Project-based
learning as a means to make schooling more useful and readily applied
to the world, first became popular in the early part of the century. The
term "project" represented a broad class of learning experiences.
For example, in early works one sees the label "project" applied
to activities as diverse as making a dress, watching a spider spin a web,
writing a letter, or learning the "why and wherefore of the World's
Series" (Hotchkiss, 1924; McMurray, 1920). The unifying idea was
that students learn best when "wholeheartedness of purpose is present"
(Kirpatrick, 1918). In recent years there has been renewed interest in
the learning and motivational affordances of extended problems and projects
as well as recognition of challenges to successful implementation. Along
with colleagues from the Cognition & Technology Group of Vanderbilt,
I have investigated learning through problems and projects and developed
design principles to support classroom implementation.
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