What calls us to think?

Joe Hughes, Symran Hedderman, Adeeb Iqbal, Declan Kent, Osamah Abid, Jabaan Hussain, Muaaz Kashif, Carla Jones, Hussam Al-Baali

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One of the aims of Project Based Learning (PBL) at Matthew Moss High School is to help learners develop their ability to think creatively in order to solve problems. Another aim is for the learners to have fun while they are doing it.

Many traditional approaches to learning entail the development of knowledge, skills, and understanding in anticipation of these being required for a task at some point in the future.

‘Just In Time’ (JIT) learning on the other hand, involves setting a challenge that necessitates learners having to identify and develop the specific knowledge, skills, and understanding that will be needed in order solve the problem on a just in time basis. Learning is as a direct response to the needs of the innovative solutions they are developing.

A mathematics lesson relating to scale drawings suddenly has more meaning when it’s relevant to the construction of the trebuchet you are building in order to compete in a golf ball throwing competition. And it’s not really mathematics anyway; it’s just working with numbers to calculate something.

Collaboration and dialogue are strongly encouraged as part of Project Based Learning, as ‘thinking together’ often stimulates creativity and originality that just would not have been possible by approaching a problem with a single perspective.

Learning is a social activity; so why not share the learning experience with some friends.