Glossary Project Based Learning

Project Based Learning Glossary

Agency: an attribute for self-improvement including the development of a growth mindset and taking ownership for one’s own learning.

Authentic Product: a product that has value beyond school and, preferably, an audience outside the school or classroom.

Authentic Learning: an instructional approach that allows students to explore, discuss, and meaningfully construct concepts and relationships in contexts that involve real-world problems and projects that are relevant to the learner.

Authenticity: projects use the context of the workplace and the community to teach academic and technical skills

Benchmark: steps on the way toward completing products. They are substantial tasks that every group/individual completes in order to mark progress toward finishing products. Benchmarks are used to provide formative feedback.

Critical Friends: a tuning protocol that provides a safe way for peers to share their work and get constructive feedback for improvement.

Culminating Event: this is the student-generated product made in response to the project’s entry event.

Critique and Revision: the project includes processes for students to give and receive feedback on the quality of their work, leading them to make revisions or conduct further inquiry.

21^st Century Competencies: students build competencies valuable for today's world, such as problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity/innovation, which are explicitly taught and assessed.

Discovery Approach Learning: a type of Project Based Learning that shifts the focus away from the product, project, or presentation, and onto the learning itself.

Driving Question: project work is focused by an open-ended question that students understand and find intriguing, which captures their task or frames their exploration.

DIY (Do It Yourself): any activity students do alone whether to study a concept or to be evaluated on their understanding.

Enduring Understanding: concepts, ideas, experiences, or skills students should remember for years after exposure to them. It is broader and more applicable than the driving question, which is project specific. Enduring understandings address essential ideas and central processes that matter outside the classroom/subject area.

Essential Question: a core question which asks students to think beyond the literal. It is complex and open to discussion and interpretation. Essential questions are important in terms of getting students to think about the complexities around issues, scientific principles, and events.

Entry Event: the “big event” that gets students excited about an upcoming project. The event should pique students’ interests and lay the breadcrumbs for need-to-knows.

In-depth inquiry: students are engaged in an extended, rigorous process of asking questions, using resources, and developing answers.

Makers: individuals who use their imagination and resources to design and build new things.

Need-to-Knows (NTKs): skills, content, and logistical information required to complete a project. These are identified by learners as unknown, or requiring facilitator support in acquiring and mastering.

Project Based Learning: inquiry-based instructional approach that utilizes projects as a central organizing strategy for educating students.

Project Based Learning: a 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.

Project Based Learning: a theory of learning that promotes students learning by doing in order to answer a complex question.

Project Based Learning: a teaching strategy that uses real-world learning activities to engage student interest and motivation.

Project: all the things students will do in order to learn the standards encompassed by the Driving Question.

Product: the results of the work of the project. Many project based learning experiences result in a culminating product that is presented publicly for an audience that includes at least some persons not in the students’ regular learning group.

Problem Statement: statement learners complete that expresses the students’ role in the project, the task they will complete, and the reason why the project matters.

Project Map: a document used to plan sequential events within the scope of a project. Potential events to include may be project rollout, benchmarks, assessments, remediation, and opportunities for reflection.

Public Audience: students present their work to other people, beyond their classmates and teacher.

Rubric: a set of leveled criteria for assessing learners’ products or performance.

Significant Content: the learning material that students will be using while creating the project.

Voice and Choice: students are allowed to make some choices about the products to be created, how they work, and how they use their time, guided by the teacher and depending on age level and PBL experience.

Workshop: an activity or presentation designed to address a particular need-to-know which often occurs in small groups.

References:

1. Project-Based Learning: a White Paper. Drew Charter School, Atlanta

2. Using Real-World Projects to Help Students Meet High Standards in Education and the Workplace. Southern Regional Education Board, Atlanta

3. Santiago Taveras and Sabrina Hope King. Project-Based Learning: Inspiring Middle School Students to Engage in Deep and Active Learning. New York, 2000

4. https://globaldigitalcitizen.org/all-the-project-based-learning-terms-you-should-know/amp

5. https://www.greenville.k12.sc.us/ntam/main.asp?titleid=terms

6. http://www.state.nj.us/education/techno/glossary/

7. https://quizlet.com/131633347/project-based-learning-terms-flash-cards/