Technology Impact - Redefining the Way Educators Teach and Society Learns

PBL ~ IBL ~ SBL ~ CBL ~ Students "Voice Your Choice ~ & Do!"

My insides, my gut, tells me this learning method is amazing!  I am referring to PBL, or Project/Problem-Based Learning, IBL, or Inquiry-Based Learning, and SBL, or Service-Based Learning or CBL, Challenge-Based Learning are all summed up into my perception of the concept as "Students, Voice Their Choice and Do!"  My simple definition of what these acronyms stand for and its ultimate end goal, may increase in it's use as the new method of teaching, learning, and doing to solve real-life challenges or solutions to a problem in a collaborative manner starting in the classroom.  Of course, diving into the education field for the past 2 years places almost all behavior and information I have been observing and learning as new concepts for me as I swim through the MLIS, Masters of Library & Information Science curriculum.  So everything is grand and exciting to view a perspective of how PBL methods can be applied from classrooms / libraries to real world solution and problem-solving.  

What is the deal with all these acronyms?

It doesn't matter if it's PBL, IBL, SBL, or CBL, they all refer to the same method.  For the sake of redundancy, PBL is the preferred acronym I will use.  Project-based learning (PBL) is not a new concept, in fact, in an article by Ms. Hartman from the School Library Journal, Makerspaces: What's Old is New Again, states that the concept of PBL initiated post WWI when Columbia University professor William Heard Kilpatrick coined the term, "The Project Method" to describe a then new approach to education (2022).  The framework that drives PBL is a newer concept of student-directed or student-centered learning practices where the students make the decisions with minimal assist to no assist from Educators or School Librarians within a lesson, however, there is guidance, but the choices are up to the students to research, validate, and perform real world solutions to a challenge or problem.  Project-based learning is primarily utilized in the elementary through high school (K-12) settings, yet is starting to integrate into  higher education learning in colleges and universities, as well as instituted in jobs and careers.  

Where has Project-Based Learning been?

An ISTE, International Society for Technology in Education, article eludes to having the right mind set with the implementation of grouping students according to abilities, team agreements agreeing on what is needed to make learning fun, creating a to do list based on tasks that need to get completed and how to achieve the learning goals,  review or reflect on answers or solutions with time and with frequent feedback from teachers, lastly, retrospect or share the final product with the class or authentic audience and invite peer feedback as well as personal reflection on the outcomes of what was learned (Sandler, 2022).  

Check out this link of an example of project-based learning within a K-12 classroom.

PBL is more often seen in K-12 classrooms, according to an article by Ayton and Capraro, 2021, but is slowly being introduced into colleges and universities with additional standards including the implementation of community partnerships, actual student physical engagement in a PBL environment, and making assessments and reassessments.  This learning was demonstrated with pre-service teachers at The Curriculum Resource Center at Rhode Island College to update and enhance an almost unused space of their library into an elementary resource space renamed the "Curriculum Corner: Anchoring Educators" to practice or prepare for lessons prior and during student teaching in the local elementary schools.  What is being called an "Experience Paradox" introduced by (Gonzalez, Ghazizadeh, & Smith, 2014 within MacDonald and Rozaklis, 2017, where employers want their potential employees, even "entry-level" to have the technology experience before they can gain  technology experience, called UX or user experience from personal or professional lives.  PBL has been shown to help students better understand the trade-offs required in real design projects (Lazar, 2011 within MacDonald et al, 2017), provide student with extra motivation to deliver quality work (Lasserre, 2011; Ritter, 2014 within MacDonald et al, 2017) and help students build a stronger work portfolio (Schneiderman et al, 2006 within MacDonald et al, 2017).  MacDonald (2017) reports UX students found project-based experiences to be positive and impactful, participation increased their UX tech use, felt they were able to create quality deliverables and interact with clients, and felt a stronger ability to work within the "messiness" of real-world projects with increased confidence of UX tech methods.  

The Pros (Affordances) / Cons (Constraints) to PBL

Markham (2011), reports the PBL process allows educators to conceive and implement a coherent problem-solving process that brings out the best work in students' and addresses 7 principles in curriculum standards:

Pros:

1.  Identifies the challenge                                                                                                                      

2.  Crafts the driving question

3.  Builds the assessment

4.  Plans backwards

5.  Enroll & engage

6.  Facilitate the teams

7.  Keep the end in mind

Cons or Gaps in PBL:

Markham (2011) also advocates a few gaps with the PBL method that may need restructure, redefining, increasing technology growth, and revisions:

1.  Teacher as Coach - a "move from sage on the stage" to the "guide on the side".  Educators need to organize and switch to a student-centered classroom, also needing time to reflect on their own connections and attitudes about students.

2.  Problem-solving and Critical thinking - Critical thinking is not only brain-based, but has emotional components too.

3.  SEL & PBL - The first step to merge social-emotional learning into mainstream education is to redefine "rigor".  Today, rigor measures the difficulty of assigned work, in the future, rigor will be a measure of personal accomplishment and growth.

4. Incorporating PBL into Technology - Inherently, technology is project based, but technology projects were not informed of PBL methods, therefore, the number of schools backed by technology firms failed.

5.  Defining an "educated citizen" - PBL is not designed to convey information, so Science or History educators that rely on conventions or the way learning is usually done, vocabulary or deep factual information may resist PBL as facts are often the basis for testing.  Markham (2011) believes, that as education moves forward, the model of the "educated citizen" will need to be revised.

I like to end on a positive note, what I really enjoy most about PBL is the students get to "Voice their Choice & Do" and instead of hearing a teacher talk most of the time, the class gets to hear what each other is thinking, increase collaboration between peers, educators, Librarians, parents, and the community if PBL is taken to the full intention.  Have I seen PBL in education?  Maybe to an extent, but due to budget, resources, and no parental participation (due to working) the process may have ended or was only submitted on paper, prior to tackling the community engagement and solving real world challenges.  My feeling is most students would respond favorably to a PBL model of teaching, especially since technology has taken over their social lives to primarily interact face-to-screen rather than face-to-face with peers.  Students could also learn other benefits to technology rather than it being only good for social media or gaming.

Works Cited

Ayton, K., & Capraro, K. (2021). Students Lead the Charge! Using Project-Based Learning with Preservice Teachers to redesign a Curriculum Resource Center. Education Libraries, 44, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.26443/el.v44i1.367

 https://iste.org/blog/empowering-students-to-develop-an-agile-mindset   iste article – pbl

Fernandez, J. D. (2004). A paradigm for community-based human computer interaction education. Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 19(4), 329-334.

 

Gonzalez, C. A., Ghazizadeh, M., & Smith, M. (2014). Perspectives on the training of human factors students for the user experience industry. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society annual meeting, 58(1), 1807-1811.

 

Hartman, E. A. (2022). Makerspaces: What’s Old is New Again. School Library Journal, 68(9), 79–82.

 

Henneman, R. L., Ballay, L., & Wagner, L. (2016). The master’s degree in HCI at 20. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI conference extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems - CHI EA ’16 (pp. 1111-1114). New York, New York, USA: ACM Press.

 

Lasserre, P. (2011). Service learning: An HCI experiment. In Proceedings of the 16th western Canadian conference on computing education - WCCCE ’11 (pp. 12-16). New York, New York, USA: ACM Press.

 

Lazar, J. (2011). Using community-based service projects to enhance undergraduate HCI education. In Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems - CHI EA ’11 (p. 581). New York, New York, USA: ACM Press.

 

MacDonald, C. M., & Rozaklis, L. (2017). Assessing the implementation of authentic, client-facing student projects in user experience (UX) education: Insights from multiple stakeholders. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science & Technology, 54(1), 268–278. https://doi.org/10.1002/pra2.2017.14505401030

 

Markham, T. (2011). Project Based Learning. Teacher Librarian, 39(2), 38–42.

 

Ritter, F. E. (2014). Semester projects on human–computer interaction as service and outreach. In M. J. Carroll (Ed.), Innovative practices in teaching information sciences and technology (pp. 133-141). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSDOQ7_AAdk