In today’s age of cut-throat competition and challenges, the old-school model of rote-learning and its negligible ability to implement knowledge is becoming inadequate to prepare students for a 21st century world.
When it comes to creating a generation that is adaptive, innovative and future-ready, education is the primary driver. Technology is disrupting and transforming both professional and personal landscapes at an unprecedented pace. Thus, the responsibility of equipping students with the tools to deal with these developments lands on the shoulders of instructors across the educational paradigm.
What is PBL?
Contrary to the conventional methods of teaching, Project-Based Learning (PBL) is a collaborative and application-driven approach. It uses real-world situations as vehicles to facilitate enhanced learning and a spirit of inquiry, while also integrating academic subjects across the curriculum.
These projects are different from the regular, short-term projects undertaken after a course ends, for instance, as a tool to revise course components. These projects drive the primary framework of curriculum and course instruction. Within PBL, students can use any medium viable for their research — field trips, presentations, creating 3D models, experiments, and more. Students engage in such a project for an extended period, depending on their coursework working on finding innovative solutions to a complex questions around real-world problems. Ultimately, they demonstrate their learning through a report, a presentation or an actual product at the end of the cycle.
Impact
Not only does this model inculcate deep knowledge about the subject but also helps develop soft skills like communication, team-building, collaboration and creativity. PBL encourages students to become independent workers, critical thinkers and problem-solvers and urges them to form questions of their own and develop a sense of ownership of their learning process and outcome.
Teachers, in this ecosystem, function as facilitators rather than instructors, moving away from the overworked ‘chalk-and-talk’ pedagogy. Fostering agency and competence in learners is an intrinsic outcome of a project-based approach to learning, also diminishing the need to regulate and supervise.
Connecting real-world situations to academics is perhaps one of the biggest benefits of this approach, pushing students to learn from trial and error and succeed based on their interpretations and logical deductions. This equips them with techniques that will eventually be used in their workplaces.
Additionally, since such projects are often large and complex, students are forced to work in groups, encouraging even the most silent to speak up and work collectively with conflicting personalities to find mutual accord and learn how to defuse tensions in a diverse team. This not only has a high impact on their interpersonal skills, but it also introduces them to specialisation, and optimal allocation of resources and delegation.
In education
PBL effectively bridges the gap between theoretical and practical education, promoting true knowledge, initiative and a better understanding of the subject. With digital penetration and extensive adoption of technology in classrooms, PBL is a natural extension of an application-oriented pedagogy that most curricula are moving towards.
The writer is the Director of Indian Institute of Art and Design, New Delhi.
