By definition, PBL is “teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to a complex question, problem, or challenge.” Most schools, to my knowledge, do this to an extent, with group projects and the like. However group projects and research papers done with more than one person, in my experience, do not always wield the best results as group work can often be split unevenly. I do believe science classes AND other academic classes should implement PBL into the ciriculum, but only if it can be executed effectively.
In sports medicine, we have only done one official group lab so far, but the idea of a group lab is not new to me, as myself and many others have had to do labs for past science classes. Project-based learning does not influence learning in the long run, in my opinion. Especially as one reaches the upper rankings of high school, the way a student learns and goes about work is usually already developed. Nowadays, project-based learning that requires more than one class period or day to complete is merely busy work, and the work itself is never quite divided evenly. Project-based learning the way it is now does not effectively allow students to grow and learn from one another; rather, it forces people to work with one another, merely to get a collective assignment finished, and nothing more. If PBL were to effectively be brought about in the academic settings of schools, it would be most beneficial. But the basics of group work and how it is gone about must be dealt with first before anymore types of “group learning” are to be implemented nation-wide.
bicep4u 