PBL, Project or Problem?

Hi there,

if you usually visit this blog, you will know that I often work through Project Based Learning and many times I have read some articles about Problem Based Learning (Leggett, A. (2014). Active learning pedagogies). 

Both have the same acronym and sometimes I confused them. Because of that, I decided to find information out about the second one and I found this easy and clear video where it is explained. 

After watching the video above, I would like to conclude with some ideas as far as I am concerned:

Both focus on an open question or task.

They are authentic because both are real content.

They build 21st century skills.

They emphasize student autonomy

So, the main difference between them may be lengthy because problems tend to be shorter that projects. Moreover, they follow specific steps meanwhile Project BL follows different steps. 

I hope that these conclusions will help you to difference them.

Teaching 21st century skills

I think that the short video below summarizes how today's students feel when they are still addressed to as if they were "pitchers to be filled up with facts, facts, facts"!(Charles Dickens' Hard Times)

The first thing that comes to my mind is that we urgently need to innovate and adapt our schools to the actual needs and expectations of our students. In few words, they are living a digital age and we have some tools that facilitate "learning by doing" and project-based learning. I think that a strong point to persuade skeptical parents and colleagues would be to explain that those tools empower the users. Whiteboards and tablets among others as laptops will do that our learners become more independent and personalize their learnings. However, we have young students. We teach in Primary schools and that means that children need adults' guide. At schools will be teachers,and at home will be families.

In this point I want to share a project I have finished with 6th graders. As I told you some days ago, I introduced an oral activity where students had to ask in pairs some questions about their routines with devices and homework. After talking and taking notes, I collected survey answers and did a research about how much time they spend on those activities. The data is meaningful. Just think about it.