Michael McDowell

The Project Habit: Striking the Right Balance of Habits in PBL

In my third year of teaching science to sophomores, I had likely accrued 300 hours of designing projects. Through my project-based learning (PBL) courses, I learned that a great project took about twenty hours to create and I stuck to that guidance. […]

2 Key Ingredients for Making Transfer Matter for Kids

COVID was a vivid reminder to all of us that we simply can’t keep the real world out of the classroom. Nor should we try. The more we design units of study in a way that enables students to see the walls of the classroom as permeable the better […]

Making Rigorous PBL by Design Doable

It is difficult to accept that the best learning road is slow and that doing poorly now is essential for better performance later. It is so deeply counterintuitive that it fools the learners themselves both about their own progress and their […]