Why PBL?

Over spring break I decided to relax like most teachers and read a few professional books. One of those books was Implementing Project-Based Learning by Suzie Boss. I followed the Buck Institute on Twitter, as well as perused their website. And, I will also be reading Setting the Standard for Project Based Learning by John Larmer, John Mergendoller and Suzie Boss. I like to think that I design thought provoking projects that give my students opportunity to critically think and problem solve, but if that was the case my students would begin to show signs of growth in these areas by this point in the year. As I have reflected though, this is not the case. This is precisely the reason I needed to research and understand project/problem based learning (PBL) more. Maybe I need more structure, maybe I need to craft better driving questions, or maybe I'm not allowing my students to be creative. What I do know is that I need to get this right because my students' futures depend on it!

This never was so apparent to me as today...

Have you ever heard someone say that it is ok for a small percentage of students to receive Ds and/or Fs because society needs low level workers, and those students will be just fine, or, don't worry if that student can't think critically, they just have to know how to flip a burger? I have, and some of these people have been my colleagues. Let me make this clear. This is not acceptable! 

All students can be powerful thinkers and problem solvers.

Even in those so called "low level" jobs, employees need to be thinkers, and solve problems. 

I'm an observer; I like to watch how things work. I've always been this way since I was little. So naturally as I watched my car being washed today at one of those "done by hand, take longer, better wash" places, I watched how the system worked. See my husband always takes my car to be washed, so I had never been to a carwash like this before today. 

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Imagine cars lined up at every part of the process. Some were at the start getting vacuumed, some were waiting to go through the wash, and others were getting detailed. This while several, including mine, were in a holding pattern as those cars done with the wash were stacking up waiting for the detail. At the start (vacuum) and the end (detail) there seemed to be a manager/owner working along side of the other employees. Noble, I thought. It's always nice to see the leaders jump in and help when needed. But, remember, my car and several others were in a holding pattern because the detail work was backing up. I watched how all the employees diligently did their job, but that was it. None of them noticed the back up. Then one of them did and pointed it out to another and then another. It was more of a "look how busy we are", not a "oh man let's figure out how to remedy this". Here in lies the problem. None of them would or maybe even could solve the problem. I watched as 5 cars pulled in, saw cars everywhere and turned around and left. It took a customer complaining about his car being in the holding pattern too long to get the manager/owner at the vacuum station to go see what was happening. He walked over, spoke to the other manger/owner and quickly the employees were reorganized to get the detail on cars done faster. And, before you knew it, there were no cars in the holding pattern after about 15 minutes. Not only had none of the employees solved the problem, but the carwash lost some business. How much business would have been lost if the customer had not complained or the employees stepped up to solve the back up issue?

As I watched this unfold I asked myself: do these guys want to solve this problem or, can they solve this problem? Maybe they weren't allowed to make those kinds of reorganizing decisions, or maybe they were just lazy and wanted to do the bare minimum? After moving closer to listen to what the employees were saying to one another, remember I'm an observer, I believe it was neither of those. I think they couldn't solve the problem, because once they were redistributed to cars, as a way to double up, I noticed that they continued to double up until the back up was gone, then they went back to the original organization, without being told to. 

So what does this have with project/problem based learning? If all classrooms took this approach to learning, doing true PBL, every student would be a creative thinker, problem solver, and collaborator. Many might even be great initiators. No matter what job you have as an adult, you need to be a creative problem solver. My time at the car wash today could have been cut in half if one of the employees saw the problem and initiated a solution, even it was just telling the manager/owner that there was a problem.

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PBL is not about students completing projects at the end of the unit to show what they've learned. It's about students showing the learning through the entire process. It's about not giving all the pieces, but letting students figure out those pieces as they complete the unit.

I'm excited about honing this process in my own classroom and urge every teacher to consider moving to a more PBL classroom. No matter where students end up as adults, they all deserve learning how to think creatively. Our future depends on it.