The Effective Implementation of Project-Based Learning in Online Courses

• In Event: Teaching and Learning Symposium Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 1: Experiential and Community-Engaged Pedagogy

Abstract

This presentation describes the process of implementing project-based learning effectively (and enjoyably!) in remote/online courses. Students often gravitate toward online courses, especially in asynchronous mode, because it serves their desire (and often need) for flexibility, efficiency, and convenience. For many, it is also a mode in which they can better focus, without physical classroom distractions. There are challenges, though, for both instructors and students, that can be pedagogical, technological, cultural, and personal.

In the Digital Communication, Information, and Media program at Rutgers University, we have found that the integration of hands-on projects into online courses can provide an engaging way for students to learn and practice course content while ameliorating some of the challenges inherent in this instructional mode. For example, while it is often difficult to assess student learning in an online setting, especially with traditional forms of testing, the development of projects that help students meet course objectives can provide a holistic way to measure learning and even see it develop over time. As students (often in groups) build projects in real time with the instructor’s guidance and supervision, skills and knowledge can be observed as they are obtained and deepen. Students who do not do well in test-taking environments, especially online, often thrive in this system and find greater enjoyment in the class overall. And when projects are built in an interactive, ongoing, scaffolded way over Zoom, Slack, or some other channel that requires human presence, including the presence of the professor, the use of AI in the project is greatly diminished.

Projects that have been worked particularly well in online classes in the Digital Communication, Information and Media program at Rutgers will be shared and described by the program’s director, sociologist Mary Chayko. She will also discuss strategies for effective implementation of these projects, and the benefits and challenges of project-based learning in online courses more broadly. Attendees will be welcome to contribute their own experiences with project-based learning.

Author

• Mary Chayko, Rutgers University-New Brunswick