Projects have a time and a place, but PBL does not

Project-based learning (PBL) enjoys widespread popularity in schools. There is an intuitive appeal to connecting classroom content to the “real world”, and we’re told projects are engaging and authentic. But in my visits to schools that champion PBL, these promises are rarely delivered. If projects are to take up precious class time, I will argue that they must meet three essential conditions: alignment, brevity, and structure.

1. Alignment: Projects should fully align with the instruction that came before

A project should either teach or assess, but it often does neither. I once observed students spending multiple weeks designing and decorating papier-mâché masks to represent different world cultures. The problem? The class never studied those cultures in depth, and students were essentially choosing designs based on what they thought looked cool, rather than on historical or cultural understandings from their unit. The result was a superficial project with no meaningful grounding in academics or the real world.

When using a project for assessment, it is particularly important to attend to construct validity: an assessment should accurately reflect the content and skills that were taught. This requires a backward design from a pre-determined goal, followed by systematically teaching the components of the goal to mastery. In my observations of PBL, this backward design process is either missing entirely, or what is taught are non-curricular goals like gluing and pasting at the expense of curricular knowledge. Proponents of PBL tend to justify these sorts of hollow activities by denigrating knowledge as “mere facts” and claiming that gluing and pasting activities cultivate creativity and critical thinking.

A positive example of an aligned “project”—if you can even call it that—I observed came at the end of a unit on persuasive writing. The students were asked to write a formal letter to a local government official advocating for a community improvement. The project was brief (See Condition #2), structured so all students were behaving and succeeding (See Condition #3), and the project aligned with social studies content and curricular objectives from ELA: constructing arguments, using evidence effectively, and adapting tone for a specific audience.

2. Brevity: Projects should be an effective use of time

We should avoid replacing shorter, more focused tasks with longer, less efficient ones. Instructional time is limited – the clock is ticking against the students who are behind – and not all tasks are equally valuable. A project that drags on for weeks wastes time that could be better spent doing something better; an opportunity cost.

Most adults of my generation can recall spending long stretches of time making intricate dioramas and posters at school. Although dioramas can be fun to make, the majority of time is often spent socializing, mind-wandering, and decorating (you see the theme here?) rather than thinking about the content. When many kids cannot read or remember their math facts, the academic payoff does not justify the time investment.

A positive example of a brief and purposeful project I observed took place during a unit on data analysis. Students were given a small dataset related to weather patterns and asked to create a simple bar graph illustrating temperature changes over a week. The “project” took just one class period, was clearly aligned with prior instruction on data representation, and allowed students to practice using graphs to communicate information.

3. Structure: Projects should be scaffolded to minimize poor behavior and maximize success

Unstructured projects are inherently inequitable. Students with strong prior knowledge and self-regulation skills tend to thrive, while others struggle and disengage. This is a flaw that many PBL advocates claim to address, while at the same time celebrating the “messiness” of the approach. In practice, this messiness often means that students with the most learning and behavioral challenges are left without the structures they need to succeed.

In one class I observed, students were asked to “create a product that solves a local problem.” Some students developed thoughtful prototypes (often with the help of their parents at home) for how to stop doors from slamming, and how to color code their teacher’s pens, while others didn’t know where to begin. The predictable result from these schemes is frustration and failure from the kids who need the most support. I observe a lot of running around and nagging from teachers as they try to make PBL work, too.

This speaks to a critique that cognitive scientists have made about minimally guided instruction for years. “Constructivist” teaching often fails because novices lack the necessary schema to engage effectively in unguided problem solving and self-directed learning. In these environments, students are left to “discover” solutions without adequate foundational knowledge, leading to trial and error and cognitive overload rather than meaningful learning. Being confronted with your failures in front of your peers tends to make you feel bad, which is why I often observe a lot of unsafe and disruptive behavior in PBL classrooms.

There is almost always more learning and less chaos when teachers convert individual project time into whole class teaching. I once observed a teacher explicitly model how to list budget items, compare costs, and calculate totals for a “budget project” that was over in less than 20 minutes. Students didn’t work by themselves, but under the direct supervision of a teacher who led them step by step through the budgeting process, ensuring all could participate meaningfully. The brevity of the project allowed the teacher to use this format multiple times, slowly fading guidance with each subsequent repetition, to teach and assess these critical skills.

A More Disciplined Approach to Projects

Projects can be effective—when they consolidate prior learning, when they are brief and purposeful, and when they are heavily, heavily guided. Unfortunately, these criteria are often overlooked, and when applied, they end up eliminating many of the characteristics of a project. The reality is that some projects are inherently difficult to align with instructional goals, tend to consume excessive amounts of time, and are difficult to manage for even the most highly skilled behavior managers. Open-ended, discovery-based projects—often touted as “real-world learning”—are particularly prone to these pitfalls. They can easily become time-consuming diversions where kids screw around and learn very little.

As for the term “Project-Based Learning,” I refuse to use it to describe explicit instruction that involves a targeted, often terminal, project-like assignment. The learning isn’t fundamentally “based” in a project—it is based in instruction, with the project merely serving as a vehicle for practice. This perspective aligns with principles of effective teaching and cognitive load theory, which emphasize that independent practice should follow modeling and guided practice rather than replace it. When projects are framed as applications of taught material rather than the primary means of acquiring the material, they have the potential to support retention and transfer.

If you adhere to the strict conditions of alignment, brevity, and structure as I’ve described them – and still call this “Project-Based Learning” – then your definition diverges from PBL proponents’ definition. But I acknowledge it’s just semantics at some point.