Is it PBL?

http://www.newtechnetwork.org/sites/default/files/resources/01projectvpblgrey_0.pdf 

I think I have an edu-crush on @paulscurtis for creating this amazing visual.  And this is the "newly" revised version!  I love it!   I love visual graphics!  Love them --- and this one so clearly shows the difference between "a project" and "project based learning".   

The part that appeals to me most about this graphic is the on-going reflection that happens multiple times and throughout the project.  I think that helps students synthesize what they are learning and how they are doing.  Without that pause ... I have found that students often finish the project and don't really care what they learned or how they did it.  If the only time I ask students to reflect on their work is at the end, I often get responses like "I liked this project" "Working with my partner was challenging" etc.   I get really shallow reflections, and rarely focused on learning.

Taking the time to pause during a project allows a student to finish the project with at least an idea of how they accomplished it, and they can embed those benchmarks into the their final reflection.

This is such a good visual to share with educators who perhaps *think* they are doing PBL simply because they do a project at the end of the unit. The visual is not meant to discredit that type of traditional unit progression, but does such a great job of just showing how that progression is so very different from Project Based Learning.

Share the genius of Paul Curtis HERE.