The main commitment of an educational institution is to promote the social and intellectual development of its students and, to achieve this objective, new methods are constantly studied. Project Based Learning is one of them, but how does it work in practice?
Understanding the teaching methodology that your children's school uses makes all the difference when it comes to understanding whether it is qualified to form increasingly active citizens in society.
To help with that, we've prepared amazing content for you. Keep reading and learn more about its application in the lesson plan since Kindergarten!
Check it out in this content:
What is Project Based Learning and how did it come about?
How does Project Based Learning work?
Benefits of Project Based Learning
Attention capture
Study topics in greater depth
Creation of active agents
Choose PBL for your children
roject Based Learning (ABP or Project Based Learning - PBL) is an example of what we know as active teaching methodologies. It is used to attract the attention of students and bring them closer to the issues according to the context in which they are inserted.
Proposed by scholar John Dewey, the Project-Based Learning methodology arrived in Brazil through Anísio Teixeira in the 1930s.
In practice, a class based on Project-Based Learning is structured around case studies that take into account student interests as well as current and relevant topics.
Classes where the teacher has all the knowledge are replaced by classes where the educator presents a problem and it is up to the students to identify the contents they need to learn to solve it.
In this context, the teacher's role is to facilitate discussions and offer support for students to find their way with autonomy. The educator is present throughout the process with the class, answering questions and coordinating discussions.
What we see today in the best educational institutions is the practice of this theory being applied to the most different audiences, from children in kindergarten to master's and doctoral degrees.
According to psychiatrist William Glasser, learning sensory awakens different areas of the brain and the deeper the interaction, the easier it will be to understand and assimilate the subjects.
To illustrate this process, he created what we know today as the Glasser learning pyramid, which has the following structure:
Content Absorption in Passive Learning:
Content absorption in Active Learning:
Based on this, we can see that active learning, as in Project-Based Learning, proves to be much more effective for the process of intellectual and, consequently, social development.
To get the most out of learning, the strategies used must be varied. Let’s imagine the following school project scenario:
To teach children about basic math, a teacher can adopt a more automatic and less intuitive way, explaining how numbers work and teaching the multiplication tables to the little ones.
But another teacher decides to energize his class and bring oranges to the room, encouraging the children to solve math problems based on the chosen object to attract everyone's attention.
Naturally, the little ones are much more willing to talk, discuss and solve the problem in a sensorial way, talking about it with their peer group.
This is how the PBL methodology works. Its use can be extended to classroom discussions and much more!
You may ask yourself: what are the benefits of PBL? Well, we're going to give you 3 excellent answers right now, check it out!
As we saw in the example cited above, it is more interesting to work with something tangible and capable of attracting students' attention than simply explaining the theory. Thus, assimilation becomes more interesting and effective.
We live in an era where everything competes for our attention, be it a video, a bright image, a sound, etc. Therefore, the classroom challenge is to gain the attention of students and bring them closer, challenging them and working in a more playful way.
Project Based Learning puts students' interests at the center of the proposal, encouraging autonomy and making them take a leading role in their own learning.
The second benefit is enabling students to understand content at a faster pace and in depth.
Critical thinking is a fundamental skill for children's individual development.
With constant questions to solve, they are increasingly likely to seek references and reliable information and learn to research to find answers and alternatives to the problems received.
What is noticed in schools where the traditional model is less used is the transformation of students from passive and little interactive agents into active and questioning students, increasingly willing to decipher the problems presented in the classroom.
The consistency of the methodology can make these young people more independent, autonomous and questioning, qualities that are indispensable for the development of individuals confident in their ability to solve problems and fearless in the face of challenges.
Based on what we have seen throughout this post, it is clear how PBL is beneficial for the intellectual and social development of children and young people.
So, when looking for the perfect school, it's always important to understand how the education offered can help your children stand out and create essential skills and competences for today's world.
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