Dec. 19-23, 2016

Each Friday we post a list of articles, blog posts, and other resources we’ve run across that relate to Project Based Learning.

Here’s what we liked this week:

Deeper Learning Has a Race Problem—And It May Have the Solution
Education Week
Our friend Sam Seidel responds to Jal Mehta’s 2014 post, which noted that "deeper learning in the U.S. is much more white than the nation as a whole." Sam points out that students of color do in fact engage in deeper learning (if not by that name) in many ways and places, and argues that structural racism is the bigger problem in education. He says, “our best hope for dismantling it” is an education model that “encourages critical thinking, collective dialogue, and problem solving” (a model which includes, of course, PBL).

Science class to become a hands-on experience
Times Union
The New York State Board of Regents has approved new PBL-friendly science curriculum that “includes a keener emphasis on hands-on learning opportunities and projects that engage students with natural science phenomena.”

Developing Our Understanding Of Personalized Learning
Forbes
Another one that adds to the drum I’ve been beating about this: personalization includes PBL, says the author, who notes it’s “not only adjusting instruction based on students’ academic strengths and weaknesses, but also adjusting instruction based on their interests. It promotes student agency and empowerment…”

Learners Need to Know Themselves
KnowledgeWorks
Katherine Prince draws from her recent keynotes at The Education Alliance’s West Virginia Education Summit, describing five major areas of change in education. Guess what: they point to PBL.

How Praise Became a Consolation Prize
The Atlantic
The author interviews Carol Dweck, the Stanford professor who promoted the concept, on how “growth mindset” (mentioned a lot in PBL circles) has been misunderstood and over-simplified.

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