In recent years, project based learning has become an important instructional approach because it includes many components that are believed to promote learning. These include:
Interdisciplinary: Interdisciplinary studies combine two or more academic subject areas. Projects are interdisciplinary because they combine knowledge and skills from multiple subject areas such as language arts, mathematics, science, geography, history, visual arts, and social studies. This is also called a cross-curricular approach.
Collaboration: Collaboration is a process where two or more people work together to reach a common goal. Projects often require collaboration between the student and teacher or the student and their peers. Students work with others to generate an idea, plan the process, manage the timeline, organize ideas, create the original work, and share the results. Cooperative learning emphasizes team building and communication skills. Collaborative group work is often used in project based learning.
Inquiry: Inquiry is the search for knowledge or truth by asking questions, examining facts, and synthesizing the information. Projects often include an investigation into a problem to discover viable solutions with the search guided by a series of questions.
Motivational: Motivation is the incentive to act. Projects are often motivational to students because they are personally meaningful. During a project, students are actively engaged in the learning process, by selecting a topic of personal interest, picking the type of finished product, or contributing to the assessment of completed work. This encourages them to become involved in learning.
Self Directed Learning: Self directed learning occurs when the student is able to independently undertake a task and make judgments without the direction of a teacher. During a project, the teacher often assumes the role of a facilitator. The teacher will help students gain an understanding of the assignment including the learning objectives, timeline, and criteria. Afterwards the students, within the given framework, will select a topic of interest, plan and organize their ideas, and carry out the assignment with the teacher guiding the process.
Learning Style: A learning style is how a person comprehends, expresses, and remembers information to gain knowledge or develop skills. A learning style may be auditory, meaning learning occurs by hearing; visual, meaning learning occurs by seeing; or kinesthetic, meaning learning occurs by doing. Projects allow students to choose learning styles that are the most effective.
Critical Thinking: Critical thinking is the purposeful interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and synthesis of information used to make rational judgments or decisions. Projects often require students to engage in higher-order thinking skills.
Creative Thinking: Creative thinking is the deliberate stimulation of the imagination to generate the creation of original or innovative ideas, insights, processes, solutions, concepts, experiences, or objects. Projects often require students to engage in creative thinking.
Technology Integration:Technology integration is the blending of computer-related learning activities into curriculum to have students acquire, organize, demonstrate, and communicate information. Projects offer an opportunity to integrate the use of technology.