Project-based learning resources

The trifold exhibit rebuilt around a driving question, eight more project structures with steps and the fix each needs, the Gold Standard and the research, and a free planning checklist to run it, K to 8.

  • By Skyler Carr, co-founder and CEO, Mission.io
  • Last updated

Who we are. Mission.io makes Missions: teacher-led, whole-class simulations where students use what they’re learning to work through a real scenario together.

Everything on this page works without us. The place a whole-class Mission fits is near the end. (On the Move’s construction site keeps getting trampled by mass migrations, and the crew’s plan has to account for both species, the whales and the crabs.)

On this page

What project-based learning is

Project-based learning is a teaching method in which students learn by working over an extended period, from a week up to a semester, to answer a complex question or solve a real problem, and then show what they learned in a public product for a real audience. The definition, and the model most schools mean when they say the words, come from PBLWorks (the Buck Institute for Education), whose Gold Standard lists seven design elements (below).

On the first day of a project, the driving question goes up on the wall, and under it the class’s list of everything it needs to know to answer it. For the weeks that follow, that list is the lesson plan, until the class can defend its answer to a guest from outside the room. PBLWorks calls the other kind, the project served after the unit was taught the usual way, a dessert project. This page is the structures that make a project the main course, with steps and the fix each needs. As usually run, they leave two things to chance: a part each student owns, and a way to see who did what.

Project-based, problem-based, or challenge-based?

Project-based learning makes the project the unit: in PBLWorks’s words, the project “contains and frames curriculum and instruction.” It runs on a driving question, takes a week up to a semester, and ends in a public product.

Problem-based learning began at McMaster University’s medical school in 1969, with students exploring an open-ended problem in small groups, guided by a tutor, where the aim was less to solve the problem than to find out what they needed to learn (McMaster University). The problem is the point, and there may be no product at all.

Challenge-based learning began at Apple in 2008. It starts from a big idea, works down to a call to action, and ends with a solution carried out with a real audience. Its authors say teacher and students pick the problem as partners, and that “With the new Gold Standard PBL, this gap has narrowed” (Nichols, Cator, and Torres, 2016). It has its own guide: challenge-based learning. The skill under all three has its own guide by grade: problem solving activities for students.

The three, side by side

Project-based learning, problem-based learning, and challenge-based learning compared.
MethodWhat it isWhere it startsHow it endsThe teacher's roleWhere it comes from
Project-based learningA unit taught through a projectA challenging problem or questionA public productDesigns and plans the project, then coachesPBLWorks’s Gold Standard
Problem-based learningSmall groups working an open-ended problemThe problemWhat the group found it needed to learnA tutor who guidesMcMaster University’s medical school, 1969
Challenge-based learningA framework in three phases: engage, investigate, actA big ideaA solution carried out and evaluatedA partner with the studentsApple, 2008, and Digital Promise’s 2016 guide

The Gold Standard, and the six things to check

PBLWorks’s seven elements come first, then what the research says, then the six checks this guide runs on every structure.

What are the seven elements of Gold Standard PBL?

PBLWorks’s list, centered on the learning goals (key knowledge, understanding, and success skills), which every structure below is judged against:

  1. A challenging problem or question. A meaningful problem to solve or question to answer, at the right level of challenge.
  2. Sustained inquiry. A rigorous, extended process of posing questions, finding resources, and applying information.
  3. Authenticity. Real-world context, tasks and tools, quality standards, or impact, or a project that speaks to students’ own concerns.
  4. Student voice and choice. Students make some decisions about the project, including how they work and what they create.
  5. Reflection. Students and teachers reflect on the learning, the inquiry, the quality of the work, and the obstacles.
  6. Critique and revision. Students give, receive, and apply feedback to improve their process and products.
  7. Public product. Students share their work with people beyond the classroom, and explain or present it.

What the research says

Does it work in elementary school? Two randomized trials say yes, with conditions. In 46 Michigan schools, 2,371 third graders in a project-based science curriculum outscored their peers on science achievement (effect size 0.28), with gains in collaboration too; the What Works Clearinghouse rates the study as meeting its standards without reservations (Krajcik and colleagues, 2023). In high-poverty districts, second graders in Project PLACE gained 63% more in social studies (effect size 0.482) and 23% more in informational reading (0.181) than controls, with no difference in informational writing (Duke and colleagues, 2021). A 2019 meta-analysis found a medium-to-large average effect, d = 0.71 (Chen and Yang, 2019).

MDRC supplies the caveat. Its review calls the evidence “promising but not proven”: positive impacts in science and social studies, more limited evidence in math, and no K-12 English language arts studies at all (Condliffe and colleagues, 2017, summarized by MDRC). It adds that professional development “is likely to be essential,” and Project PLACE’s units came with coaching for teachers, which is the case for the structures below.

Six things that separate a project from dessert

The seven elements are PBLWorks’s list. The six below are six checks you can run on any structure in its first minute, and they’re the lens this guide uses on every one. Two of them (a named part for every student, and a way to see who did what) are ours, not the Gold Standard’s; the other four fold its seven elements into four checks.

  1. 1. A real problem with stakes the class can feel.

    “Make a poster about an ecosystem” is an assignment. “Which plan should our town choose to protect the creek behind school?” is a driving question someone outside the room will answer back to.

  2. 2. Apply, don't recall.

    If the trifold could be built from the first website without the unit, the project is dessert. PBLWorks’s test fits: it cannot simply be Googled.

  3. 3. Group goals with individual accountability.

    One public product the team signs, and one part each student can be asked about alone, at every checkpoint. A team grade alone hides who did it.

  4. 4. The teacher leads the thinking.

    PBLWorks calls it Engage and Coach: you decide when the class needs a skill, a redirect, or a push. The three questions on the checklist, asked while you walk, keep weeks of work on the standard.

  5. 5. A debrief where the class argues it out.

    Reflection is one of the seven elements, and it slides when the exhibit date gets close. Five minutes at each checkpoint on “which need-to-know did we answer, and how do we know” is where the project becomes a habit.

  6. 6. A way to see who did what.

    Across three weeks, if you can’t tell which student answered which question and which one held the glue stick, you can’t teach the skill. You can only hope for it.

The team signs the product, and every student answers for a part.

The trifold exhibit below is the one to run first, and the checklist has everything students touch in it, ready to copy. Get the checklist →

1. The trifold exhibit, rebuilt as a main course

It’s on PBLWorks’s own list of classic first ideas for a project (Larmer, 2018). As PBLWorks describes it:

  1. Research. Students research a topic.
  2. Build. They create a trifold display, or a digital exhibit.
  3. Present. Students act as docents and present it, sometimes with an interactive part.

PBLWorks says it “pretty much meets the criteria for a good project,” as long as it includes sustained inquiry and is the main course of a unit, and names two fixes: a driving question with a critical thinking component, and a public audience beyond the school and parents. Run as dessert, it’s a research report on cardboard, for an audience that will clap either way. The version here hits all six. It takes about ten class periods, and the example is 5th grade science (5-ESS3-1).

Time
Eight to ten class periods, no more than three weeks, PBLWorks’s advice for a first project.
Groups
Teams of four.
Grades
3 to 8 as written. The K to 2 version is in the driving question step.
Needs
The planning checklist, the need-to-know cards, and the panel card, from the printable, plus one outside guest.

  1. The driving question, day 1Stakes

    Make it local and open: Which plan should our town choose to protect the creek behind school? Invite the audience on the first day (a parks department staffer, a council member, the PTA), and tell the class the guest will read the plans and ask questions. In K to 2, write the question with the class, the way PBLWorks teacher Sara Lev did with four- and five-year-olds: walk the yard, list what they wonder, and find the big question underneath.

  2. Need-to-know questions, day 1, alone firstAccountability

    Each student writes three questions the team would need answered, one per card, with a name on each. The class sorts them on the project wall into product, process, and content, PBLWorks’s three piles, and each student owns two.

  3. The team contract, day 2Accountability

    Each team picks three collaboration words, writes what it will do to live up to each, and lists who owns which panel of the exhibit. Everyone signs. One panel per student, named, is the individual accountability. (Who holds the glue stick? Whoever owns the panel.)

  4. Investigate, days 2 to 6Apply

    Mini-lessons answer the questions the whole class shares. Owned questions get answered from sources and logged with a name and the source. Each panel answers the owner’s questions with evidence from the unit.

  5. You lead the thinkingTeacher leads

    Three questions at every table, every day: Which need-to-know did you answer, and from where? What will the guest ask about your plan? What’s still open on the wall? Ask, then wait: the answer has to come from the table.

  6. Critique, day 7Debrief

    A silent gallery walk of drafts, with one focus (does the plan answer the driving question?), “I like...” and “I wonder...” notes, and a name on every note. Each student answers one note in writing on their own panel.

  7. The exhibit, days 9 and 10Apply

    Each student presents their own panel to the guest and takes one question alone. The team’s recommendation goes to the guest in writing, one page, signed.

  8. The debrief, 10 minutesDebrief

    Which need-to-know changed our plan? Which note made a draft better? Which plan would you pick if you were the guest, and why?

  9. See who did whatSee who did what

    Four behaviors on the tally: wrote three questions alone, answered an owned question from a source, left a named note a team used, answered the guest’s question alone. The cards, the log, and the panels carry names, so you see everyone with nothing extra to grade.

The creek exhibit planning checklist, free

Emailed now, ready to copy: the teacher page, the ten-day checklist, a note for your guest, the need-to-know cards, the team contract, the question log, the panel card, the gallery walk notes, the team’s recommendation, and the four-behavior tally.

It’s on its way.

Check your inbox for the creek exhibit planning checklist.

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Eight more structures, with steps and a fix for each

Which structures make a project? The eight below are the canon, in the order a project runs them: the steps as their writers published them (PBLWorks for seven, the Right Question Institute for the QFT), where each falls short as written, and the changes it needs. Numbered 2 to 9.

The canon

2. Entry event

Needs Whole class · Any grade · One class period · A problem, a guest, a video, fieldwork, or a simulation

You open the project with an event that captures heads and hearts, an interesting problem for the head and a situation students can feel for, and connect it to the community and to the final product. Set the stage first by telling the class a big project is starting, and if one event won’t carry it, build several activities that lead to a call to action; PBLWorks’s list includes simulations, fieldwork, guest speakers, and a puzzling problem (Kaechele, 2020). That gives the project its stakes on day one. As written, though, an event can thrill a room without asking anything of anyone.

The fix

  1. Before anyone leaves, every student writes one need-to-know question.
  2. Each card carries the student’s name, and you collect them at the door.

The checklist has the need-to-know cards.

3. The driving question

Needs You, then the class · Any grade · An hour, then 10 minutes · A draft

You draft the question and check it against three criteria: engaging; open-ended, so it can’t simply be Googled; and aligned with the learning goals. Then you revise the usual first-draft problems (textbook language, one right answer, a slant), choose the type, either a debatable issue (“Could there be life on other planets?”) or a problem to solve (“How can we help protect an endangered species in our area?”), which is easier for younger students, and get feedback or co-write it with the class (Larmer, 2018). A good driving question gives the project stakes and makes students use the lesson. As written, though, nothing ties a part of the answer to each student.

The fix

  1. Write a question that splits into sub-questions.
  2. Each team answers the driving question, and each student owns one sub-question, with their name on it.

4. The Question Formulation Technique (Rothstein and Santana)

Needs Groups of three to five · Grades 2 to 8 · 30 to 45 minutes · A Question Focus and chart paper

You design a Question Focus, a prompt that isn’t a question, and introduce the four rules: ask as many as you can; don’t stop to discuss, judge, or answer; write each down as stated; turn statements into questions. Then you present the focus, barely explained, and students produce questions, improve them by marking each closed or open and flipping some, prioritize (three, in the founders’ example), discuss next steps, and reflect; the fullest version is on the student engagement guide. Improving the questions puts the lesson to work, and the reflection gives the class a look back. As written, though, the three belong to the group, and the focus can sit apart from the project.

The fix

  1. Draw the focus from the project, like the creek after a storm.
  2. Put a name on each of the three priority questions.

5. The need-to-know list and the project wall

Needs Whole class · Any grade · 15 minutes, then a few a week · A wall, sticky notes in two colors

You launch with the driving question, students list what they need to know, and the list is sorted into product, process, and content questions and posted on the project wall with the calendar, the standards, and the rubrics. You answer it through mini-lessons, workshops, and research, mark the answered ones, and return to it as the project shifts; when a team stalls, smaller questions go up in a second color (Brengard, 2018; Stevenson, 2016; Ray, 2019). The list becomes your lesson plan, so you lead the thinking. As written, though, Brengard suggests initials only as an option, so a question can belong to no one.

The fix

  1. Make initials the rule: each question carries the name of the student who’ll answer it.
  2. When it’s answered, the answer goes in the log.

The checklist has the three piles and the log.

6. The team contract

Needs Teams of four · Grades 3 to 8 · A period, then 20 minutes · Index cards, a talking piece

In a talking circle, each student answers “What makes for successful collaboration?” in a word or phrase, in turn, and the circle names team challenges, with groups acting one out badly, then well. Then each team picks three words, writes why each matters and how it will live up to them, writes how it should and shouldn’t react to four conflict scenarios, and everyone signs; the contract returns for reflections, conferences, and conflicts (Derian, 2019). It holds every student to how the team works, and it gives the team something to look back on. As written, though, it says nothing about the work itself.

The fix

  1. Add one line per student naming the part of the product they own.
  2. Check those lines at every checkpoint.

The checklist has the ownership line.

Needs Groups of three to four · Grades 3 to 8 · 20 to 30 minutes · Posted work, sticky notes, a timer

Teams post drafts (writing, blueprints, prototypes, sketches) on walls or tables, and reviewers get one focus and the criteria to judge it by. They walk in silence and leave notes as “I like...” statements or “I wonder...” questions, teams read the notes and plan their next steps, and for a second round you can invite parents, experts, or community members; the fullest version is on the cooperative learning guide. PBLWorks borrows Ron Berger’s rule that feedback be “kind, specific, and helpful” (Larmer and Allen, 2013). As written, though, the notes carry no names, and nobody has to act on one.

The fix

  1. Put a name on every note.
  2. During revision, each team member answers one note in writing.

See the gallery walk rebuilt for 7th grade →

8. Reflection at every checkpoint

Needs Students, teams, or the whole class · Any grade · A few minutes at each checkpoint · Journals or a discussion protocol

You anticipate the need-to-know questions from the project’s key knowledge, plan what students will reflect on, and tie a method to each checkpoint: journals or learning logs, whole-class discussions, surveys, focus groups, or fishbowl discussions. Think-pair-share walks students through a prompt (alone, with a partner, then the class), and at the end students reflect on the whole project with a self-reflection handout (Field, 2017). You lead it, and every checkpoint gets a look back. As written, though, a prompt can be answered without using the content.

The fix

  1. Write one content-bound prompt per checkpoint, like “Which source changed our plan for the creek, and what did it show?”
  2. Run it as think-pair-share with the paraphrase rule, so each partner says the other’s answer back before the pair shares.

See think-pair-share rebuilt →

9. The public product

Needs Teams of four · Any grade · One to two periods at the end, plus expert visits · An audience beyond class and family

You bring outside experts in during the project as advisors, not only at the end, and students contact the experts and organizations themselves. You prepare each guest (the project, their role, and how to question students), students anticipate the experts’ questions and prepare answers, and then they present to people beyond you, their classmates, and their parents; a few experts giving real critique can beat a big showcase. PBLWorks says a public product “ups the stakes” (Larmer, 2015). As written, though, the team presents together, and its strongest speaker can carry it.

The fix

  1. Have each student present the part they own.
  2. Give each student one expert question to take alone.

The checklist has a note for the guest.

Two that get called project-based learning and aren't

The dessert project, PBLWorks’s name for a short, light project served after the content was taught the usual way. And the poster that teaches classmates a topic, which PBLWorks calls the teacher’s agenda, with little student voice and no public audience. Both are fine activities; the group classics are rebuilt by grade in collaboration activities for students. The trifold exhibit above is the one to try first, and its checklist is free. Get the checklist →

What project-based learning looks like, K to 8

K to 2. Short projects, one driving question the class writes together with you holding the pen, and an audience one door away: another class, or the principal. The best K-2 evidence is Project PLACE, where second graders gained 63% more in social studies, in units built tightly around standards with coaching for teachers (Duke and colleagues, 2021). Seven-year-olds “dislike taking risks or making mistakes” (Responsive Classroom, 2024), so keep critique to “I like” and “I wonder.”

3 to 5. The band with the strongest evidence: the Michigan 3rd grade trial (Krajcik and colleagues, 2023), with gains in collaboration (0.42) alongside achievement. Nine-year-olds can work in groups, with lots of arguing, and ten-year-olds “do well with group activities and cooperative learning” (Responsive Classroom, 2024), which is why the team contract and the named panels carry so much weight here.

6 to 8. Twelve-year-olds are “able to see both sides of an issue but like to argue one point of view,” and fourteen-year-olds “respond well to academic challenges” (Responsive Classroom, 2024), so the debatable driving question belongs here. (PBLWorks’s example: “Should our city build new housing on the land near the river?”)

  • Our part · We make Missions

    Where whole-class Missions fit

    Plenty of teachers run projects like these by hand, and they work. Every structure above runs in a small group, and a small group is where you can see who did what, as long as you’re the one standing there.

    A Mission is a teacher-led, whole-class simulation that runs a project’s core at the scale of the room: your class can become the crew, the problem is built from the unit you just taught, and the only way through is using it together. Against the seven elements:

    • A challenging problem or question. Built in. In On the Move, mass migrations are trampling a construction site, and the crew has to plan for two species.
    • Authenticity. Built in as a scenario, around a real standard.
    • Student voice and choice, in part. Each team explains and models its own plan; the problem is set by the scenario.
    • Sustained inquiry, reflection, critique and revision, and the public product. Yours, and the structures above are how you run them.

    A Mission can be the entry event that makes the need-to-know list long, or the day near the end when the class uses what the project taught. Every student gets a report on how well they did.

    Every student is assigned to a team, with work themed to that team and teammates to lean on while you move between teams.

    What it is, and what it isn’t. A Mission is one class period, with one device per student, your projector, no headsets, and you leading the room. Most run 30 to 45 minutes, and On the Move runs about 45. It isn’t a multi-week project; the inquiry and the public product stay with yours.

    You're at the helm, not on the hook.

    The same structure in science and in social studies

    Two Missions side by side, because the structure is the point and the subject isn’t. In both, the two criteria that are hardest to build by hand in a small group, stakes the class can feel and a way to see who did what, come built in: the scenario is the Mission’s, and the report is per student. The other four are in the scene.

    “Even my quiet or reluctant students participate because the missions are structured in a way where everyone’s voice matters.”

    Adriana Lopez, Junior high teacher, Clint Jr. High School

    On the Move

    5th grade · About 45 minutes · Science and writing · Free with a teacher account

    Mass migrations of animals are trampling through Calix California’s newest construction site, and his crew needs to know why. The class reads about the whales, the crabs, and their migration patterns, then works with its teams to explain and model a plan that accounts for both species (5-ESS3-1, with W.5.2 beside it). It’s a project’s deliverable in one period: a real question, reading to answer it, and a plan the team has to explain. Run the need-to-know list on the unit first, and tell the class why: the plan they model has to work for the whales and the crabs.

    MISSION BRIEF →

    The Revolution, Part 1

    5th grade · About 46 minutes · Social studies and writing · Free with a teacher account

    The year is 1773, and Parliament is piling taxes and restrictions on the colonists. Under the direction of Samuel Adams, the crew collects intel on the situation in colonial Boston and publishes persuasive pamphlets that urge the people to rebel (W.5.1, with C3 D2.His.3.3-5). The pamphlet is the public product inside the story. It’s Part 1 of three (Part 2 is the Declaration of Independence, Part 3 the Revolution’s prominent figures), so a unit can run the whole arc.

    MISSION BRIEF →

    A hundred more just like them

    These are two of more than 100 Missions, with new Missions added and in the works every week, across science, math, reading, writing, and social studies, each one built the same way and each one where a unit can end. On the Move also runs at 3rd grade (about 41 minutes) and 4th (about 31), as paragraph-writing builds. Start with the Communication Mission, then the Collaboration Mission for your band.

    What the report shows, for every student

    A Mission.io class report: the class score in each of six skills, from knowledge and application to collaboration, critical thinking, and resilience, with the class chart across the year below.
    A class report from a real Mission: the class score in each of six skills, then each skill across the year.

    Every Mission produces a report for every student, built from what that student did across the whole Mission, on the skills the Mission captured. What it can show: what they knew about the standard, whether they could apply it as the problem unfolded, and the human skills every school promises (collaboration, critical thinking, initiative, and resilience). The test shows what they know. The report shows the rest. The structures above are where a project gets built by hand, and the tally is you reading names off the need-to-know cards, the log, and the panels. The report measures those skills for every student at once. SEE THE EVIDENCE →

    You taught it. Now find out who can use it.

    Will it work in my room?

    Students join with a class code: no student accounts, no student email, no passwords. Chromebooks, laptops, or tablets, plus your projector; on a shared cart, it’s the day you have the cart. Free for teachers, no credit card.

    Who’s behind it. Mission.io is a research and design organization with one job: make this kind of structured, whole-class learning something a teacher can run every unit instead of once a semester, and put a report in your hands when it’s over. Over a million students have run a Mission. The research behind them is funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, and Mission.io meets ESSA Level II standards, as validated by Instructure.

    START FREE

    Free teacher account, no card. Start with the Communication Mission, marked Start here in your library, then On the Move or the Collaboration Mission for your band, each after its 5-minute Teacher Preview.

Questions teachers ask about project-based learning

What's the difference between project-based and problem-based learning?

A project-based unit is taught through the project and ends in a public product. Problem-based learning, which began at McMaster University’s medical school in 1969, has small groups work an open-ended problem with a tutor, and the aim is finding out what they need to learn; there may be no product at all. The comparison table has challenge-based learning beside both.

How long should a project be?

PBLWorks defines a project as a week up to a semester, and its advice for a first project is short: about the time you’d already spend teaching those standards, eight to ten class periods, and no more than three weeks (Fancher, 2019). The trifold exhibit above fits that.

Does project-based learning work in elementary school?

Two randomized trials say it can, with 3rd graders in Michigan and 2nd graders in high-poverty districts, though MDRC’s review still calls the evidence “promising but not proven.” The research is above.

How do I grade a group project without punishing the kid who did all of it?

Grade the part. Every structure here has a piece with one name on it (the need-to-know card, the panel, the answer to the guest’s question), and that piece is the grade; the team’s product is the ticket to the exhibit. The team contract is where the parts get named.

Do I have to give up my standards to do projects?

No. PBLWorks’s practice is to plan the project from the standards and size it to the time those standards already get, so the project is how they’re taught.

References and sources

Sixteen references worth a teacher's hour

One project in teams of four, then On the Move

In teams of four first, by hand, with the creek exhibit checklist. Then the whole room, when the unit is ready: the Communication Mission first, then On the Move or the Collaboration Mission for your band, each after a 5-minute Teacher Preview. Both free. Coaching a team on this, or building the PD?

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