Project Based Learning and Wicked Questions

At the end of my last posting I briefly described a grade twelve sports leadership class that I thoroughly enjoyed due to the nature and application of the assessment tasks. During the last blog I focused on the elements of rich performance assessment tasks and the notion of including the students opinions and real life applications to the assessments. In saying this, the notion of rich performance tasks can be further explained through the theory of project-based learning. During this sports leadership class our main goal was to design a series of field trips that focused on making grade eight students feel more comfortable on their first day of grade nine.

       In saying this, the class was built upon the theories of project-based learning. Project based learning can bring real life problems into the classroom. It encourages students to be engaged in their learning and allows them to understand the subject matter, by understanding each of its individual parts (Tascı, 2015). It has been proven that project based learning can improve the learning of students since it focuses on the real world settings and ensures that each students is focused on their task at hand. It also allows them to work at their own comfort level and individualizes educational experiences (Galvan, & Coronado, 2014). In saying this, as students we were encouraged to focus our event on an aspect of the school that we felt comfortable working within. For example, my small peer group focused mostly on athletics so we decided to focus our portion of the final trip on the physical education resources available at our high school. Our project was based upon allowing the students to find and utilize each of the facilities. This project based learning style was beneficial since it did not have one correct answer in mind, encouraged us to gain knowledge while participating and ensured we were focused on the real world problem at hand.

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         Encompassed within this project based learning style is the concept of wicked problems. A wicked problem is a complex, and interconnected problem that does not have a simple solution. These problems often include a variety of factors, settings, and characters and can be the result of a variety of reoccurring events.

     This notion of an unsolvable problem can be related to the grade twelve class since our final goal was to make the grade eight students feel comfortable during their first day of grade nine. The Globe and Mail suggests that 1 in 4 grade nine students becomes very stressed about finding their new classrooms, making new friends, and finding their lockers. In saying this, our wicked problem was the concept of why grade nine students feel uncomfortable during their first days and how it can be solved.

     In my future as an educator, I believe it will be beneficial to begin each unit with a wicked problem. This problem will then lead into a series of project based learning lessons in which students will solve a less complex problem. These solutions will then be combined to meet the learning objectives of the entire unit in the classroom.

Galvan, M. E., & Coronado, J. M. (2014). Problem-Based and Project-Based Learning: Promoting Differentiated Instruction. National Teacher Education Journal, 7(4), 39-42.

  

Tascı, B. G. (2015). Project Based Learning from Elementary School to College, Tool: Architecture. Procedia - Social And Behavioral Sciences, 186(The Proceedings of 5th World Conference on Learning, Teaching and Educational Leadership), 770-775. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.04.130