Is project learning superior to textbook-based learning?

I have been teaching at a project-based learning school for the past 4 years, and I agree exactly with what you're saying. Next year, I will look for a job at a traditional school. Not only is my school project-learning based, it also is combined with technology. Students have their own laptops and are frequently off-task. I feel like they are learning less than the student in a traditional school. Their completed projects seem shallow and not very academic.

If the students can't read the textbook, we are doing a disservice in NOT helping them to read more the more difficult texts. After all, first they learn to read, then they read to learn. We have to help them read and understand textbooks, otherwise we haven't done our job.

It's easy for a teacher to say, write a poem or create a skit over The Alamo, for example. What you get in the end isn't information knowledge in a skit, it's usually shallow garbage that isn't worth much. I have taught project-based learning in my school for the last 4 year, and now see that from PBL alone, their learning is shallow.

i think schools should let kids or students have there cell phones on and can be able to go on there phones at school just not in class. But some students need there phones on incase of an emergence

Some of the kids in my last year's class could not read the SS text proficiently. But after listening to a lesson on tape, or watching a video, they were able to perform a skit, draw a picture, or verbally explain what I was trying to teach. Project-based learning is the way for all kids to succeed in NCLB.

It would be great to assume that all teachers are skilled enough to make project-based education work. But in reality many teachers are not skilled at breaking from tradition and "easy". Project-based education demands creative and assertive teachers. Until those qualities are mandated it may be disasterous to toss the text. Many districts are shallow enough to have pacing calendars that are enforced leaving little time for creative teaching. It is easy to see why the districts do this. The continuity of teaching helps make sure NCLB in academia. But the love of learning and dreams of creating are ebbing from students and teachers alike. Project-based education does not mean "no textbook". It means creative teaching with lots of diagnosing and prescribing.

I think PBL is a wonderful concept. I wish my elementary aged children had experiences like this at our school. Although, I do feel text books have their place. I wonder, though, how many teachers are really qualified (not to mention motivated) to teach this way. It requires not only strong competence and confidence, but also the ability to truly facilitate a process. I think we have to look at our principals' philosophies (as well as higher up the administration chain). Why change from, "this is how we've always done it", to something so out of the box, when it would require so much change, creativity and a progressive state of mind? I'm sad to say that it would never work at our school.

Project based learning assists students to delve into topics where they have to think deeply. This is higher order thinking that usually engages varied and multiple instuctional strategies that are active in nature. On the contrary, reading from a text is a passive activity and is most often a lower order thinking activity. Educators know that lower order learning is not retained. Higher order thinking correspondingly accommodates learning. Schema is remodeled and learning is most often retained. There is no question which model of learning is best practice.

I let the learning situation dictate which to use for each has its merits and drawbacks. In general, the students are more engaged and challenged during project-based learning. My role in project-based learning affords me to become guide along the journey which in turn allows the students to become risk-taking explorers.