Authentic Purpose and Audience: Utilizing Local Contexts to Enhance Project-Based Learning

• In Event: 14.046 - Poster Session 1
  In Poster Session: 14.046-4 - Design and Research in Learning Environments

Abstract

Project-based learning (PBL) has recently gained popularity, becoming a staple in modern education. This project seeks to alleviate the design and deployment constraints of PBL by providing high-quality prompts contextualized within local scenarios. Our researchers partnered with local businesses to create a repository of authentic, community-oriented PBL prompts, thus reducing implementation effort to a simple database search. For deployment, this project promises to develop the field’s understanding of best practices for integrating PBL into the classroom through controlled research studies and classroom observations. This work shows the effect authentic contextualization has on student writing quality. Performance was significantly enhanced when the student was engaged in a project for a local, familiar business--as opposed to a generic, hypothetical scenario.

Authors

• Lucy Kosturko, SAS Institute Inc.

• Kristin Fisher Hoffmann, North Carolina State University

• Rebecca Bissette, North Carolina State University

• Jennifer Sabourin, North Carolina State University

• Cathy Crossland, North Carolina State University

• John L. Nietfeld, North Carolina State University