PBL seems ideal

The way you hear the terms "21st Century" learning and skills thrown around these days, you'd think that it wasn't thought of before a couple of years ago! As I am fairly new to the K12 teaching profession, I wasn't aware of all the research and work that had been done prior to this century on the topic and urgency of 21st Century Skills and learning. From what I've read and learned over the past 4 or so years, PBL seems to me to be the poster child for 21st C. learning. It contains some of the major elements: self-direction, coaching/guidance from the teacher (as opposed to lecture), knowledge-sharing, collaboration, problem-solving, student-centered, and the list continues. But here's the question: if it's so great, has so much potential, and is beneficial for teaching the 21st C. skills we profess students must have, why isn't it ubiquitously used in schools? For that matter, why isn't it even moderately used? Please let your voice be heard!

Do you employ the PBL model in your classroom? How often if yes. Why not if no.

I will begin with my answer. I do use the PBL method in my classroom. And I'd say for 1/3 of my semester.
First, I love, love, love using projects in my class to enable my students to participate in hands-on learning, to learn by doing, and to demonstrate their understanding of the material and general knowledge. The way the PBL model is set up, it seems you have to present a problem FIRST and then coach the students through gaining the knowledge needed in order to solve the problem. I think at a college level that this sounds great. Because a lot of core or foundational information is already learned and understood and the students can at least conceptualize a problem initially while building new knowledge and skills in order to solve it. At a lower education level where students are still building their foundational knowledge, I'm not sure it makes as much sense - at least not for EVERY lesson. And that's just it - I don't think it's fair to students or teachers to expect only one method of instruction or knowledge-delivery to be used in a classroom. Every person is unique, every student learns best in different ways, and, ultimately, we as teachers should seek to vary our delivery methods in order to reach every child.

Shouldn't we?

Gaming

Initially I was skeptical of the use of games in education. That is, until I thought about my own experience with gaming and what I learned. My family got its first PC when I was in eighth grade, but I didn’t start to truly use it until I was in 9th grade. I can recall three specific examples of games that I played in those early days from which I learned skills that are traditionally taught in a classroom.

• Oregon Trail. I remember as a kid playing this game where I was the leader of a covered wagon party that was attempting to traverse the Oregon trail to safety. I learned a lot about the American trek westward – in fact, I learned more than I learned in my history classes over all of the years up until that point.
  
• Another example of a computer game I played is one that taught me how to type properly. It was an arcade-like game that I played on my computer at home. I had to “shoot” the correct letters quickly while keeping my fingers in the correct position. I wouldn’t have made through college without the typing skills I gained at home on my PC :-).
  
• Finally, another game I played was SimCity. I learned a lot about local government and city management through playing SimCity – again, more than I learned in school. This was a little later in life, but, I remember learning from the game, none the less.
  

Oh, and here's another classic: Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? That game that taught us geography and didn't it become a tv show, or at least a segment on one?

Thinking back on my own experience with games made me realize that gaming does have significant value in education. I hope that we can somehow begin to more effectively implement games into our curriculum.