Project-based learning (PBL) is a brilliant method of teaching real-life incidents to students. The academic syllabus often seems boring to students and they feel a lack of enthusiasm to work on those. The process of learning becomes extremely monotonous and students develop a habit of not dealing with a real-world problem.
Teachers, however, these days are giving a lot of priority to PBL in order to keep the level of interest of the students high. Not only the high school students but pre and primary students are also getting involved in project-based learning. This procedure is meant for all age groups and students to work on various models to come up with apt solutions to problems.
Just like the Chinese yin and yang, in every system there lied two contradictory forces and they always tend to counter each other. A PBL is an excellent method, for real, but then again there are few problems associated with it which sometimes create a little mess.
Project-based learning challenges and solutions:
Teaching methodologies that include project-based learning processes are indeed classic yet difficult. In the PBL method, students actively perform fun-based knowledge gaining exercises that help them to become self-confident, motivated, and their rate of performance elevates higher.
This PBL approach has certain issues which if dealt with care can be tackled. Following the issues which are faced in general with a PBL process:
Team building: The pre and primary teachers arrange projects for children and ask them to take part actively in these games. A major problem arises when a few students of the group work passionately while the rest feel lethargic. Often, the other students of the group do have much skill or they are a tad slower than those working efficiently.
It is indeed a massacre because in this intra-group activity there are two divisions. Therefore, the growth rate is not uniform, and the prime perspective of project-based learning is in vain. Since every problem has a solution, so does this scenario. It should be the responsibility of the teachers to segregate students and assign a specific role to each one. The students will develop a sense of responsibility and they will perform each task with care.
No enthusiasm: Lack of enthusiasm is a notable concern in the case of project-based learning. In a bunch of students, a few might not feel attracted to a particular project. For example, a project is based on handcrafts while a discrete section may be a fan of painting. It is likely that will not go head over heels for the handcrafts project.
A bit of motivation or encouragement is a key factor that can be a savior to this problem. If someone comes up and tells those students that their contribution is essential, they will be motivated. Students learn to work with passion automatically when they start believing that others are waiting to see how well they can perform. Sometimes, a healthy challenge does the job!
Passive participation: Students often come across a thought that the tasks are being imposed on them by the educators irrespective of their choices. They begin behaving differently in such cases and thus the productivity is massively low.
Given this scenario, a teacher must follow this trick. He/she can explain the fundamentals of the project and ask the students what method do they want to execute it. Empowering the students is considered to be one of the most fruitful methods of getting the tasks done by them. In return, they will also understand the concepts more distinctly.
A professional teacher or an aspiring teacher sometimes cannot figure out how to deal with such problems. They try to come up with ideas but due to lack of proper training, their methods turn out to be too ineffective to be executed. The pre and primary teacher training courses help them to understand various procedures of tackling students. This training provide globally recognized certificates to the candidates and they can efficiently teach students about project-based learnings across the globe.
Written By : Ashwini Chandra
