PBL Article Blog #9

A benefit of project based learning is that it demands the sharing of knowledge and ideas. When students become more accustomed to talking about discoveries, this dialogue may continue away from school. When students get home after a day of passive receptivity (taking notes, listening, watching), it's little wonder that their answer to "How was school?" is a terse "Fine," or worse, "Boring." However, students engaged in PBL, or as Boss and Krauss (2007) term "passion based learning," may have more to talk about. For instance, Mark Lonergan in his article "The Case for Creativity in Math Education" reports how students stop asking how they will use math in the real world when he and his colleagues infuse their math classes with relevancy and creativity. Lonergan's math department at Boston Arts Academy infuses creativity into cohesive projects that include the four Cs: content, connection, choices, and co-authorship. Math students learn the content on a deeper level because of the connections to "real life" and because of the project based approach that promotes interest, discovery and interaction. A further example comes from Dan Flockhart's Fantasy Sports Math. Many testimonials and articles support how much more engaged both students and parents are when the math lessons and attached to statistics from fantasy sports teams. Both of these examples support how relevant, creative approaches to learning can stimulate interest and shared learning even among at-risk students.

Barr, J. (2006, December 9). Fantasy football adds up. Retrieved November 2, 2009, from ESPN: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=2680335.

Lonergan, M. (2007, Spring). The case for creativity in math education. Horace , 23 (2). Retrieved from Galileo.