Project-Based Learning
Quote: "In project-based learning, students work in groups to solve challenging problems that are authentic, curriculum-based, and often interdisciplinary. Learners decide how to approach a problem and what activities to pursue. They gather information from a variety of sources and synthesize, analyze, and derive knowledge from it. Their learning is inherently valuable because it's connected to something real and involves adult skills such as collaboration and reflection. At the end, students demonstrate their newly acquired knowledge and are judged by how much they've learned and how well they communicate it. Throughout this process, the teacher's role is to guide and advise, rather than to direct and manage, student work."
Comment: Good introduction to Project Based Learning. PBL is an effective way to mirror current skills needed in today's workplace. Most problems do not present themselves the way curriculum is designed...they are usually much more ambiguous. The value of PBL is not only learning...but learning the process of learning.