Faculty Learn About Project-based Learning in Full-Day Workshop

On December 2, 2019, twenty-six faculty members in DePaul’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences came together for a full-day workshop on project-based learning. The workshop featured a keynote session by Georgetown Associate Provost and national project-based learning expert Dr. Randy Bass and a collaborative course-design workshop led by Dr. Seán McCarthy of James Madison University (JMU). McCarthy is a founding member of JMU X-Labs, a national leader in multidisciplinary, project-based learning.

The workshop was supported by the Julian Grace Foundation and DePaul’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. Faculty who participated received a $300 stipend and can receive an additional $200 for applying their learning in either an application to teach a project-based course through the CPbL or HumanitiesX programs, or by modifying an existing course to encorporate a project.

In addition to the time with Bass and McCarthy, the workshop also featured a Q&A with a panel of DePaul faculty engaged in project-based learning, and an introduction to community-engaged service learning, led by the Steans Center Associate Director, Rubén Álvarez Silva.

What is PbL?
PbL assignments have most or all of the following characteristics:

• They are driven by a complex question or an authentic, open-ended challenge. The question or challenge requires a response that is not fully understood by the students or the teacher at the outset of work.
• They require students to engage in sustained inquiry, with multiple opportunities for iteration, critique, revision, and reflection.
• They typically yield a public product for a real-world audience.
• They often involve collaboration and teamwork.

Building PbL Resources and Encouraging Faculty Relationships
For the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, the workshop aligned with a broader strategy to both develop PbL resources—in the form of ideas, examples, and coaching—and to provide space for faculty to develop relationships centered on pedagogical innovation. Project-based learning and interdisciplinary collaboration are both at the core of the College’s two major teaching fellowship opportunities, the Community and Project-based Learning Co-Teaching Fellowship (CPbL) and the HumanitiesX Fellowship.

Though the workshop was a one-time event, DePaul faculty who are interested in PbL can learn more via the following:

• Read the texts assigned as pre-workshop readings, Creating Wicked Students: Designing Courses for a Complex World, by Paul Hanstedt (ch. 4, “Creating Wicked Assignments”) and Project-based Learning in the First Year, edited by Kristin Wobbee and Elisabeth A. Stoddard (ch. 4, “The Value of a Transdisciplinary Approach,” by Boudreau and Wobbe).
• Read about JMU X-Labs in the Chronicle of Higher Education
• Visit the PbL Educator’s Resource Library, crafted by the Institute for Project-based Learning at Worchester Polytech University, a national leader in PbL
• Explore resources from the Stanford Design School on how to use design thinking to organize a class, including the Crafting a Design Class Guide and the Design Thinking Bootleg
• Explore the opportunities for PbL teaching at DePaul, including the Community and Project-based Learning Co-Teaching Fellowship (CPbL) and the HumanitiesX Fellowship.