Is Project Based Learning Here to Stay?

In 2017, edCircuit writer Jim Reams reported on an early study that found project based learning promising but not proven. The section below the original adds the research that has appeared since 2021, a plain definition, and project based learning examples for each grade band.

New study finds PBL promising

edCircuit Breakdown:

• Project based learning, where students tackle real world problems instead of relying on rote memorization of facts, is taking off across the U.S. One recent study found the resulting outcomes from the PBL approach to be “positive but not proven.”
• Some schools are incorporating PBL in with concepts like a later start time to the school day as a way to reduce stress and improve student wellness.
• Schools and districts are also looking into incorporating PBL into graduation requirements so that students show they have a mastery of employment skills upon receipt of their diploma.

edCircuit Analysis:

The world of education is evolving, and the system invented over a century ago that involves desks in neat rows with a teacher teaching in front and pupils diligently memorizing facts and formulas is on the way out in a lot of places. One of the learning techniques that is catching on around the country is project based learning, or PBL. Many educators and experts argue that PBL prepares kids for a bright future in today’s society by teaching them real-world complex problem-solving skills.

The thinking behind the PBL movement is simple: Students of yesteryear were being groomed to perform specific tasks usually in an industrial or factory environment, and therefore needed to learn facts and how to follow directions to be ready for the workforce. Additionally, students going into what is now called STEM careers needed to know how to solve mathematical and scientific equations and problems, things that are all done quickly and electronically today.

PBL accepts these changes and prepares students for the workplace of today, preparing them to solve problems they will face in the workforce using critical thinking and a systematic approach to breaking the project down into small tasks, which, when completed, will combine to complete the project as a whole. It is a trend in education that doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon.

2016 interview: John Larmer of the Buck Institute for Education

In May 2016, edCircuit published a six-minute video interview about project based learning recorded at the annual ASCD conference in Atlanta. John Larmer, Editor in Chief at the Buck Institute for Education (BIE), spoke with Dr. Berger about the place project based learning has in 21st century learning and how districts approach teaching and learning from a project based perspective. John Larmer also shared advice for young people considering a career in education. The interview is available on edCircuit’s Vimeo channel (Play video).

As of 2016, John Larmer had been with BIE since 2001. John Larmer wrote and edited BIE’s PBL Toolkit Series, wrote Setting the Standard for Project Based Learning, published by ASCD in 2015, and co-authored the Project Based Learning Handbook. Before BIE, John Larmer taught high school social studies and English for ten years and worked at WestEd as a consultant to middle schools and high schools on standards and assessments.

Further Reading

1. eSchool News – Future-forward: How to incorporate the 5th ‘C’ of 21st Century learning
2. ADDitude – How Project-Based Instruction Can Ignite Your Child’s Love for Learning
3. The Sentinel – Adapting to AI: Future brings focus on project-based learning

Project based learning examples and what the research says in 2026

When Jim Reams asked in 2017 whether project based learning would last, the evidence available to Reams was described as positive but not proven. Project based learning examples are now easy to find, and the research has grown, so this section answers the question again for school leaders and teachers deciding what to do with the approach.

What project based learning is

Project based learning means students learn content and skills by working for an extended period on a real problem or a question without a single answer, and then presenting what they made or found. The Buck Institute for Education, which runs PBLWorks, describes a design it calls Gold Standard PBL with seven elements: a challenging problem or question, sustained inquiry, authenticity, student voice and choice, reflection, critique and revision, and a public product. A worksheet-style task with a poster at the end does not meet that description, and the difference matters when results are compared across studies.

What the research found after 2017

The strongest evidence so far came from two studies reported in 2021 and funded by Lucas Education Research. One, run by researchers at the University of Southern California, compared more than 3,600 students in AP Environmental Science and AP U.S. Government and Politics classes across five districts. According to Edutopia’s report on the studies, students taught with a project based course passed their AP exams at a rate 8 percentage points higher than students in traditional classes in the first year and 10 points higher in the second year, and low-income students showed similar gains. The second study, led by Michigan State University and the University of Michigan, randomly assigned 2,371 third graders in 46 schools to a project based science curriculum or to their usual instruction, and the project based group scored about 8 percentage points higher on a science test.

Several limits are worth stating. The studies tested specific, carefully built curricula with teacher training, so they do not show what happens when a school adopts the label without that support. Edutopia notes that Lucas Education Research is a sister division of the outlet, so readers who want to rely on the findings should look at the underlying papers. The same report records the criticism that project based learning can ask too much of novice learners and weaken content knowledge, and it adds that project based learning and direct instruction are not opposites, since many strong classrooms use both. A fair reading is that well supported project based learning has moved from promising toward demonstrated for the subjects and grades studied, and that evidence for other settings is still thinner.

Project based learning examples by grade

Edutopia writer Suzie Boss collected ten projects teachers can borrow, each built around a driving question. Three show the range:

• Early elementary: “What’s your story?” Students interview professional photographers, photograph special places in the community, write informational text, and publish a kid-friendly travel brochure or online story map.
• Middle school: “How can we help first responders help hypothermia victims?” Students design a portable device that emergency responders could use to warm a patient.
• High school: “How can we, as ecologists, solve the wild horse problem?” Students research the effects of wild horses on desert ecosystems, propose solutions, and defend them to an expert panel using data and ethical reasoning.

Other projects in the collection cover redesigning a school space, planning uses for empty lots, and applying slope in algebra to build stairs for a community member. In each one the product serves a real audience, which is what separates a project from a long assignment.

What leaders and teachers can decide

Reams noted that some schools and districts were considering project based learning as part of graduation requirements. The research suggests that a district doing so should first decide what a quality project looks like and write it down, using a framework such as the seven elements above, because the results reported so far depend on quality. Teachers new to the approach can start with one unit, choose a driving question that connects to standards already being taught, and plan how students will present their work to people outside the class. Schools that want technology to support projects will find practical ideas in edCircuit’s collection of educators’ strategies in Using Tech in Project-Based Learning.

On the question Reams asked, the better studies now give schools a reason to keep the approach. The remaining work is in the details of teacher training, time in the schedule and assessment, which is where most schools will succeed or struggle.

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