Four principles, one core formula, and a working example. The goal isn't fancy — it's retention through real, repeated practice inside something students actually want to make.
These are the four questions to ask yourself when you sit down to design a unit.
Students engage when they see the project connects with them. When projects have enough personal autonomy, students value their work — and it won't be trashed afterwards.
"When will I ever use this in my life?"
Start with a standard or group of standards. If you would normally assign 40 problems for practice, design the project so students hit that concept the same number of times — or more.
"How can students repeatedly use this concept to create a product?"
Think outside the box, take calculated risks, set up guest speakers, teach above grade level when needed, learn a new skill yourself if you have to.
"How far can the students take this project?"
Doing your own project — especially a new one — surfaces every pitfall students will hit. After a few years, you'll have a library of exemplary work. At the very least, do the project alongside them.
"What exemplary work do my students have to model after?"
Project idea: Read, write, and play music. Watch how the principles cascade:
A trifold or a slide deck isn't a PBL project. Here's a quick checklist for the difference.
Six things to do once you've run your first project and want the next one to be sharper.
Start small. A week-long project where students create a mosaic tile display using multiplication tiles (just their 3s). Assign colors to each multiplication fact. Have them make 9 sets with the product written on each tile (repetition). Let them rearrange into different designs (drafts) until they finalize one. Ask why they chose their final design. Have them document the process — the drafts, the calculations, how multiplication relates to the length, width, and area of a tile. Extend into art with color swatches and complementary colors. At the end of the day: "put the go to the know."
Different people bring different strengths to project design:
Don't do it alone unless you have most of these strengths yourself.
Math is all around us. Look for ways to incorporate the world into math. Even if it's a single lesson, it will plant a seed of ideas that may flourish into a week-long or month-long project.
Figure out what your students like. Design projects with that in mind. When I taught fractions to a group of students in a remedial class who were three years behind, traditional methods weren't getting through. But I noticed they had earbuds in all the time. I rewrote the entire semester around music — they read music, wrote music, played music, even built their own guitars from scratch. I took music classes and learned guitar myself (I had no music background). By the end of the year, the class went from 0% to 86% passing the standardized test.
We teach what we're most passionate about. If it's gardening, figure out how math is repeatedly used. Whatever your interest, students will see how excited you are. At two schools, I managed to get a pool table into my classroom — and taught a lot of math on it. Another hobby of mine is art, which is why so many of my projects center on it.
Bring in your interests, and students will get to see the human side of you.
If a project was a success, recycle it — meaning take it through the redesign stages again. If we ask students to learn the design cycle and create drafts, we should do the same with our project designs. Right after a project ends, figure out the pitfalls. Survey your students: what worked, what didn't, what would they change? Refine based on the data and your own observations to make next year's run more efficient.
The full process I run when designing a new project from scratch.
The fastest way to learn PBL is to try it. Start with one of the lessons here — and remix from there.