In this article, Lina K. Rahme and Sanaa Altamimi, MEPLI 2022 Fellows, outline the concept of project-based learning as well as successful models for implementation in classrooms in the Middle East.
By Lina K. Rahme & Sanaa Altamimi
April 22, 2022
PBL is defined as “a comprehensive, deep learning approach to classroom teaching and learning that engages students in the investigation of authentic problems” (Blumenfeld et al. 1991, p. 369).
.PBL is a dynamic approach in which students gain knowledge and skills by investigating about and responding to an authentic, engaging and complex real life problem or challenge. PBL is an effective approach since it caters to the needs of students and teachers and enhances 21 st century skills such as critical thinking, communication, collaboration, leadership, problem solving and initiative, among others. It motivates students and teachers and enhances their engagement in the learning and teaching process because it makes learning student-centered and self-directed. It also transforms the learning experience and shifts the role of students to active workers and teachers to coaches.
Fester and Starkey (2022) outline many reasons why it is very important to use the PBL approach in the classroom:
- PBL motivates teachers to invest their time and collaborate with colleagues to
create interdisciplinary projects. - PBL provides high quality, authentic and long-lasting education which enhances
students’ understanding of the content. - PBL can be based on an authentic problem or challenge which can strengthen
students’ and teachers’ community engagement and provide the community with
innovative solutions for the problems they are facing. - PBL empowers students’ agency and can give them a voice to express and pursue
their interests. In fact, PBL makes learning more comprehensible and engaging for
students than many other learning approaches since it involves students in decision
making and sustainable inquiry. - PBL improves classroom structure and practice because it shifts the center of the
classroom to the students and fosters the interactions between student- student,
teacher-student and student-content.
Krajcik & Blumenfeld’s (2006) offer five steps as a starting point to approach PBL in a constructivist way:
- Identify a unique challenge or problem (often related to the community).
- Investigate the challenge using the inquiry process and design a plan for the
project (apply these ideas in the same discipline). - Assign tasks and create a schedule. Explore the ideas and challenge them through
students’ collaboration. - Refine students’ products using the inquiry process (through peer feedback,
experts’ feedback and teacher’s coaching). - Develop the summative refined product and share it publicly.
Although PBL has been implemented worldwide, it is still novel and limited in the Middle East (Nasr & Wilby, 2017). There are many challenges to implementing PBL in the Middle Eastern classrooms. According to Romanowski and Karkouti (2021), PBL is a borrowed educational practice from the Western educational systems. This causes feelings of skepticism and uncomfortableness among Middle Eastern educators and students. Moreover, the curriculum in Middle Eastern contexts heavily relies on traditional approaches and is content-oriented, relying on a strict assessment plan that demands the coverage of content in order to prepare for national tests. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the PBL implementation in Middle Eastern classrooms mostly depends on the efforts of teachers in coaching students throughout the process by bridging the gaps and developing students’ required skills. This hinders the use of PBL in ME classrooms and creates many challenges for teachers and students (Romanowski & Karkouti , 2021).
On the other hand, there are teachers in the Middle Eastern contexts who like to adopt the PBL approach in their classes because of the benefits it has on developing students’ and teachers’skills as well. For Sarah Hassoun, a science coordinator and an educational consultant in Lebanon, PBL is “a successful experience since it has boosted student engagement. It has also provided them with an opportunity to explore in teams, thus enhancing their collaboration and communication skills”. The best practices using PBL are “group work and inquiry-based approach which students really like.” Similarly, for Fatima Mohammad, a teacher with the UNRWA in Jerusalem, applying PBL in her classrooms “gave students a greater sense of engagement, and everyone knows they are vital components of their peers’ learning experiences. This boosted the confidence of so many students, and gave them a variety of ways to practice their skills, experience, and knowledge”.
However, many challenges might surface when applying PBL in Middle Eastern classrooms. For Hassoun, challenges included getting students to work together in a group, managing their noise level, and taking on the role of the facilitator. She managed these challenges by being consistent, repeating instructions as needed, and guiding and encouraging students along the way. “Unfortunately,” states Hassoun, “PBL was not widely adopted in my school because of the mindset of some teachers and the constraints imposed by the curriculum and Covid-19 pandemic.” According to Mohammed, one of the challenges when applying PBL is its tendency to be time consuming. She stated that “the time of regular lessons is relatively short. We, as teachers, need to dedicate separate classes to finish the project. This loss of continuity can be distracting for students since we need to re-engage them in the mission of the projects. We would spend a lot of time getting back to where we had been before. This makes students lose motivation and connection to real life problems. As well, the uneven amount of effort that members of the group dedicate to the project presented another challenge. I addressed the first issue by creating a strict structure, while I addressed the second issue by dividing the roles according to each student’s skills at each stage”.
According to Dr. Alaa Makhzoumi, assistant professor at Yarmouk University in Jordan, PBL does not necessarily need a higher level of thinking to happen. It can happen anywhere, anytime or at any grade level as long as it is an opportunity for students to inquire and explore. However, it needs to be structured following specific checklists and rubrics for assessing the process and the students’ performance. Therefore, the learning experience using PBL should be designed based on the students’ level. It can happen during schooltime or can be carried out even after school.
Hassoun provides teachers with several tips to start implementing PBL in Middle Eastern classrooms
Start small. Choose one idea and prepare all the resources that are needed.
- Connect the idea to a problem in your community or your context. Try to make the
idea as practical as possible. - Focus on problems in your community and try to find ideas to deal with this
problem. - Try to make this project interdisciplinary so that teachers of the same grade level
would collaborate to help students plan, design and implement the project. - If you have no background in PBL, try to attend workshops or webinars and read
about this model since it has many steps; and it is important to know them before
implementing it in your classroom. You can also rehearse with a colleague or with
the coordinator before implementing this model in your classroom.
To conclude, PBL is a student-centered learning method that can be facilitated by teachers. It can be used in building conceptual understanding and motivating students to search for meaning in the world they live in. Although it can be time consuming, PBL is a great approach to engage students and teachers in exploring learning concepts in an interactive and constructive way.
References
Blumenfeld, P.C., Soloway, E., Marx, R.W., Krajcik, J.S., Guzdial, M. & Palincsar, A.
(1991). Motivating project-based learning: Sustaining the doing, supporting the learning.
Educational Psychologist, 26(3 & 4), 369-398.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00461520.1991.9653139
Fester J., Starkey E. (2022, March 11). 3 Reasons Why PBL is an Effective Option For
Teachers. Edutopia.
https://www.edutopia.org/article/3-reasons-why-pbl-effective-option-teachers
Krajcik, J.S. & Blumenfeld, P.C. (2006). Project-based learning. In R.K. Sawyer (Ed.) The
Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences. New York, NY: Cambridge University
Press.
Nasr, Z. G., & Wilby, K. J. (2017). Introducing problem based learning into a
Canadian-accredited Middle Eastern educational setting. Currents in Pharmacy Teaching
and Learning, 9(4), 719–722.
Romanowski, Michael H., & Ibrahim M. Karkouti. (2021). Transporting problem based
learning to the gulf cooperation council countries (GCC): Using cultural scripts to
analyze cultural complexities. Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning.
15(1). https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1322675.pdf
Additional Recommended Resources
Ackers-Clayton, J., & Laur, D. (2020). Authentic Project-Based Learning with Digital
Portfolios.
https://freshgrade.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/FG-Authentic-Project-Based-Learnin
g.pdf
Sniegowski, S. (2022, February 25). 3 Steps to getting started with PBL. Edutopia.
https://www.edutopia.org/article/3-steps-getting-started-pbl
TeachThought’s Most Popular Articles About Project-Based Learning (n.d.).
https://www.teachthought.com/education/most-popular-pbl/