3 Reasons NOT to Download Your Next PBL Unit
Let me start by saying I have downloaded PBL units from free websites and have even purchased a few. But it is very difficult to maintain the authenticity of a PBL unit and follow another facilitator’s plans. Here are 3 of my personal reasons to avoid downloading PBL units.
1. Project Based Learning cannot be made into a curriculum
Project Based Learning is a practice, a school of thought, an approach to learning and teaching, not a prescribed curriculum. When you download a PBL unit, you are in a sense, following a premade plan or curriculum. This takes out the effective tools that make PBL so authentic and engaging for students. In a downloaded unit, students are no longer “driving” the project; the teacher becomes the “driver.”
Student voice and choice is critical to a successful PBL unit, and following another’s plans eliminates the need to allow students to be your guides. While it is “easier,” not to have to “reinvent the wheel,” Project Based Learning never boasted to be an “easy” method. If anything, it demands more planning of the teachers who practice it. However, the additional planning is often more enjoyable, more engaging to students, and exciting to see come to fruition.
2. Downloading units can distort PBL data
If facilitators are downloading PBL units and following them with their students, the resulting plan becomes more a project and not a PBL unit. Projects are effective tools that are helpful for communicating standards to students. However, they are not PBL units, and thus the data related to the effectiveness of their teaching should not be placed with PBL unit data. New-to-PBL teachers may not understand the difference and assume that their pre-made PBL units are following the steps of quality PBL.
Project Based Learning, when done correctly, has been proven to greatly increase test scores and student employability skills. As PBL begins to spread and teachers with little- to-no PBL training are being told to “do PBL,” classroom data will soon become distorted. Schools may even begin to abandon the method of teaching, believing it is not as effective, despite the error in implementation.
3. You don’t always get what you want...
What makes a high-quality PBL unit? When we purchase PBL units or download them from a website we think they will be made with the components of a high-quality PBL. But with the sweep of PBL through the education community, many people are creating and promoting PBL products who have little to no experience with high quality and authentic PBL. As facilitators, we want to download tools that are both helpful and quality. Save us time. Save us energy. Save us our sanity. However, if we are new to PBL, how can we tell if a PBL unit we have downloaded is “quality”? The truth is, unless we educate and inform ourselves, we won’t know the difference, and reason 2 will become even more relevant.
What you can do instead...
If you’re feeling daunted about “reinventing the wheel,” here are some suggestions for ways you can build your own, authentic PBL units.
- Download FREE units from respected PBL resource centers to see examples of how to plan a unit.
- Use a quality planner that guides you in the creation of your PBL unit. This will help make the work easier to navigate.
- Need a planner? Check out my guided PBL unit planner.
- If you are going to purchase resources, purchase activities, stations, and lessons that support the main topics of your PBL unit. Save yourself time by purchasing related lessons and not whole PBL units.
- Example: My students wanted to reduce ocean pollution. I purchased an ocean close reading pack with great articles about ocean animals and their environment to help my students gain knowledge.
- Co-plan and implement a unit with another class and teacher. This way you can save some of the effort involved in planning an authentic and relevant PBL unit.
- Did the powers that be walk in and tell you “teach using PBL,” with little to no support? Check out these great resources to help you navigate the ins and outs of quality PBL instruction.
- My Store has tons of professional development products and videos (including several free resources).
- Join a Facebook group for PBL.
- Check out these great books at your local library or through your library’s audiobook service. Also, you can buy them on Amazon.
- Need podcasts?
- Check out Youtube