As an Assistant Principal at Hudsonville Schools in Michigan, I’m always looking for ways to bring relevant and authentic learning to our kids. About ten years ago, I discovered project based learning (PBL). By providing meaningful learning opportunities to our students, PBL transformed my teaching. I soon realized I wanted to share this idea far and wide. Since 2014, I’ve been traveling around the US – and the world – delivering workshops to help other educators develop their project based learning skills.
Through my professional connections, I met Casper Madsen, Principal of Læringshuset School in Denmark. Located in the Høje Taastrup municipality, Læringshuset is a PBL school that launched in 2019. Launching any school is challenging. But a PBL school during a pandemic? Training new teachers on a new process in an open-plan building? Casper realized his staff needed support to make this work.
Before long, my wife and I were on our way to Denmark to train Læringshuset and 7 other local schools on the principles of PBL. Over six months, our goal was to upskill 16 teachers (2 from each of 8 schools) to become PBL guides. But this was new territory. We’re used to one-off workshops, but this involved moving abroad and enrolling our children in the very schools we were trying to support. The pressure was on!
However, we know project based learning. And it always boils down to relationships. It sounds simple, but it’s something we don’t emphasize enough in education. An educator's role is to build meaningful relationships with kids and help them find their potential. Get that right and the rest takes care of itself. The core of our training, then, is to help teachers truly understand their kids and support them in creating a family-based culture within their classrooms (not dissimilar to the concept of 'crew' at XP School).
Once the foundation is down, the PBL guides are ready to understand who's on their team. Who are they working with? Here, we introduced concepts from the professional learning community (PLC) model used across the US. It focuses on student learning through supportive and collaborative teacher teams and how – through sharing – we can create better learning outcomes for students.
Next, we get into the practicalities of delivering a project. For each aspect of the PBL process – the driving question, learning outcomes, and final product – we ask three questions: What do we want kids to know? How do we want them to show us that they know it? And why do we want them to learn it in the first place? Our job in Denmark has been to strike that chord consistently to get the message across.
Still, our motto is that you learn the work by doing the work. This means our 16 fantastic PBL guides have had to create their own project with the driving question:
‘How do we implement and sustain high quality PBL in our school?’
It involved developing a 90-second statement about why they believe PBL should be used in the classroom. It’s accompanied by a high-quality PBL project and rubric to measure progress. Finally, they've had to complete a journey map of where their school is at, where they want it to go, and how they’ll get there. Just like the kids doing any PBL project, the teachers also had to present their work to fellow school leaders and newly hired teachers, who they'll now bring into the fold.
This journey to Denmark hasn’t been without challenges! Relocating for six months of training is very different from running one-off workshops. There’s nowhere to hide! But this is precisely what helped us get in-depth with the problems teachers were facing and what has made the last six months such a beautiful learning experience. The schools in Høje Taastrup have taken a big risk in committing their best people to learning and understanding PBL. With such intentionality, my wife and I wanted to make the training as meaningful and impactful as possible.
Of course, with any new idea, there can be initial pushback or questions. The reaction to PBL from teachers is often: ‘That’s a lot of work!’ While this is an understandable response, I always tell people that PBL isn’t about adding more to a teacher’s plate – it’s about giving purpose to what kids are already learning. Project-based learning promotes compassion. It helps young people connect with other human beings and professionals. It helps them build communities. If we don’t create chances for them to practice being impactful citizens in the world, we're missing an opportunity.
After six months of building in Denmark, it’s time for us to step back. We’re creating a support system for our colleagues here, of course, with additional digital training when they need it and hopefully some in-person visits over the next few years. But it’s ultimately up to them now to see where the journey will lead – because it really is all about the journey, not the destination.
Matt Baer is an Assistant Principal at Hudsonville Schools, Michigan. He has been an advocate and trainer of project based learning for ten years.