Focused experiential learning organized around the investigation and resolution of messy, real-world problems.

• Engages students as stakeholders immersed in a messy, ill-structured problematic situation
• Organizes curriculum around this holistic problem, enabling student learning in relevant and connected ways
• Creates a learning environment in which teachers coach student thinking and guide student inquiry, facilitating learning toward deeper levels of understanding while entering the inquiry as a co-investigator

• Increases motivation
• Makes the learning relevant
• Promotes higher order thinking
• Encourages Learning How to Learn
• Requires authenticity

• The problem is presented first and serves as the organizing center and context for the learning
• The problem has common characteristics
  • It is ill-structured and messy
  • It often changes with the addition of new information It is not solved easily or with a specific formula
  • It does not result in one right answer
• Students are active problem-solvers and learners
• Teachers are cognitive and metacognitive coaches
• Information is shared, but knowledge is a personal construction of the learner
• Discussion and challenge both exposes and tests thinking
• Assessment is an authentic companion to the problem and process

Learners

• Background knowledge
• Can they work in cooperative groups
• Academic knowledge
• Skills

Curriculum

• How does the problem fit into the curriculum

Context

• Does the problem flow into the concepts being taught
• Is the problem relevant to the students’ lives

Standards