
Active Learning through Project-Based Education
A poster at the end of a unit is not project-based learning. PBLWorks names seven elements a project needs before it counts — and this week you design one against all seven, then score it on the rubric they publish.
About this course
A project can look hands-on and still be missing much of what makes project-based learning work. This week you design one real project for your own class and check it, part by part, against a published standard before any pupil sees it. Monday — you name what the project must teach, then turn a curriculum…
Methodology
Every participant works on one real project for their own class, and at each stage it is measured against a named element of the model rather than against how it feels.
Critique and revision on Thursday, a public product on Friday — participants go through the last two elements themselves rather than hearing them described, which is also a fast way to notice why pupils sometimes resist both.
Digital tools appear at the points in a project where they do real work — finding and judging sources during the inquiry — rather than as a separate topic with its own day. Team collaboration and making the product are pedagogical decisions worked through directly (Wednesday, Thursday); naming a specific tool for either is optional and left to your own school's platform.
What you'll take home
Turn a curriculum topic into a driving question that meets the Gold Standard's first element, with the content standards the project must teach named before the question is written.
Design a sustained inquiry that runs over weeks, and decide what makes the project authentic — real context, real tools, real audience, or an honest substitute your school can actually reach.
Write the pupils' choice points and the reflection checkpoints into a project timetable, and set out how individual learning will be assessed inside a group product.
Score your own project with PBLWorks' Project Design Rubric, element by element, and revise the two elements that score weakest.
Other dates for this course
- 14–18 Dec 2026 Rome Planned
- 15–19 Mar 2027 Mersin Planned
- 3–7 May 2027 Rome Planned
- 20–24 Sep 2027 Budapest Planned
- 20–24 Dec 2027 Antalya Planned
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What's included
Not included
Aggregated across all EMA courses, not specific to this session.
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