The Stride Professional Development Center is proud to announce the launch of a new content series focused on the fundamentals of Project Based Learning (PBL). This series provides teachers strategies and tips for guiding students through active engagement, real-world problem-solving, and personally relevant projects.
This series was created with a wide audience in mind. Veteran PBL teachers wanting to refine their craft will grow through this experience. New teachers just starting the PBL journey will discover tools that advance their understanding. School leaders contemplating the adoption of a PBL model will gain foundational knowledge to help in their decisions.
Learning Experience:
The design elements embrace bite-sized learning in a mobile-friendly format. Most of the courses will take about an hour to complete, but a few courses may be shorter. Simply, plan to spend a little bit of time each day on the course and you will finish it easily within a week’s time. Each course follows a similar structure as outlined below:
- Rubric language introduction
- Project implementation strategies
- Downloadable templates
- Reflection opportunities
- Checks for understanding
- Completion certificates with the PD hours on it.
Here is one piece of advice – resist the urge to “binge watch” the courses. For optimum learning, depth of understanding the material is more valuable that quick breadth of coverage. Our recommendation is to do no more than one course every-other-day.
Learning Topics:
The first half of the series has been fully released and the topics include:
- PBL 1: Project Launch
- PBL 2: Collaboration
- PBL 3: Scaffolding
- PBL 4: Planning Tools
- PBL 5: Benchmarks
- PBL 6: Voice and Choice
Since the Stride PD Center aspires to offer an ever-growing library of content, additional PBL courses in this “fundamentals series” will be launched in November. The final topics cover peer feedback, partnerships, professional skills, presentation of understanding, rubrics, and reflection. Check back as we are excited to finalize this series for you.
In closing, here is a critical piece of understanding – even though the series is focused on PBL, general education teachers may benefit from a course or two. For instance, if a teacher wants their students to improve peer feedback conversations, then the corresponding PBL course will provide benefit.