PROJECT BASED EDUCATION

An alternative for academic based education

What do these people have in common? Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, The Wright Brothers', Frank Sinatra, and Elvis Presley. They educated themselves with self-motivated projects. They succeeded because they discovered their natural talent and built a career based on that discovery. Education that is based on projects is highly motivating and is man's natural learning process. The discovery and opportunity to develop natural talent inspires a productive lifestyle. Project based education can give students that opportunity.

The Project Based Education concept is based on what interests and motivates the student. Because the instructor cannot customize lesson plans for each student, he must implement student responsibility. It becomes the student's responsibility to develop and research projects and develop a plan of action. The instructor acts as a coach or facilitator. Instructors take an interest in students' projects instead of students having to take an interest in topics handed down by administrators.

Projects require a goal where students must search for a method, acquire skills and knowledge, accept failure and bounce back from it, and keep trying until the goal is achieved. They learn through experiences, more important, they learn how to research and apply knowledge. Success is measured by the complexity of the project and the ability to finish it. This type of education motivates one to learn more about the world we live in while creating a lifetime love to learn. The laws' of nature is the motivator and instructor. Positive self-esteem is one of the many by-products.

Society must ABANDON the belief that:

• students must meet a predetermined level of academic standards by a selected age. (everyone is different)

• students who don't meet those standards are failures. (they aren't)

• all students can learn in a passive environment. (they can't)

• a diploma is more valuable than positive self-esteem. (it isn't) In the blue-collar world, employers base hiring on attitudes, not class grades or diplomas.

• all students can relate classroom studies to real world experiences. (they can't)

• standardized test measures knowledge and/or potential success level. (it doesn't)

• number of years spent in classrooms and class grade level determines success level in the real world. (it doesn't)

• academics must be mastered before other opportunity is offered. (some people learn by doing)

• teenagers are not mature enough to make decisions that determine their destiny. (give them a chance)

  
  

  Learning with Responsibility

  Learning with responsibility is the future. Our society is becoming too complex for authority control to be efficient. Leadership cannot comprehend, let alone implement, the wide variety of alternatives available. People with hands-on involvement are the best one's to explore ways to be efficient, but the system has to be organized to allow affected people to take responsibility. This includes students and workplace employees.

  There have been many attempts by organizations to implement worker responsibility programs, only to see them fail. They failed because leadership will not give up control and delegate responsibility.

  Today, the education system must adapt to the same kind of learning environment that business are adapting to, team responsibility. Teenagers that experience responsibility in high school will be the super efficient leaders of the 21^st century. This concept recognizes the fact that there is more to education than academics.

  Source:

  • http://www.motivation-tools.com/youth/project_education.html
  • Escrito por Iraitz