By Donny Boy
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| courtesy of Yose Hendry |
Why is Project-Based Learning (PBL) effective for teachers today? Before going there, I suggest you to immediately leave your old learning style that is stale. Refresh your mind, especially skeptical teachers. Why is that? The appearance of the class will be more independent and the use of time will be emphasized. It's like an offer you have to choose from. Are you going to instill more energy and excitement into the classroom? Your classroom is so monotonous and boring that you are the center of the learning and teaching process. Are you going to use pedagogical tools that can encourage students to think critically? You make your students followers of the theories they memorized. Will you facilitate collaborative learning? Meanwhile, your students are learning objects for the transfer of knowledge. Have you closed your eyes to the digitalization era staring intently at you? Worse, your students are preparing, in, and about to enter the era of digitalization. All of this is like a donkey forcing the cavalry to ride on a raid.
We can't wait for a single petus (single thunder) to escape from the mingkaruang (lizard) bite. Petus will solve all the problems exacerbated by Covid-19 or state exams. It is possible that with a bit of thoughtful creativity, we could end this academic year on a strong note by using Project Based Learning. This expectation is often dismissed as "another thing on our already full plates," but as author, John Spencer shares in his article "Seven Myths Keep Teachers From Implementing Creative Projects," "When I switched to the. about adding Project-Based Learning something new to my plate. It was about rearranging my plate." But how does it feel to “reset your plate” in a way that can help alleviate some of the seemingly insurmountable challenges you face every day? There is no denying that the last few years have taken a toll. But if we rethink how we use the time we have, if we focus on strengthening classroom culture, and if we make the learning journey more transparent—in serving students—there are opportunities for excitement and empowerment. It is possible that Project Based Learning is feasible to apply. Here are three reasons according to James Fester and Erin Starkey why now might be a good time to take a look at Project Based Learning.
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| courtesy of Yose Hendry |
Collaborate
How simple is that? Yes, it's simple when compared to the complexity of learning in your mind. Simple and relaxing. Project-Based Learning is often considered to waste time-consuming to plan or implement. Who has time for that? It sounds tiring before you even get started, so why bother? But if we challenge our assumptions about what Project-Based Learning looks like to be “high quality”, we find that time may not be as big a barrier as it seems. What if you collaborated with a colleague (say you teach English, with them teaching physics or Natural Sciences, Informatics, and Entrepreneurship) to create a large project about proving whether the earth rotates and rotates? You can use the science material as a whole by using the Learning Outcomes of the Science subject. The question arises, then where is your portion as an English teacher and Informatics colleague? Well, you can create conversations and narratives that according to natural law it is not true that the earth rotates and rotates. How about the subject of Informatics? You just have to document using digital records, everything that is possible and worthy for you to make blogs, vlogs, tik tok, youtube, instagram, podcasts, and others. At the end of the project, you can make content to be developed on Entrepreneurship subjects.
Collaborating can not only help ease any of your lesson planning and assessment burdens, but it can also empower students by highlighting how real learning can be. Imagine the impact you will have from collaborating on these four subjects. You can imagine how great Project Based Learning is. The face of learning will be cheerful and fun with a few crunchy challenges. Four subjects worked on a big issue that made the world's eyes open. Collaboration that answers all the questions at the beginning.
Transparency and Responsive
What if your students saw this learning differently and made a lot of changes? So much in the last three years was lost and changed in them. That perception can make learning much more difficult. Project-Based Learning Units can not only empower students but also spark the joy of learning, discovering, and asking questions, which also brings educators much-needed energy. This intentional content connection provides other benefits according to your students.
Integrating concepts gives you more time to explore, manipulate, and question topics. It increases rigor in a way that empowers students, rather than boring, frustrating or burdening them.
Time has always been a challenge, and recently it seems to be getting more acute. Research shows that, on average, you lose about 7–10 minutes of teaching time per day due to common management issues such as off-task behavior and another 6–7 minutes to general distractions such as a phone call or sudden visit by the principal. These lost minutes add up to hours at the end of the month and weeks at the end of the year. However, most project-based teachers don't see distractions or problems as a problem for two important reasons: They tend not to always be central to teaching, and they have a well-known structure for helping students stay engaged.
When classroom norms and expectations are understood—in most cases shared with students—it encourages clarity and acceptance from the start. When students work in collaborative groups, a structure that provides additional support when clarification is needed, they experience individual and team accountability through joint product creation. This grouping is reinforced through teacher-provided tools such as team agreements, work notes, and protocols all of which focus on increasing independence. These tools free you to provide additional support to individual students or to deal with unexpected issues.
