Answers to Questions I’m Asked When Claiming There’s a Place for PBL in AP
This from an APUSH teacher and PBL in AP advocate
I believe that now, more than ever, PBL is in the best interest of all AP students. Hence, I encourage AP teachers, starting this fall and in the years to come, to increasingly place before their students one or more project-based learning opportunities.
AP students who engage in PBL will:
- Outperform their more traditional classroom peers.
- Submit better college application essays.
- Receive better letters of recommendation.
- Report a more joyful learning experience.
- Cheat less.
(Click here for a detailing of each of the above five claims.)
Whenever I share any of these claims with an AP teacher, I’m often asked several questions. Below, the questions I’m most often asked. My answers as well.
How do you respond to those who say there’s no place in AP for PBL?
I beg to differ. So too does Trevor Packer. And how do I know that Packer thinks there’s a very real place in AP for PBL? It’s because, on May 2, 2021, I asked him via email how he responds to those who say there’s no place in AP for PBL Below, his response.
It’s highly possible that we will design a fall project for every AP course, which could replace part of the AP exam for schools that elect to do it and submit it for scoring at the AP Reading. Students could also use it to submit to colleges before admissions deadlines in the fall. We have much left to learn from educators about if / how best to do something like this, but we’re definitely considering it.
How do you respond to those who say that in AP there isn’t enough time for PBL?
When I hear an AP teacher say something like this, the first thing I do is ask the teacher, “how many 45-minute class periods does your Course and Exam Description claim are needed for you to prepare your students for the annual AP exam properly?”
Depending on the AP class taught, the teacher’s answer will never exceed 140, forty-five minute class periods (which equals 6300 minutes).
I then ask the teacher, for whom do you think your Course and Exam Description’s Pacing Guide was designed? The answer that always comes back to me is something along the lines of “a class of average students.” That’s certainly what I think!
I then ask the teacher, “do you consider your students average or better?”
If the teacher says average or better, I then ask how many minutes of instruction are you allotted before the annual AP Exam. If the teacher teaches at a traditionally calendared school, then the answer to my question is usually well above 6300.
To put it another way, I believe that an AP teacher who matches up with the below should find that he/she will have at least ten, forty-five minute class periods before the May Exam to do with as he/or she wishes:
- They have a class of average or better students.
- They teach at a traditionally calendared school.
- They follow their CED Pacing Guide.
- They make ample use of all the resources found on AP Classroom (including the AP Daily videos, the Progress Check Questions, the Question Bank Questions, and the Topic Questions).
In other words, teachers with average or better students who teach at traditionally calendared schools should find plenty of time before the May exam to place one or more PBLs before their students if they teach the course as CB recommends.
On several different occasions over the course of the past two years, I’ve directly placed this claim, in the form of personal conversations and emails, before CB and AP leadership, and each time I’ve asked point-blank for CB and AP to tell me if I’m wrong or need to take it down a notch. Not once have I been redirected.
Furthermore, when I recently shared with Trevor Packer a link to a website containing many examples of my students’ high-quality PBL-related work, Packer said, “I hope many other teachers learn about this practice and imitate it — it seems like such a powerful way to help students develop a strong understanding of specific topics . . .”
For the past several month’s I’ve interpreted Packer’s comment as a confirmation of the claim I’m making here . . . that CB not only wants its AP teachers to annually place before their students one or more project-based learning opportunities but that CB also believes that all AP-course CEDs are designed to allow for that.
To determine if that’s what CB believes, I put the question directly before Trevor Packer on May 2. 2021. Below, his response:
I agree with your position wholeheartedly, Peter.
Packer then explained the value of PBL in AP and especially in terms of prepping the students for the May exam.
The way the AP Exams are designed, the points to be gained by covering more content, rather than slowing down the course for a project, are minimal, whereas the in-depth understanding to be gained from a well-designed project that is anchored in a meaningful cluster of learning objectives from the CED could have a significant impact on student performance within the free-response section.
Improved performance on any one-free response section question, even just a point higher, will have a much bigger impact on a student’s AP exam score than the sort of single multiple-choice point that may or may not be the “benefit” of spending more time on traditional content coverage.
Packer then described some of the challenges associated with PBL in AP before closing out with one more endorsement of PBL in AP.
The key, though, is a well-designed project that addresses multiple concepts from the CED. In contrast, it could, of course, be detrimental to spend two weeks on a project that only addresses a single bullet in the CED. Project-based learning is, of course, only as good as the design of the project itself and the pedagogical skills the teacher then utilizes to support students in owning their own learning process. I’ve heard countless stories of teachers leaving workshops on project-based learning full of enthusiasm, only to abandon the approach shortly thereafter as they encounter the realities of how difficult it can be to design a project that supports and scaffolds steady, incremental development of knowledge and skills and then the transfer of such. The Lucas Educational Foundation spent much money paying experts to design the projects they utilized in their AP research study and then provided about double the number of contact hours in teacher professional learning than a typical new AP teacher receives.
In short, it ain’t easy to design a great project, and it requires a real dedication of time and effort from teachers to shift away from more traditional approaches to their content, but it certainly appears to be worth the effort.
How do you respond to those who say PBL in AP will lower test scores?
Over the years, that’s been a tough question to answer. Not any longer. I now simply refer teachers who ask this question to the Lucas Education Research study findings (released in March of 2021). Below, from the LER press release:
In this first study ever reported on project-based learning and Advanced Placement results, research scientists have found that students taught AP US Government and AP Environmental Science with a PBL approach outperformed peers on exams by 8 percentage points in year one of a randomized controlled trial and were more likely to earn a passing score of 3 or above with the chance to receive college credit. In year two, PBL students outperformed peers by 10 percentage points.
In other words, the evidence now appears clear that rigorous, high-quality PBL results in a significant boost in academic achievement for all students.
(Anna and her USC team’s research on PBL and the AP was conducted in 5 districts across the country where there is open enrollment for AP and where the students were not necessarily average or above. Nevertheless, the results were significant across the board.)
How do you respond to those who say PBL in AP means teamwork, and that means one student does all the work, and the rest do little or nothing, yet all get the same grade and credit?
It’s true. PBL does call for teamwork, but it doesn’t require that students work with other students. They can work with the teacher, a sibling, a parent, or even an expert in the field. Collaboration is all that’s called for. Not collaboration with other students.
How do you respond to those who say their AP students are already “doing projects” or “hands-on activities?”
First, I say that PBL and “doing a project“ are not the same thing. I then share the below:
In Project Based Learning” (says PBL Works CEO Bob Lenz), the project itself is used to teach rigorous academic content and success skills.
Bob then goes on to add: “With PBL, students work to answer an important question — such as “How can we impact hunger in our community?” By exploring the question over a couple of weeks or longer, students become immersed in it, pursuing answers from various angles.
Through this process, they apply what they’re learning in meaningful ways. Instruction is incorporated into the project, which is designed to meet appropriate academic goals and standards. The project work creates a genuine need for students to learn grade-level content and skills, while working collaboratively, thinking critically and engaging in reflection and revision.
Students see how their work has an impact in the real world.
At the end of the project, the students’ work is shared publicly, beyond just classmates and teachers… Students in a STEM project might create a sustainable redesign for a public space and present it to the city council, rather than simply learning from a textbook and creating a poster for the classroom wall. Or in social studies, a student could explore historical and present-day community heroes, and present their findings in a public forum.
By making a “main course” out of Project-Based Learning, students become deeply engaged in their work. They understand how what they learn in school applies to the real world. They develop the skills that will set them up for success in college, career, and life.”
Below, a chart produced by PBLWorks that clarifies the difference between PBL and “doing a project.”
How do you respond to those who say that PBL is beneath the dignity of AP students at high-performing schools?
When I hear teachers say that, or anything close to it, my first response has always been to argue the contrary — that PBL gives the higher-performing students a chance to highlight their unique talents and joy.
In other words, PBL releases the higher-performing students from most constraints imposed by the teacher and/or the standards and thus it gives these students a chance to go beyond.
As a fellow-teacher once said to me: “Thoroughbreds want to race in the Derby; not just pull a milk cart through town.” PBL, in my opinion, not only gives the higher-performing student a chance to race in the Derby, it also gives them a chance to go for the Triple Crown. Hence PBL treats the higher performing students with dignity.
Lately, I’ve also responded to the question appearing above by sharing something that Youki Terada wrote in a February 2021 Edutopia article. The Lucas Education (AP) study “provides compelling evidence that project-based learning is an effective strategy for all students, the historically marginalized ones and the high achieving students.” (Terada is the Edutopia Researcher and Standards Editor.)
In your call for PBL in AP, are you calling for “wall-to-wall” PBL?
I am not. I do not believe in wall-to-wall PBL. What I believe in is a split of sorts — a “feathering” of PBL into the more traditional.
Hence, I often talk of how I personally prefer a 50–50 spit (with teachers 50% of the time utilizing a relatively traditional approach to teaching and assessment and 50% of the time utilizing a more innovative (PBL) approach to teaching and testing.
As for the question of some other “feathering” combination, a 60–40 or 40–60% split, I support that too.
For newbies, I even support a 25–75 (PBL to traditional) feathering, though I don’t know of any scientific findings that support this approach.
So when it comes to the more traditional approaches to teaching and testing, you are not calling for the throwing out the baby with the bathwater?
That’s correct. If anything, I’m calling for a “healthy marriage” of the old and the new, with this calling, on occasion, resulting in my getting mercilessly slammed by a few PBL zealots who turn their noses up at any/all teachers (and especially at the AP teachers) who spend large chunks of time lecturing, assigning homework, and assessing students by way of multiple-choice questions, short answer questions, and/or document-based questions. I, and so many other AP teachers, resent this.
Conversely, my hat is off to all the nationally acclaimed PBL experts and education leaders, like Linda Darling-Hammond, Bob Lenz, Trevor Packer, George Lucas, Daniel Ching, Michael McDowell, and others, who do not call for PBL in terms of the need to throw out the baby with the bathwater but instead call for PBL in terms of a bringing together of both the traditional and the progressive approaches to teaching and testing.
In the words of my district’s former superintendent, “One cannot do an engineering project without the requisite knowledge and math skills to make it successful. To think that knowledge goes out the window with projects is folly. The best projects will rely on knowledge.”
Does PBL require the adoption of some form of block scheduling?
It does not. Below, Bob Lenz, the CEO of PBLWorks, explains how and why.
A longer block of time is useful to support deeper learning objectives for students simply because it allows more time for students to engage in a learning cycle within a class period.
Within a block period, for example, there could be time for project group check-ins, knowledge, and skill-building lessons or center-activities, project work time, student reflection and goal setting, and possibly even a feedback protocol before reflecting and goal setting. In a shorter class period, one or two of these pieces could be built-in, but the work session would typically be cut short, which is less conducive to promoting critical thinking, fostering independent learning, and really progressing on the project; and the reflection or feedback cycles would often need to be truncated as well and/or scheduled on separate days. A block period more naturally supports the overall aims of Gold standard PBL, deeper learning, and guiding students through the project path in a learner-centered way.
The two images appearing below give guidelines that might also help. Also in our Evidence Framework, we recommend at least two 75 minute blocks a week for students for projects and at least 6 hours of collaboration time for teachers. It’s time for student project time and time for teachers to collaborate.”
Does PBL require more work by teachers?
According to the PBLWorks website:
PBL requires teachers to distribute the time they put into teaching in a different manner, but overall, it is not more demanding or time-consuming. Much of the work in PBL is done when planning a project and assembling resources before students begin working. In contrast, once students have begun the project, the load on the teacher can feel lighter. In traditional instruction, the preparation to dispense knowledge and keep students busy is continual. Planning projects gets easier over time as teachers become more familiar with PBL, and they can borrow ideas from colleagues or re-use projects from previous years.
For AP teachers who are new to PBL or who want to learn more about the benefits of project-based learning with AP, what do you suggest?
For starters, I suggest that they sign up for the 2021 first-ever AP Summer Institute PBL Series. Here, AP teachers wanting to learn more about PBL can “connect with a community of AP teachers who are bringing AP Project Based Learning to their classrooms.”
I also suggest that they take a close look at the two websites appearing below:
How do you respond to those who say that PBL is just the latest fad?
Project-based learning is indeed one of the hottest trends in education right now, “with its popularity due to the pendulum swinging back from the previous obsession with standardization and assessment dictated by NCLB and RTTT to a more holistic (student-centered) approach to education.”
Yet PBL shouldn’t be seen as a fad, but as necessary and permanent shifts in pedagogy and (says my district’s former Superintendent) “what the workforce will more and more require in the coming years.” Click here to read an article entitled: 7 Reasons Why Project-Based Learning Is NOT a Fad.
