PBL, and particularly PBLT (with Technology), is a frequent topic on this blog, and I appreciate the value of video. Kudos to BIE for recognizing the importance of video communications as a tool to promote the value of PBL, and engaging Commoncraft to produce this introduction.
Unfortunately, I think this intro falls too short. It might be helpful to certain population segments who really have no idea what PBL is, but it doesn’t speak to most educators, who understand as much as this shows already, nor does it to the critical parent segment: the concerned or skeptical. The weakest spot is the discussion of the flu-transmission presentation, where some students “get away” with a poster of kids sneezing into their elbows as their “product.” Sorry, but that doesn’t cut it, and for those of us who are advocates, it is almost an embarrassment to us that it can be depicted as only that. Overall, too, the video doesn’t demonstrate deep, rich, penetrating thinking and learning, leaving advocates vulnerable from those who rightfully fear PBL can lack rigor.
There is a moment earlier, when instead of memorizing the capital of Senegal (Dakar), students are asked to do a report on how Senegal can export more. Why couldn’t this have been explored instead, richly and deeply. Students could be shown researching online Senegal’s economy, its resources, and its labor force. Students could be shown analyzing and deciding which websites have valuable information and which do not.
Students could then be shown brainstorming various options for export production, and then calculating the economic outcomes for each. It would be important in this section to show students evaluating the current major exports, for considering which is most suited for expansion, and then showing students really taking time to consider options for exploration which are not already on the table, thinking creatively.
Different groups could each make presentations and debate the alternatives, with a jury of some kind judging which course, being most well articulated and most compelling logically, should be pursued for further development. A sidebar could be held around an analysis of the short and long term effects of certain export production options; students could examine what educational investments are required for each option, and also what the environmental effects would be. Students could Skype interviews with actual Senegalese economists, investors, and manufacturers.
Then students could be shown making their reports, complete with graphs, charts, and video documentaries. Finally, students could be shown posting the video of their presentation and video to youtube, creating search words for their video for better SEO, and then emailing a link to every Senegalese expert and media outlet they can identify.
Perhaps this would take an additional minute or two of animated video, but it would go so much further in articulating the value of good, quality PBL, and so much further in anticipating and responding to the PBL critics in our midst.
I think BIE does great, excellent work to advance the PBL movement; I think this video, however, is not representative of that normal level of quality.
21k12 
December 22, 2010 at 9:36 am
Have a good link to credible criticism of PBL?
January 1, 2011 at 6:51 pm
While I agree with your premise if the targeted audience is
educators trying to implement PBL, but CommonCraft Videos are never
really for practitioners, they are more for people who need an
introduction to a topic. I personally loved the BIE video. I am the
Principal of a charter school, and we are in the process of
starting a primary school which will be focused on the use PBL, and
as soon as I came across this video I linked to it on the new
school’s website as a way of introducing PBL to people who are
considering our school. For that purpose, I think it is fantastic!
It all is a matter of who the intended audience is. 🙂 Thanks for
the discussion!
January 2, 2011 at 10:41 am
Curtis, thanks for visiting and commenting: I appreciate your taking the time to comment, and I value multiple perspectives.
However, I maintain my view. If I were in your shoes, I would worry that skeptical parents or skeptical prospective parents would say about PBL: “it sounds great, I understand the concept, but I worry that the kids will just do simple, cut and paste projects, without real rigor.” This video does nothing to counter that perception, and instead perpetuates, and even reinforces it.
Grant Wiggins, for example, is a partial critic of some forms of PBL: he has a lengthy discussion of it in Understanding by Design, where he talks about kids collaboratively and actively doing projects about apples in third grade, but the projects they do are entirely unsubstantial (like the project in this video).
Students at High Tech High and New Tech Network schools don’t just make posters: they craft serious, substantial, work products. Ron Berger’s excellent Ethic of Excellence is another source for understanding how PBL projects can and must be serious and substantial.
I want to reiterate: I am a fan of PBL, and a fan of BIE. But this video is a setback for our cause, I fear.
January 2, 2011 at 5:12 pm
I agree. Oversimplified.
January 7, 2011 at 3:04 am
Jonathan, I believe your analysis and evaluation of the BIE
PBL video possess balance and thoughtfulness. Clearly, you praise
the high level of work that BIE normally produces. Clearly, you are
a strong advocate of PBL, and you articulate that you want a higher
standard for the project processes and products demostrated in the
video. To some extent, I agree, the BIE video commits a foul that
project-based learning is designed to correct. It teaches to a
seated audience (at their screens), and it teaches to an “average”
understanding. Like much “sit and get” learning, the video aims for
a fairly low common denomenator of basic knowledge, understanding,
and application. However, for those unfamiliar with PBL, I think
the video provides a safe amount of “salt in the oats” so that the
horse being drawn to the water may actually choose to drink. As the
video currently exists, it may be a “teacher magnet” for folks
trying PBL – it does not look that scary or intimidating…”I can
do that; looks fun even.” As is often the case, beginners need a
scaffolding that supports them at their current level of
understanding or just beyond. Too complicated, and the beginner may
say, “That’s too hard…I am not even going there.” On the other
hand, BIE may have created the perfect video, IF one considers the
“coffee house effect” it could have. Your post provides a more
intermediate or advanced option for the PBL. Now, we have a
differentiated classroom as we leverage the Forum of Twitter
(Martin) and blogging. Have faculty and students at St. Gregory
considered producing the “common craft” video that you advocate for
in your post? If any of us shows that level of initiative, then we
are no longer “sitting and getting.” BIE would have precipitated a
project in which the fellow coffee house participants accept the
challenge of engaging a project and working for improvement. We
would be reaching for the analysis, synthesis, evaluation stage
with a complex product of our own. I sure would love to see that
video of the students pursuing the Senegal version of the PBL.
While I understand your criticism of the video, BIE’s short movie
has succeeded in getting at least several of us to think
critically, collaborate, and communicate. Perhaps BIE should
consider issuing a challenge for the production of several videos –
levels of PBL examples that aim for the beginner, intermediate, and
advanced users. Thanks, once again, for encouraging the coffee
house and prodding for improved thinking and practice.
January 7, 2011 at 3:28 am
[…] piece about the Buck Institute’s Common
Craft video of PBL (project-based learning): Project Based Learning
for the 21st century: A Disappointing Video. Only a few
readers have commented publicly on the post, and I am hoping more
people get inspired […]
January 9, 2011 at 12:50 pm
Thanks Bo:
What a thoughtful and thorough response. I appreciate your subtle differentiation: surely there should be differentiated PBL videos aimed at a wide variety of audiences and their diverse levels of sophistication, and this might be a valuable, introductory version.
I also love the friendly way you “challenged” me to make that more sophisticated video myself– or not myself, but with my fabulous colleagues here at St. Greg’s. That is a challenge I want to be able to accept, and I want to work on my own growth in the skills of video production and collaboration to be able to accept it.
I will not let go though of my continuing anxiety: that this very video will be used to introduce PBL to audiences skeptical of PBL’s intellectual rigor, and rather than confront and correct that skeptical misunderstanding, will only reinforce it.
Oh, and thanks for your fine post responding to the video (above)! Great stuff.
Thanks Bo!
January 10, 2011 at 3:20 pm
I think that you might be surprised about the number of educators who don’t understand even this much. Thank you for your thoughts on the PBL video from BIE. It is an introduction to PBL after all. If I know this much about PBL and want to know more, I will search. Your post PBL at St. Gregory: An interdisciplinary English-Science PBL unit for 9th graders http://bit.ly/fd8D6h would be a great next step.
I am so intrigued by High Tech High and the work done, but quite frankly, HTH is one of a very few examples shown to me as a classroom teacher…over and over and over again. My colleagues’ reaction: “If it is so easy, why aren’t there more examples? How many times are we going to watch that video of the Blood Project?”
Your reaction is on point. “..the [BIE] video doesn’t demonstrate deep, rich, penetrating thinking and learning…” I don’t, however, think that it is “an embarrassment.”
Aren’t you seeking PBL 2.0 when this video is PBL 1.0, for newbies? My fear is that when an expert like you is critical of an idea that someone might try, that newbies will retreat. They react “Well, I don’t have time to do more than this. Since it is not good enough, I’ll just teach the way I have always taught.”
What if you created a supplementary video as step 2 of this very PBL? You wouldn’t have to do the PBL, just spread your good ideas on how to extend and enrich this one. In a supplementary video, you could ask questions. You could be the teacher next door that picks up the project and takes it further. (Read in the tone of the original BIE video…)
• Could one of our teams research Senegal’s economy, resources, and labor force?
• Could our team of website evaluators help your team decide which websites are reliable?
• Could our econ students help with the analysis of expansion of exports?
• Where could we send our findings? Does anyone know how to contact their embassy?
You get the idea. Your suggestions for improvement are great. I agree with Bo’s comment above. I’d love to see that video. Better yet, I’d love to see the video and other outcomes from Kate Oubre and Kevin Rolle’s PBL. Will the lessons actually be selected for publication in larger state curriculum?
Can we help others by supporting any step toward PBL and then helping guide to a next step and a next step? Oh look, here is an introductory activity to get my toes wet; I can do this much. If it goes well, there is already a next level. Where do I look if I’m ready to take the next step, but can’t leap to a “Blood Project?”
Some are willing to take a flying leap while others need a supportive nudge. We should celebrate both.
The ultimate goal it “I can do it myself.” Oubre and Rolle are great models for this.
January 10, 2011 at 8:36 pm
Hi Jill:
Thank you very much for visiting the blog and posting this comment. Of course you, like Bo and others, make a great point that there is value in introductory PBL videos in order to inform people who are entirely unfamiliar with the practice. But I will say once again: if some of those uninformed viewers see this and only this video, they may take away the belief that PBL does not support high quality student work product.
I do take seriously your concern that we lack quality PBL videos; to try to address that concern, I just posted 8 such videos on my blog here: https://21k12blog.net/2011/01/10/8-high-quality-project-based-learning-pbl-videos/
Hope they help!
Onwards with Quality PBL!
January 12, 2011 at 6:57 am
[…] Martin’s post “Project Based Learning for the 21st Century: A Disappointing Video” has been “haunting” me a bit – in a positively good way. I responded with […]
June 13, 2011 at 3:34 pm
I stumbled across this post while lurking around Bo and Jill’s BPL seminar page in Schoology. My gut reaction to the Commoncraft video, Jonathan, is right along the same lines as yours, for many of the reasons you articulate. Moreover, I’m also going to tentatively disagree with Bo and Jill in that I don’t think it’s a particularly effective entry-level vision, either. To get me on board with a new idea, I need to be inspired, see value. I don’t want to go somewhere just because it’s easy.
The excellent production values and clear writing in this video are up to typical Commoncraft standards (and far better than the typical educational YouTube fare), but the gulf between the “master-of-the-obvious” student work in this hypothetical example and real student engagement and critical thinking is so great that it would be intimidating to someone with limited PBL understanding. All this shows is a road map to mediocrity. I don’t need to know how to get there. Give me a road map to something exciting and I’m thinking “Wow, that looks cool, and look . . . I know how to get there! That’s easy!”
And here’s the thing . . . I don’t know that giving a better PBL example would have made this video ANY harder to follow for newbies. It wouldn’t have to be any longer or go into more detail or involve more steps. Just start with a real-world situation that is more compelling or controversial and less prosaic.