I’ve only had one true experience with project based learning in my prior schooling. It was sophomore year in high school. We had to take what we learned in class about the French Revolution and go and research even more and turn it into a children’s book. We had several months to work on the project and the finished product was really awesome. My group had a lot of fun making it, but more importantly we learned a lot in the process. I don’t remember a whole lot from that class, except for about the French Revolution.
“Johnny: The Mediocre Human”
I think that, from a student’s perspective, project based learning is really fun and helps us truly learn the material instead of temporarily remembering it for the test and then forgetting it. However, if the work-period isn’t long enough or the project isn’t explained well then project-based learning can be really stressful. If this is the case then the stress factor can be distracting and inhibit the learning.
As a teacher, I would imagine that the project designing process would be very time consuming since it would have to be a detailed plan. And having to answer student questions and provide help when necessary may be arduous. But the finished product, the excitement from students about learning, would be so gratifying that all of the work and time spent would definitely be worth it, like in the video about the school-design project (http://www.edutopia.org/mountlake-terrace-geometry-real-world-video).
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