Project Based Learning – How I got started (& realized it was not really PBL, yet)

I began my career in Melrose in 2013-2014. In that year I also began my exploration of Project Based Learning by creating a quarter-long unit on the Commedia dell’Arte Italian literary period (examples of this are works by Goldoni, the Italian playwright, the creation of stock characters still in use today such as Harlequin, Colombina).  I always taught this in the last quarter of the year because, quite frankly, Theater/Arts/Music was the last chapter in the textbook.

I ditched the textbook for everything except vocabulary and created my own unit, beginning with the essential question of what makes us laugh (which is actually an adaptation of the central philosophical question in The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco: did Jesus laugh?)?  This unit was an exploration of the idea many people have that jokes cannot be translated from one language to another as well as an exploration of theater, body language, verbal language and the Italian roots of stock comic (and tragic) characters.

The unit began by showing clips of TV programs or stand up comics – the first five chosen by me and the rest chosen by students to share with all of us. Although it was an Italian language class, we began exploring the question and the topic in English and gradually moved to production into Italian. The World Language Department has a requirement of four open responses (written summative assessments) and four core assignments (speaking/oral summative assessments) so the end product for this unit was a group project in which students showed their learning by updating the stock characters and producing improvised oral skits.

As it turns out, this is really more of an example of UDL (Universal Design for Learning) and not quite PBL (project based learning) but it does go to show that you can start your journey at any point – even with an imperfect understanding of the learning technique or philosophy! 

My refined (but still imperfect) understanding and implementation of PBL

This Google Site holds a truer PBL project with an actual real-world problem (dying Italian towns) for Italian 4 Honors students (juniors and seniors) to explore and solve.

Project Based Learning (PBL) is all about exploring and offering possible solutions for an authentic, real-world issue or problem. But it does not end there! The last component of a PBL project is to share it with a community audience. In his post on the Summit Learning Blog (September 6, 2018), John Larmer says: “[…] two things are essential to achieve the best project based learning experience for students. The first essential element is to make student work public to a community outside of the classroom. The second is to make the project fully authentic, as opposed to a simulation or simply an “engaging task.”” 

While my original Commedia dell’arte unit and project, which I created in 2013 and continued to use and fine-tune until 2016, was an exploration of a real-world issue (jokes/humor and translation from culture to culture and language to language), it was heavily guided by me (though I included lots of Voice & Choice, a UDL element). It did not include student-driven research or a problem-solving element (because ultimately I guided them to my own understanding that there are some universals across cultures, even in comedy) and the end product was not shared with a community beyond the students’ own classroom (though sometimes we did share with another cohort of students engaged in the same project). My Commedia dell’arte unit was a step towards PBL, and a bigger step towards UDL, but it was what PBLWorks.org calls a “dessert project” – while a true PBL unit/project is “the main course.” 

My most recent attempt at PBL is “The Depopulation Crisis in Italy” project. The project arose from a casual conversation I had in September 2020 with a high school junior (who came to visit me remotely in the first FLEX Google Meet, so that I would not be alone), in which we discussed whether people really need to attend college to be successful in adult life, and revealed his interest in real estate as a career option. The project solidified as I kept seeing headlines and reading articles in English-language as well as Italian-language news outlets about the one Euro houses being sold in Italy and Spain, in particular. The framework generously supplied by my district’s Assistant Superintendent for Technology and our Academic Facilitator is: Connect, Speculate, Investigate, Frame, Express, Reflect. 

What makes this project PBL? For any project to be part of the “main course,” that is, a project-based learning unit, it needs to include seven elements in its design:

Element 1 Challenging Problem/Question: The Depopulation project incorporates an authentic, real-world issue or challenge in Italy (the “dying” town phenomenon and also the sustained low birth rates in Italy, which has Italian demographers positing a potential “death” of Italy as a nation). The driving question asks “How can we save a “dying” town or nation?” and is on the Home, Connect and Speculate pages on the project’s Google Site. 

Element 2 Sustained Inquiry: The Speculate page asks students to brainstorm questions or ideas (that they then put into question form) on a shared QFT document. It is sustained inquiry because students can engage in this process across multiple class meetings (this unit was scheduled for six 90 minute blocks during remote teaching/learning, but could be stretched over an entire month, quarter, or longer as well). 

Element 3 Authenticity: This project focuses on an issue currently affecting many towns in Italy and Spain and other parts of Europe as well as the country of Italy (encompassing current societal issues of sustained low birthrates, breakdown of the nuclear family, economic migration issues, etc.). This meets Larmer’s “second essential element.”

Element 4 Student Voice & Choice: In the Frame tab, this project asks students to review, discuss their research collaboratively and to decide what product(s) to create and produce in order to share their findings and proposed solutions. Students are encouraged to add a new driving question or focus, as well, based on how their research shapes their thinking.

Element 5 Reflection: This project currently initially lacked a Reflection piece but now has a 3-2-1 Google Doc in which students are asked to share, in English, 3 takeaways from their learning, 2 they would have liked to explore further, and 1 thing they enjoyed in this work. I am still trying to frame how best to elicit student reflection that will allow students to choose the aspect(s) of the project to reflect on and share, though. If you have any ideas for improvement, please, please, please share in the comments below!

(Missing) Element 6 Critique & Revision: This project currently lacks a piece in which they peer review, give and receive feedback (other than mine) so that they can refine their research and improve both their process and their final product(s). There is also currently no tab on the Google Site for this element.

(Missing) Element 7 Public Product: To meet this element, (students need to share their product(s) with an audience beyond the classroom. In this project students are asked to upload their final product(s) to the site’s Express tab. To meet Larmer’s “first essential element” I would perhaps invite the Consul General (or other official) from the Italian Consulate to attend a Google Meet presentation of student work. Do you have any other ideas about how students could share this publicly? Please comment below!

As you can see from the two missing elements, the Depopulation Crisis in Italy project almost meets PBLWorks.org’s Gold Standard design. But that has not deterred me from piloting and refining this new project with my Italian 4 Honors students (high school juniors and seniors); they are giving me great feedback (many enjoyed this project most as we got into the Investigate stage) for revising its design and implementation for next year!

If you decide to try this project in your classroom, or a different one, even if yours may be missing elements, please share your experience in the comments!