlines and Due Dates

Have you ever assigned a three-week project and noticed that students spent the first three days goofing off? Tell a group of students that they’ll be filming a documentary and they might say, “I don’t even know where to start.” Give them a month to write a novel and they might say, “That’s way too much. I’m not sure I can.” The reason might be something called cognitive overload.

PBL requires an additional layer of cognitive load compared to traditional instruction (often called the Extraneous Cognitive Load). Students are not only thinking about the content but also thinking about the systems needed to manage a project. It’s no wonder so many students feel anxious and overwhelmed at the start of a project. Simply put, it’s a lot to think about.

The good news is we can design PBL to decrease cognitive load. This starts by breaking projects into distinct phases and setting up clear deadlines. This provides students with a road map of where they are going. An example might be the design thinking process within PBL.

When students are working on longer tasks, we can help students break down a larger task into sub-tasks that they track with to-do list. You might also incorporate progress bars, numbers, or maps to show a sense of progression from point to point. Students who struggle with self-starting and self-managing can use their to do lists as a tool to help them stay on task.

 

10. Formative Assessments

One of the things I often hear in PBL workshops is “how do we assess project-based learning?” Another common question is, “What do we do if students go through the whole PBL process and we discover they didn’t master the standards?”

I used to have the same concerns. It’s why, as I mentioned before, we did a weekly test. However, as I continued in my PBL journey, I realized that I could implement short formative assessments. Sometimes it was an observation of learning. Other times, it was a short exit slip. Still other times, I used a 5-minute student-teacher conference process.

But I also empowered students to own the process through peer feedback and self-assessment.

These short, formative assessments helped me check for understanding while also helping students determine the extent to which they were mastering the standards.

 

Traditional Approaches Aren’t Bad

Project-based learning works because it is authentic; not because it is new or innovative or progressive. It shouldn’t surprise us, then, when traditional strategies and approaches work effectively in a PBL framework. Ultimately, our goal is to embrace both the “tried and true” and the “never tried” and to discover next practices while using best practices.