1. Introduction
2. What is Project-Based Learning?
3. Why is PBL At bina So Special?
4. The Benefits For Your Kiddo
5. Conclusion
Picture a chat with your child at the end of the school day. They're telling you about their class project - they're exploring a jungle filled with tigers and monkeys and snakes, they say, and they're building a hotel in the middle of it. They rattle off a list of the graphs that they're drawing and the research they're doing, their eyes light up as they explain their ideas, and they chat with excitement about the classmates they're working with. The best bit? They seem engaged, excited, and confident.
At bina, we view our students as capable individuals. We want to empower them to take agency over their learning, to lead the charge in a direction that interests them. We use Project-Based Learning to do this, adding some special bina tweaks to amplify its effect.
What is Project-Based Learning, you might ask, and how does it affect your kiddo? Read on to find out more!
Before we take a look at how we do Project-Based Learning at bina, let's explore what the term actually means.
Project-based learning (PBL) is a teaching method by which students investigate real-world questions and take agency over their learning. Students lead the learning, discovering information, applying what they find, and practising new skills. Projects are practical and hands-on, and students solve problems that they care about - features that are proven to enhance student engagement and outcomes.
Project-based teaching styles also benefit students by fostering collaboration (which helps them relate to others (Johnson & Johnson (2009)) and by trusting students to lead their own learning (shown to increase academic achievement (University of Chicago Consortium on School Research)).
At bina, we work in biomes, thematic worlds in which students learn. Students work on each biome for six weeks; over these six weeks they lead one project.
The biomes are based on real environments (think deserts and oceans), meaning that learning is grounded in realistic, authentic settings. Why does this matter? The real-world contexts give meaning to your kiddo's learning, which has been proven to nurture a love of learning and help students do better in class.
We take it a step further than PBL's usual "real-world questions": our students tackle big problems. All bina projects are bound to one of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Within the context of their biome, each student will choose one SDG problem that interests them; solving this will be their project.
Anchoring student projects to big, real-world problems helps them understand the world around them. Imagine a schooling that encourages your kiddo to engage in, care about and tackle the issues that they see in the world - that's what we're doing at bina.
Each student project must showcase all of the skills they have learnt in their current biome. A student working within the marine biome, for example, may be curious about ocean conservation. They might decide to invent a new way of cleaning the sea; this is their project. If they have been learning to draw graphs, their project must show off their new graph-drawing knowledge; if they've learnt how to write persuasively, the project must include persuasive writing. Educators support students to make this happen.
This means two things for your kiddo: first, that they apply their learning to solve a practical problem; second, that their educator sees their new understanding in action, discovering where to offer further support.
Not only does Project-Based Learning encourage students to be more engaged, more active and more enthusiastic - it teaches them a bunch of practical skills, too. Through bina's Project-Based Learning, your kiddo learns how to:
• Research — getting stuck into questions that spark their curiosity.
• Get to grips with data — finding it, understanding it, analysing it.
• Test their ideas — scientifically experimenting and simulating.
• Solve problems — creatively thinking about how to find solutions that fit the needs of lots of different people, animals and environments.
• Present their ideas — confidently talking about their projects to peers and educators.
We take the collaboration of Project-Based Learning to another level. With bina students in over 25 countries, your child is likely to be working on projects with peers from across the globe. As they work together, they share their individual and diverse perspectives, resulting in students who know how to collaborate with everyone.
Our educators view their students as capable individuals who can take charge of their own knowledge. Through Project-Based Learning, we show your kiddo that we trust them to take the lead on their learning, meaning that they are more likely to trust themselves too.
At bina, we foster an educational environment that celebrates innovation, curiosity, and collaboration. The benefits of Project-based learning are huge, and at bina we harness them to nurture active, aware and confident students.