We’ve learnt a lot from our partner schools in 2022. Here’s what we’ve seen from the most successful of them

We spoke to our partner schools to learn how they were implementing micro-units into their classrooms. This is what they told us.

A common pitfall when curriculum planning is to get caught up in ‘bikeshedding’. So what is it - and how do you avoid it?

One of the hardest – yet most important – aspects of collaboration is being able to give and receive feedback constructively. So how do you teach students these skills?

Want more real-world, hands-on learning? Long, sprawling PBL units aren’t the answer. That’s why Cura’s moving to micro-units in 2022. They still blend explicit teaching and hands-on application - and they’re only three to five lessons long.

You might have heard of a post-mortem before. It helps us treat a failure as more of a learning exercise so that we can improve our approach the next time around. But shouldn’t we do this before we implement the plan or idea that didn’t work?

Have you ever been a bit underwhelmed by the ideas your students came up with when they were solving a real-world problem? To develop better ideas, students need two separate skills spanning both divergent thought and convergent thought.

Student voice is a hot topic within education right now. But what is student voice? And how do you promote it? In this article, we’ll share what we know about creating classrooms with greater student voice at their core.

Most people know that ‘fake news’ is an umbrella term that refers to ‘news’ which is not credible, false, or highly biased. If students are not able to critically evaluate information which they find online for bias and credibility, it will affect their ability to navigate a PBL unit successfully.

We’ve spoken previously of our preference for Design Thinking as the framework for PBL. It helps us structure a project into levels, but it doesn’t tell us what students should be doing within each level. So that’s where the Double Diamond process comes in.

Critical and creative thinking are indispensable skills for a rapidly changing world - and for success in a PBL unit! That’s why we’re excited to introduce to you our second skills framework for helping students become critical and creative thinkers.

PBL units encourage students to work through an inquiry process. The challenge, of course, is that this approach is predicated on students being able to ask questions – good, relevant questions. This is easier said than done – so how do we build the skill of questioning?

We get asked more questions about assessment in PBL than any other topic. PBL units create an entirely different assessment paradigm; one that can stump even the most experienced practitioner. Here’s our tips for how to navigate it

The secret to great collaboration? Encourage student to difference-spot, not wrong-spot. A one-word change in mindset can completely change how teammates view their interactions with each other and can alter the dynamic within a team from dysfunction and conflict to one of trust and psychological safety

The theory of teams is that they are able to achieve more than any one individual. This relies on the team being able to create synergy, where the team as a whole are greater than the sum of their parts

Team conflict is a source of frustration for students and teachers alike within PBL projects. It can sour the interpersonal dynamics within a team and derail the team’s productivity

Regular readers of the eduSTEM Review will by now know our position on explicit teaching as an integral part of PBL. It is an essential part of every successful PBL or inquiry-based unit

Before we jump into the “How” of picking a theme for PBL, it is important to quickly review the role of the theme in PBL and why it is so important

Long considered little more than a distraction from more productive tasks, it would seem strange to turn to computer games for inspiration for developing great PBL programs

Interdisciplinary learning is a growing trend within secondary schools around Australia. It is increasingly common for schools to deliver curriculum in a cross-faculty manner