Start your Project Based lessons with a good driving question” – this is what you will find in every resource on PBL. Hard as it might be to create, the driving question is paramount for project based learning as it provides its purpose and sets its context. So, ask yourself, what you will be focusing on with your students. Is it trying to find the best solution to the problem? If yes, is it abstract and academic or practical and concrete? Is it provocative and leading to discourse? Is it expected to inspire discussion or present and/or establish claim? Will it be one question for the whole class/team or a number of individual questions related to individual projects?
“Researching materials on PBL and the Driving Question might prove a really daunting task. So, for a start, why don’t you check out the the ones I found particularly useful, not too lengthy and really inspiring.
- An online course: A couple of years go I completed a PBL course with School Education Gateway. Although the course concluded, you can still use the resources HERE.
- A website: An absolutely fantastic website You for Youth with tonnes of information about PBL, rubrics, worksheets and tools of different kind.
- An article: An article “In search of the driving question” by Andrew Miller on Edutopia investigating a number of types of driving question and what we should remember about while creating it.
- A checklist (an many more) which you can find on Tony Vincent’s fantastic blog.
Have a look at the visual which, hopefully, will help you remember what a good driving question should be like.