S olut i ons f or D i g i ta l L ea r ne r–C ente r ed C la ssr ooms

Implementing Project-
Implementing

I M P L E M E N T I N G P R O J E C T- B A S E D L E A R N I N G
Based Learning
Implementing Project-Based Learning explores the need to better engage
21st century learners and prepare them for the changing world. Author Suzie
Project-Based
Boss details five specific types of project-based learning (PBL)—(1) geoliteracy
projects, (2) data literacy projects, (3) entrepreneurship and innovation projects,
(4) media literacy projects, and (5) storytelling projects—and highlights real
Learning
schools’ implementation.

Using this practical guide, K–12 teachers and administrators will:

• Explore the benefits of PBL and gain helpful resources to get started
with each type
• Discover three new literacies—(1) digital, (2) media, and
(3) global—and infuse them with traditional approaches to learning
• Involve students in connected learning experiences that develop
their global competency
• Uncover the necessary changes in teacher-student dynamics to
ensure learners are college and career ready
• Review common PBL challenges, questions, and solutions and
consider assessment strategies

Solutions Series: Solutions for

SUZIE BOSS

Digital Learner–Centered Classrooms

offers K–12 educators easy-to-implement solution-tree.com
recommendations on digital classrooms.
In a short, reader-friendly format, these
how-to guides equip practitioners with the
digital tools they need to engage students
and transport their district, school,

Suzie Boss
or classroom into the 21st century.

Visit go.solution-tree.com/technology to
access materials related to this book.
Copyright © 2015 by Solution Tree Press
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction of this book in whole
or in part in any form.
555 North Morton Street
Bloomington, IN 47404
800.733.6786 (toll free) / 812.336.7700
FAX: 812.336.7790
email: [email protected]
solution-tree.com
Printed in the United States of America
19 18 17 16 15 1 2 3 4 5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Boss, Suzie.
Implementing project-based learning / by Suzie Boss.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-942496-11-3 (perfect bound) 1. Project method in teaching.
I. Title.
LB1027.43.B64 2015
371.3’6--dc23
2015009170
                                   
Solution Tree
Jeffrey C. Jones, CEO
Edmund M. Ackerman, President
Solution Tree Press
President: Douglas M. Rife
Associate Acquisitions Editor: Kari Gillesse
Editorial Director: Lesley Bolton
Managing Production Editor: Caroline Weiss
Copy Chief: Sarah Payne-Mills
Copy Editor: Jessi Finn
Proofreader: Elisabeth Abrams
Text Designer: Rachel Smith
Cover Designer: Rian Anderson
Table of Contents

About the Author. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Changing Roles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Learning From Pioneers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
About This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Chapter 1: A Strong Foundation—and Then Some. . . . . . . . . 9

The New Literacies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Four Phases of PBL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Chapter 2: Geoliteracy Projects: Making Global

Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
How to Get Started With Geoliteracy Projects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Chapter 3: Data Literacy Projects: Understanding

Big Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
How to Get Started With Data Literacy Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Chapter 4: Entrepreneurship and Innovation Projects:

Understanding the Business World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Shark Tank. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Vog Scrubber. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

v
vi IMP L EM EN T IN G P RO J E C T- B A S ED L E A R NIN G

How to Get Started With Entrepreneurship and

Innovation Projects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Chapter 5: Media Literacy Projects: Becoming

Savvier Consumers and Creators of Media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
How to Get Started With Media Literacy Projects. . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Chapter 6: Storytelling Projects: Cultivating

a Strategic Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
How to Get Started With Storytelling Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Chapter 7: Project-Based Learning Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . 51

What About Content Coverage?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
How Do We Connect With Outside Experts? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
How Do We Manage the Messy Learning That
Happens in PBL? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
What Does Assessment Look Like in PBL?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Takeaways and Reflections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
PBL Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Books. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Online Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Project Libraries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

References and Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

About the Author

Suzie Boss is a writer and educational con-

sultant who focuses on the power of teach-
ing and learning to transform communities.
She has developed programs for nonprofit
organizations that teach youth and adults
how to improve their communities with
innovative, sustainable solutions. She has
also introduced project-based learning (PBL)
strategies to after-school providers to enrich
the experiences of youth at risk.
She is a member of the National Faculty of the Buck Institute
for Education, an international resource for best practices in PBL.
She is a frequent conference presenter and consults with schools
around the globe interested in shifting from traditional instruction
to technology-rich, project-based learning. She has also worked with
educators online, facilitating webinars and extending professional
development events.
She is the author of several books on education and innovation,
including Bringing Innovation to School: Empowering Students to
Thrive in a Changing World, Reinventing Project-Based Learning:
Your Field Guide to Real-World Projects in the Digital Age, and Real-
World Projects: How Do I Design Relevant and Engaging Learning
Experiences? She is a regular contributor to Edutopia and the Stanford
Social Innovation Review, and her work has appeared in a wide range

vii
viii IMP L EM EN T IN G P RO J E C T- B A S ED L E A R NIN G

of other publications, including Educational Leadership, Principal

Leadership, the New York Times, the Huffington Post, and Education
Week.
Suzie holds a bachelor of arts degree in communications from Stan-
ford University.
To learn more about Suzie Boss’s work, visit her blog Reinventing
Project-Based Learning (http://reinventingpbl.blogspot.com), and read
her Edutopia contributions (www.edutopia.org/users/suzie-boss).
Connect with her on Twitter @suzieboss.
To book Suzie Boss for professional development, contact pd@
solution-tree.com.
Introduction

If you follow the headlines about the state of the U.S. education
system, it’s easy to feel discouraged. International comparisons
show American students lagging behind their peers in South Korea,
Singapore, Finland, and many developed countries in measures of
academic achievement. Fewer than three in ten Americans think
high school graduates are prepared for college, and fewer than two
in ten think their grads are ready for the workforce (Gallup, 2014).
Teacher turnover is portrayed as yet another symptom of a broken
system and dispirited teaching force.
Even worse, students themselves may be abandoning their youth-
ful optimism. While 54 percent of students describe themselves as
hopeful about the future, 32 percent say they feel “stuck,” and 14
percent are outright discouraged (Gallup, 2014). Although student
engagement still runs high in the early grades, it falls steadily the
longer students spend in school (Fullan & Donnelly, 2013).
Get past these negative sound bites and into actual classrooms,
however, and you can find plenty of cause for optimism about
today’s youth and their readiness to tackle challenges. That’s espe-
cially true in schools that leverage project-based learning (PBL)
strategies, combined with ready access to technology.
In schools across the United States and internationally, I regu-
larly encounter students who are working to improve their neigh-
borhoods, address global inequities, and design innovations that
will improve their families’ and communities’ health and economic

1
2 IMP L EM EN T IN G P RO J E C T- B A S ED L E A R NIN G

prospects. They take advantage of digital tools to analyze issues that

interest them and navigate online resources to guide their own
learning. If they have questions that extend beyond their teachers’
expertise, they track down outside experts to help them figure out
what they want to learn. They get their own work into the world,
too, by publishing on online platforms and making convincing
pitches to public audiences and government councils. It’s hard not
to feel hopeful after talking to students engaged in these kinds of
authentic learning experiences.
While attending a global youth conference in Shanghai, I sat
down with student delegates from Northwest Passage High School, a
project-based school in Coon Rapids, Minnesota (Boss, 2014b). The
conference challenged them to work in small teams with Chinese
and U.S. peers they had just met and devise solutions to compelling
global issues related to health, education, and the environment. The
students with PBL experience thrived, in many cases taking leader-
ship roles on their teams. “We’re used to collaborating, figuring out
how to define problems, and identifying our audience,” they told
me. Students from more traditional schools, they noticed, struggled
“without a lot of instruction. . . . We understand what it means to
take control of our own education.”

Changing Roles
Students who have regular opportunities to take part in engag-
ing, academically challenging PBL are still outliers in the education
landscape, but their ranks are growing. Motivated by a desire to
better prepare students for the challenges of college, careers, and
citizenship, increasing numbers of teachers, school networks, and
entire school systems are making a shift to project-based learning
enabled by digital tools.
If you are considering this shift—for your classroom or an entire
school system—recognize from the outset that it may not be easy.
 In troduc tion 3

PBL demands new roles for teachers and students alike. In Reinventing
Project-Based Learning, coauthor Jane Krauss and I (2014) document
several changes that teachers can anticipate, including the following.

• Learning goals: Reconsider what you expect students

to know and do.
• Ways of talking and engaging with students: Interact
with your students in different ways. Get comfortable
with messier learning, with students working more
autonomously (and not necessarily all doing the same
thing at the same time).
• Classroom management style: Help students better
handle their own growth.
• Physical classroom arrangement: Reposition
the classroom fixtures to enable teamwork and
collaboration.
• Assessment thinking: Re-evaluate what you take note
of during the learning process and adjust your teaching
plan based on what you notice.
• Collected materials: Reconsider which learning
artifacts you preserve.
• Communication with parents and colleagues: Defend
the thinking behind the 21st century project approach,
and encourage parents and other community members
to find ways to support project work. For example, they
might provide audience feedback, share their expertise,
or help with the logistics of field research.

Teachers become change agents through these shifts, turning

theories about education reform into noticeable differences in day-
to-day learning experiences. School change experts Michael Fullan
and Donnelly (2013) describe such reinvented classrooms in Alive
in the Swamp: “Problems and questions are placed in real world
4 IMP L EM EN T IN G P RO J E C T- B A S ED L E A R NIN G

contexts; the emphasis is on intellectual risk taking and trial-and-

error problem solving; and there is a healthy partnership between
the student and teacher that is built on enquiry and data” (p. 16).
Fortunately, teachers don’t have to figure out all these changes on
their own. Educators who have already traveled this path provide
insights for their colleagues to borrow and adapt. Rich examples
help newcomers make a faster transition to teaching with real-world
projects, answering Fullan and Langworthy’s (2013) call for more
models that show “what teaching for this kind of connected and
flourishing learning looks like” (p. 11).

Learning From Pioneers

In the vanguard of this nascent PBL movement are networks of
schools that deliver all their instruction through projects. To leverage
their collective wisdom, these PBL pioneers—including High Tech
High, the New Tech Network, Expeditionary Learning, Envision
Learning, and others—have joined the Deeper Learning Network,
an initiative of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. By
coming together as a network, they are in a better position to col-
laborate, share and model best practices, and communicate with the
larger education field about how to achieve lasting school change
(Boss & Krauss, 2014).
Although their models vary somewhat, they typically emphasize
student-driven inquiry, authentic problem solving, and access to
technology. Teachers in these settings rise to the challenge of being
curriculum designers. They leverage peer collaboration, critiquing,
and, often, instructional coaching to improve their practice.
Schools at the forefront of this movement tend to be transparent
about their systemic approaches to rethinking education through
PBL. They open their classrooms to visitors and, in many cases,
make project examples and resources publicly available. That’s good
 In troduc tion 5

news for educators who want to see PBL in action before taking the
plunge themselves.
The Buck Institute for Education, a nonprofit that focuses on imp­
roving education globally, has been another driver of change, helping
teachers and school systems around the world design and implement
high-quality PBL. (Visit the Buck Institute for Education website
[http://bie.org] for downloadable PBL planning resources. Full dis-
closure: I’m part of the Buck Institute for Education faculty and
have collaborated on publications.)
Stand-alone schools, such as the well-respected Science Leadership
Academy in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, also share their PBL success
stories and instructional strategies. The Science Leadership Academy
hosts an annual conference, EduCon, that attracts hundreds of edu-
cators to its urban campus for conversations about reimagining
K–12 education. Students at Science Leadership Academy take part
in these conversations, reflecting on the projects that have challenged
and inspired them, such as following in Alexis de Tocqueville’s foot-
steps to become modern-day historians themselves, using their
understanding of science to design a solar-powered water purifier
for the developing world, or teaching lessons about social justice and
civil rights to middle schoolers in their community.
These pioneering schools’ strong results, along with mounting
evidence about the effectiveness of PBL, have sparked interest in
project-based learning in more mainstream settings. Since the 1990s,
researchers have documented a range of benefits for PBL, includ-
ing increased motivation and engagement, deeper understanding of
academic content, and enhanced problem-solving skills (Finkelstein,
Hanson, Huang, Hirschman, & Huang, 2010; Mergendoller,
Maxwell, & Bellisimo, 2006; Stites, 1998; Thomas, 2000). A 2014
study of schools in the Deeper Learning Network, which includes
the PBL schools mentioned previously, reports higher graduation
rates, better test scores, and stronger interpersonal skills compared to
6 IMP L EM EN T IN G P RO J E C T- B A S ED L E A R NIN G

more traditional schools (Zeiser, Taylor, Rickles, Garet, & Segeritz,

2014).
Bob Lenz, cofounder of Envision Education and incoming execu-
tive director of the Buck Institute for Education, finds particularly
hopeful news embedded in this research. Blogging about the Deeper
Learning Network research, he comments on the evidence of equity
in PBL settings:
Perhaps two of the most significant findings from the
list [of outcomes] above are that students are devel-
oping higher levels of academic engagement, collab-
oration, motivation, and self efficacy and that deeper
learning is working with students regardless of their
income levels or prior school achievement . . . Deeper
learning strategies are giving all kids the opportuni-
ties, experiences, and skills each of us want for our
own children. (Lenz, 2014)

Given the inequities that persist in education, this is hopeful news,

indeed. Students who will be the first in their families to attend col-
lege dominate the California schools in the Envision network. (For
a more comprehensive look at the research on PBL, see Vega, 2012,
and visit go.solution-tree.com/technology to access the link.)
As PBL spreads from early-adopter schools to more mainstream
contexts, various implementation models emerge. A shift to PBL
sometimes starts at the grass roots with a core group of teachers who
become advance scouts for their colleagues. Or an entire faculty or
professional learning community might participate in professional
development together to learn PBL fundamentals. In many schools,
technology rollouts are the precipitating factors for rethinking
instruction that leverages digital tools in new ways.
Instead of doing all projects all the time, some schools have stu-
dents engage in PBL only a few times a year or just in certain dis-
ciplines, such as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
(STEM) or career and technical education. Even in smaller doses,
PBL can produce transformative results if it helps students recognize
their potential and see how school relates to their interests.
 In troduc tion 7

Whether projects last for a couple of weeks or an entire semester

and whether they focus on one content area or cross disciplines, the
same strategies apply. To make the most of the learning opportuni-
ties that PBL affords, keep in mind the following four core ideas
(Boss & Krauss, 2014).

1. The inquiry project, framed by a driving question, is

the centerpiece of instruction. It’s not an add-on or
hands-on activity wrapping up a unit of study. Instead,
the project is designed with specific learning goals in
mind.
2. Students get involved in real-world problem solving,
applying the strategies and tools used in authentic
disciplines and, often, engaging with outside experts.
3. Students share their work with authentic audiences.
4. Technology is used as a means for students to
collaborate, communicate, and make discoveries they
wouldn’t otherwise gain.

By giving students a reason to engage and the opportunity to dis-

cover their passions and talents, PBL may help address the wor-
risome decline in student optimism discussed previously. Connie
Rath, vice chair of Gallup Education, highlights this glimmer of
positive news in a six-hundred-thousand-student Gallup survey:
Students who strongly agreed that their school is com-
mitted to building students’ strengths and that they
have a teacher who makes them excited about the
future are almost 30 times as likely to be engaged
learners as their peers who strongly disagreed with
both statements. (Gallup, 2014, p. 3)

About This Book

Implementing Project-Based Learning draws on the four core ideas,
using my own experience with schools implementing PBL and
8 IMP L EM EN T IN G P RO J E C T- B A S ED L E A R NIN G

interviews with teachers and students, to set the stage for rigorous,
relevant, digital-age learning that excites students about the future.
Teachers who were the designers of the creative projects you will
read about in the coming pages reflected on their PBL experiences in
post-project interviews. Unless otherwise indicated, interviews took
place during December 2014.
Chapter 1 lays the foundation for PBL, identifying the environ-
ment and critical skills essential to success and four phases every
well-designed project goes through. Then, in chapters 2 through 6, I
delve into five specific types of PBL: (1) geoliteracy projects, (2) data
literacy projects, (3) entrepreneurship and innovation projects, (4)
media literacy projects, and (5) storytelling projects. In the examples
in chapters 2 through 6, you will read about projects that deliberately
build on students’ strengths while introducing them to new ways
of thinking and problem solving. Each chapter ends with helpful
resources to get started with PBL. Finally, in chapter 7, I outline
some challenges teachers face and questions they have when imple-
menting PBL and offer assessment strategies. Visit go.solution-tree
.com/technology to access materials related to this book.
As teachers reflect on successful project experiences, you can sense
the contagious excitement that they bring into the classroom. The
stories in the following chapters exemplify the reconsidered school
experiences that “blow the lid off learning, whereby students and
teachers as partners become captivated by education” (Fullan &
Langworthy, 2013, p. 1). Can you picture your students in similar
roles, learning by engaging with real issues and then sharing their
project results with an appreciative audience? When students pro-
duce work that is taken seriously, that solves genuine problems, and
that matters to them and the larger world, all of us have cause to be
more optimistic about the future. So, let’s get started.
 © 2015 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1
A Strong
Foundation—and
Then Some
In Leading the New Literacies, curriculum expert Heidi Hayes Jacobs
(2014) describes 21st century educators as standing at a busy cross-
roads. Buffeted by rapid change and quickly evolving forms of com-
munication, teachers and school leaders must confront decisions
about how to cultivate literate learners in these new arenas. Standing
still is not an option if we want students to master the literacies and
tools they need to fully engage with their 21st century world.
Consider your current learning environment. Is it a destination
where students make meaning with the use of digital tools and
ready access to information? Do they take that information at face
value, or do they evaluate source material for reliability or bias? Is
the curriculum prescribed with predictable outcomes, or is it flexible
enough for students to explore interests and discover what matters
to them? Do they have opportunities to be makers and content cre-
ators themselves, sharing their work with authentic audiences? Does
learning stop at the classroom door or extend into the wider world

9
10 IMP L EM EN T IN G P RO J E C T- B A S ED L E A R NIN G

through connected learning experiences that develop students’ global

competency?

The New Literacies

© 2015 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

An environment that’s been reimagined to better engage 21st
century learners expands our traditional understanding of literacy.
Jacobs (2014) classifies new literacies into three broad categories: (1)
digital, (2) media, and (3) global. Rather than calling for a wholesale
replacement of traditional education, however, she suggests looking
for intersections and fusions of old and new approaches to learning.
In project-based learning, it’s not unusual to combine digital lit-
eracy, media production, and global connections in the course of
answering a driving question. This may sound daunting if you’re a
newcomer to PBL, but we can learn from observing teachers—and
students—who have made the journey to digital-age projects. Some
deliberately cultivate the literacies that Jacobs (2014) describes.
Others push into even newer territory, leveraging cutting-edge
tools and introducing students to specialized strategies for problem
solving.
Even the most innovative project examples build on a familiar
foundation. PBL doesn’t require us to discard teaching and learning
strategies that we know work well. For example, the essential skills
of reading, writing, listening, and speaking all come into play in
PBL, regardless of project focus. From the earliest elementary years
to the most advanced high school courses, students engage in proj-
ects through questioning, researching, close reading, analyzing, and,
often, multimedia writing and publishing.
Whether students engage with resources that their teacher has
curated or they search for their own source material, they need to
evaluate what they read for reliability. When students collaborate
with peers, consult with content-area experts, or make public pre-
sentations of their findings, they use communication skills. Across
 A S trong F oundation — and T hen Some 11

curricula, these familiar skills are indispensable in PBL. PBL teach-

ers don’t consider these important skills to be too old school for 21st
century students. Instead, they look for opportunities to reinforce
them in projects that connect with students’ interests.

© 2015 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

Teachers can support students’ project success by incorporating
learning activities that build a strong foundation of literacy and
critical thinking. For example, writers’ workshops and close-reading
techniques may prove useful not only in language arts but also in
projects that address social studies or science standards. The same
goes for protocols for active class discussions (such as the Socratic
seminar and Harkness table methods). Discussions will be more
productive if teachers deliberately teach and model how to elabo-
rate, disagree, and make counterarguments. In projects that focus
on mathematics and science standards, students use literacy skills
for an authentic purpose when they communicate their results with
a public audience. All these skills—new and old—are invaluable in
building the foundation for PBL.

Four Phases of PBL

The Buck Institute for Education (Boss, 2013) has identified
four phases that happen in every well-designed project.

1. Project launch: This typically starts with an entry

event to ignite curiosity and introduces a driving
question to frame the inquiry experience.
2. Knowledge building: Students build background
understanding and learn new skills to help them
answer the driving question.
3. Product development and critique: Students apply
what they have learned to create something new (such
as a product, solution, or recommendation).
4. Final presentation and reflection: Students share
their polished work with an authentic audience.
12 IMP L EM EN T IN G P RO J E C T- B A S ED L E A R NIN G

All along this pathway, teachers can scaffold the learning experi-
ence by anticipating and responding to diverse learners’ needs and
customizing instruction accordingly. Some students, for example,
may need deliberate instruction and modeling to learn how to col-

© 2015 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

laborate or provide peer critique effectively. Students working on the
same project may bring different background knowledge and have
diverse academic strengths. During a project, teachers might offer
mini-lessons for students who need specific instruction or support,
leaving others to work independently or with their team members.
The project framework is loose enough to allow for personalization
and differentiation yet tight enough to ensure that learning goals are
addressed for all. Some projects go well beyond the basics to encour-
age specialized ways of thinking and problem solving that are useful
both in school and in life beyond the classroom.
In the examples in the following chapters, we’ll take a close look at
an expanded set of digital-age literacies and the kinds of projects that
help students acquire them. You’ll hear about projects that challenge
students to make sense of data, craft compelling stories, and bring
visual thinking into problem solving. Other projects build students’
media literacy skills and put students on the path to active citizen-
ship, either globally or locally.
In many of the examples, you’ll see students taking advantage of
emerging technological tools and platforms. That’s in keeping with
Fullan and Donnelly’s (2013) advice that technology should be
“irresistibly engaging for the learner. . . . In the best innovations,
digital tools are participatory, engaging, co-creative, and collabora-
tive” (p. 21).
At the same time, you’ll notice that technology itself is not the pri-
mary project focus; it’s simply another tool to help students achieve
ambitious learning goals. “This is not about the technology,” insists
Robert Kolvoord, founder of the Geospatial Semester program and
pioneering educator who regularly introduces students and teach-
ers to geographic information system (GIS) software for problem
 A S trong F oundation — and T hen Some 13

solving. “When some people see this complicated software, it’s full
stop for them. These projects are about students and teachers investi-
gating interesting things and solving problems together. Technology
is simply a vehicle.”

© 2015 by Solution Tree Press. All rights reserved.

Some of the examples ahead connect to trends taking hold outside
the classroom. The big data movement, crowdsourcing of informa-
tion, and the push for innovation across diverse sectors are among
the developments that will likely affect how students interact with
their world in the near future. Introductions to these trends may
turn into career pathways for some 21st century students, and proj-
ects often create opportunities to learn from professionals in these
emerging fields. Even projects that are on the cutting edge are scaled
to the right size and complexity for student understanding.
When digital learners rise to the challenge of real-world problem
solving, they acquire a set of skills that will serve them well, long
after they leave the classroom (Gallup, 2014). According to media
literacy teacher Chris Sperry (2012), “In the 21st century, these are
no longer ‘elective’ skills” (p. 49).
 S olut i ons f or D i g i ta l L ea r ne r–C ente r ed C la ssr ooms

Implementing Project-
Implementing

I M P L E M E N T I N G P R O J E C T- B A S E D L E A R N I N G
Based Learning
Implementing Project-Based Learning explores the need to better engage
21st century learners and prepare them for the changing world. Author Suzie
Project-Based
Boss details five specific types of project-based learning (PBL)—(1) geoliteracy
projects, (2) data literacy projects, (3) entrepreneurship and innovation projects,
(4) media literacy projects, and (5) storytelling projects—and highlights real
Learning
schools’ implementation.

Using this practical guide, K–12 teachers and administrators will:

• Explore the benefits of PBL and gain helpful resources to get started
with each type
• Discover three new literacies—(1) digital, (2) media, and
(3) global—and infuse them with traditional approaches to learning
• Involve students in connected learning experiences that develop
their global competency
• Uncover the necessary changes in teacher-student dynamics to
ensure learners are college and career ready
• Review common PBL challenges, questions, and solutions and
consider assessment strategies

Solutions Series: Solutions for

SUZIE BOSS

Digital Learner–Centered Classrooms

offers K–12 educators easy-to-implement solution-tree.com
recommendations on digital classrooms.
In a short, reader-friendly format, these
how-to guides equip practitioners with the
digital tools they need to engage students
and transport their district, school,

Suzie Boss
or classroom into the 21st century.

Visit go.solution-tree.com/technology to
access materials related to this book.