For a lot of students, school can feel like a transaction: You do the work, you get the check mark, and then you move on. That model can unintentionally cap what students show us about what they know and can do, writes Ryan Sprott, EdD, senior director of design and facilitation at PBLWorks, in an eSchool News essay.
Sprott leads the organization’s strategy for creating and delivering professional learning in project-based learning (PBL).
Whenever I reconnect with former students I taught years ago, I’m always struck by what they actually remember: moments where they got their hands dirty solving real problems, collaborating with people outside our classroom, and wrestling with big, complicated questions.
When we look at why those experiences stick, it comes down to how project-based learning brings content to life,
Back in the 2015–2016 school year, on the eve of a presidential campaign filled with intense rhetoric about immigration, my students in San Antonio—just a few hours from the United States–Mexico border and deeply connected to it through family and community—were hearing about it everywhere. They were genuinely asking, “What is actually happening there, and what does a border really mean?”
So, we designed a project-based course centered around one driving question: What is the purpose of a border, and what has shaped your answer to this question?
Students traveled to the border, visited sections of the wall, and walked along natural riverfronts. They conducted interviews with Border Patrol agents, asylum seekers, local mayors, and community aid organizations.
Students saw how lived experience shapes different perspectives. We kept returning to our driving question at key milestones so they could watch their own thinking evolve.
Designing learning around authentic projects widens the lens on what it means to be “good at school.”
During one evening of our border course, a local aid organization reached out asking if our students could help support women and children asylum-seekers who had just been released from detention facilities. My students stepped up to coordinate transportation, manage logistics, and care for young children.
PBL honored their curiosity, their identities, and their real-world skills. It showed us who they really were.
High-quality project-based learning changes the underlying engine of how students retain knowledge:
- Pursuing actual understanding: When learning is driven by authentic curiosity, students are chasing actual understanding instead of credits or grades.
- Going beyond what teachers intended: Authentic projects give students room to surprise us, going far beyond what the teacher originally imagined or the project entailed.
- Developing durable confidence: Regularly presenting public work to real audiences and interviewing outside experts builds communication skills and confidence that translate directly to success in higher education and future careers.
Creating a project-based culture where learning lasts takes intentional, district-level support to scale project-based learning effectively across schools.
District leaders can create the conditions for long-term retention by:
Set standards without uniformity: Establish clear district-wide rubrics for core competencies like critical thinking and collaboration, while giving teachers the autonomy to adapt projects to local community context.
Go beyond standardized tests: Look beyond standardized snapshot testing by integrating public exhibitions of learning, student defense-of-learning presentations, and performance-based tasks.
Allocate time for sustained coaching: Teachers need dedicated time and coaching to collaborate, design units, and refine their craft together.
In an era where AI can instantly produce facts, education demands curiosity, empathy, and the ability to navigate ambiguity. Designing learning that is joyful and connected to the real world ensures students do far more than just retain content. Joyful learners are the ones who will do well in the next era of schooling, work, and civic life. PBL is one of the most powerful tools we have to help cultivate them.
eSchool News
