If you work in a field long enough you live to see important ideas cycle back into practice, hopefully improved with age.
That, I think, is what’s going to happen with challenge-based learning, a close cousin to the project-based learning work done notably by the team here at the New Tech Center for Excellence.
I was privileged to review an advance copy of Nathan Lang-Raad’s upcoming book, Renaissance Thinking in the Classroom: Interdisciplinary Learning, Real-World Problems, Intellectually Curious Students (Solution Tree). Lang-Raad, a longtime colleague from a large-scale project-based learning initiative between the Buck Institute for Education (PBLWorks) and Metro Nashville Public Schools, makes a compelling argument for the use of challenge-based learning as the most effective pedagogy to equip students with the skills needed to tackle global issues.
First, a little background …
Flavors of Inquiry
Informed educators who have experimented with various forms of inquiry-driven instruction are aware there are practical and theoretical differences between three popular flavors: project-based learning, problem-based learning, and challenge-based learning.
Even though the Buck Institute/PBL Works is known around the world as the center of project-based learning, its initial work focused on problem-based learning. The first major products to come out of the organization were a series of curriculum units for problem-based government and economics. Though they were written in the early 2000s they are still widely in use today.
We can use this as a definition of problem-based learning: PrBL is an approach where students learn by solving complex, real-world problems. It develops problem-solving strategies and disciplinary knowledge. By and large, it is structured and the inquiry is driven by the teacher.
PBL Takes Over
Despite the Buck Institute’s early work in PrBL, the organization really gained prominence beginning in 2009 with the publication of the Project Based Learning Starter Kit and a few years later with the launch of the PBL World Conference. With little fuss, PrBL became a subset of PBL and the term problem-based learning drifted out of popular use.
We can use this as a definition of project-based learning: PBL involves students working on a project over an extended period. They investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging, and complex question, problem, or challenge. It emphasizes student agency, authenticity, and collaboration.
Two variations on PBL became popular: A standards-based approach promoted by the Buck Institute and a more open-ended model promoted by High Tech High School in San Diego. In both variations, the teacher moved from center stage to the now ubiquitous guide-on-the-side.
As we have discussed here previously, it is imperative that the teacher make the right instructional decision at the right time. There are times and strategy when teachers provide transfer level strategies as well and open ended feedback, however, when a learner is at surface, they need to be provided the right strategy and more direct feedback.
Challenged-Based Learning Has a Champion
As the Buck Institute model spread first around the U.S. and then later around the world, another pedagogical model came to prominence at the same time. Challenge-based learning (CBL) had a powerful advocate on its side: Apple.
It was not unusual to see some schools in a district implementing the Buck Institute for Education model of PBL while across town another school was implementing CBL. In fact, both the Buck Institute and Apple Education were coaching schools in New York City School’s iZone at the same time, sometimes in the same building.
We can use this as a definition of challenge-based learning: CBL is a framework where students learn by solving real-world challenges. It is collaborative and hands-on, involving students, teachers, families, and community members. Participants identify big ideas, ask questions, discover and solve challenges, gain knowledge, develop skills, and share their thoughts. It is above all interdisciplinary in nature.
If It's All Inquiry, Why Does the Label Matter?
As an old wonk who’s been hardened by years in the classroom, I often wonder if the label matters? Do teachers care that they are actually using PrBL when their school website proudly describes the campus as a PBL exemplar? Do students or their guardians care about theory driven labels? Probably not.
That said, there is research that supports all of these models. The research defines a set of principles and practices that lead to successful outcomes. To lose the label is to lose the principles and practices, and most likely, to lose what each of them can do to promote student success. I bake, and I am painfully aware that laws of chemistry dictate the appearance and flavor of my desserts. Bakers ignore chemistry at their peril.
All models have their approaches and their design aspects. They key isn’t they framework, or how many projects are being completed, the key for the research to actually make an impact is are teachers using the right strategy at the correct time for learning. This is where we want to ensure that the learning is at the core of the inquiry model.
Pedagogy for Our Time
One of the reasons I endorse Lang-Raad’s new book is because he rightfully points out that the nature of the problems that face us dictate the nature of the pedagogy that can produce successful learners and the solutions they develop.
The Sustainable Development Goals are my benchmark for education outcomes because to meet these goals we need to create learners who can work collaboratively, think creatively, communicate effectively, and think critically. We need learners who can see beyond the informational silos they’ve been schooled in. We need to produce a generation of polymaths. By definition, challenge-based learning is well-equipped to produce those learners and solve our problems.
There is a continuum of practice with these three models. PrBL is the most structured and teacher centered; PBL acknowledges the reality of curriculum standards while moving the student on stage; and CBL unleashes both teachers and students to work collaboratively in creative ways to solve real-world challenges.
A solution to the pedagogy and the various inquiry models, Director Aaron Eisberg has authored a 3 book series Envisioning Rigor. The goal of the 3 book series is to help teachers (no matter the model of inquiry) to provide strategies that work at all 3 stages of learning (surface, deep and transfer). Not only are there a bank of strategies, but they are also visually represented to provide a seamless implementation for classrooms K-12 and new and veteran teachers.
There is a place for all of these pedagogies in our educational arsenal. Choose wisely, but look to the future when you do.
David Ross (@davidPBLross) is the retired CEO of the Partnership for 21st Century Learning and the former Senior Director of the Buck Institute for Education (now PBLWorks). David was an 11th grade American Studies (History and English 11) team teacher. David created curriculum design templates, exemplary projects, rubrics for critical thinking and collaboration, and project management techniques.
