Project-based learning (PBL) and its cousin, problem-based learning, are as trendy as they are misunderstood. Even experienced educators dedicated to student-driven learning often feel pressure to forsake student agency in favor of projects that meet state standards, amuse students, and have a common goal. Too often, these projects have an established goal so concrete and specific that students' best chance for success is to comply with the teacher's intention and limit their creativity to artistic touches on the final product.
What most of us associate with traditional schooling—a right-answer orientation, finding the "correct" solution to a given problem—is convergent thinking. In schools, convergent thinking runs rampant and does not always look like standardized tests. And it can even emerge in problem-based PBL when teachers prescribe the problem-solving projects so much that students practice critical thinking by deducing the most efficient route from a limited array of "choices."
Convergent thinking isn't necessarily bad. But it is overused, and when used in PBL, it can pervert even well-intended assignments from their student-driven origins. With divergent thinking, on the other hand, there's no mainstream way to reach a learning goal—there are infinite possibilities.
Divergent thinking in the classroom occurs when a teacher provides a prompt or challenge with guidelines and lets students determine the outcome. Work that requires divergent thinking is difficult to plan for, which frightens many an organized teacher. From "divergent" we get "diverse," a word which ably describes the wide range of outcomes in well-structured divergent PBL. As intimidating as this uncertainty may be, it is a hallmark of something spectacular. How do you know you are requiring the easier, safer convergent thinking? When you can easily envision success. Divergent thinking is as uncertain as it is audacious.
Like other disruptive innovations such as personalized learning, creative problem solving through divergent projects first flourished in out-of-school-time (OST) programs. Odyssey of the Mind, for example, debuted in the late 1970s as a pioneering team-based creative problem-solving program that culminates in competitions. Participants choose one of several problems—simple challenges with a few severe limits—and produce products and performances that are highly diverse. Odyssey and similar programs—like Future Problem Solving Program International, Destination Imagination, FIRST LEGO League, and even makerspaces—are typically enrichment opportunities, but this has meant that many students have inevitably missed out. Students who gravitate toward these programs after school likely need them less than their peers who do not suspect themselves capable of thinking outside the box.
So how do educators go about producing high-quality, divergent PBL? Many of the best guidance comes from successful OST programs that have been doing this for years.
- Create high-quality rubrics. It's easy to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but a high-quality PBL unit does not eliminate goals and standards just to avoid a right-answer orientation. Odyssey of the Mind problems each have a detailed scoring guide, for example. In fact, the very limits placed on the project typically inspire creativity. If students know the requirements, they'll feel safer taking risks in other areas.
- Use complex but accessible challenges. Multilayered challenges—ones with components that cross disciplines or provide extension opportunities—will inspire students to work hard as long as they can relate to the challenge and access necessary resources. And if you can't figure out what a single "right" answer is, you've probably done a good job creating a project that doesn't have one.
- Scaffold the steps as needed. Some students may not be ready to tackle the challenge without guidance. Assist different groups or individuals as needed, perhaps by establishing action plans or breaking a complex unit into discrete parts. For example, graphic organizers that break the project into a multistep process can help students focus more on being creative and less on how to get started. Just because you are helping some students tackle the problem does not mean you are solving it for them.
- Don't give answers—ask questions. It's tempting for teachers to give hints or suggestions when students are stuck, but when the ideas are the students' own, the project is more meaningful. Instead, ask open-ended questions to inspire deeper thinking. For example, "How can this be done differently? What silly ideas can you brainstorm?" Coaches of OST problem-solving teams learn that asking questions is harder at first than providing guidance, but it ultimately results in stronger solutions.
- Start with examples. First, peruse the challenges offered by enrichment programs like Odyssey of the Mind and Future Problem Solving Program International—many of which are <LINK URL="https://www.odysseyofthemind.com/practice/default_cat.php?Id=1">available online</LINK>—for inspiration. Then look for established PBL units (like those in the <LINK URL="https://www.bie.org/project_search">Buck Institute for Education's archive</LINK>) and design your project to provide open-ended opportunities for students.
- Calibrate to make it count. Divergent projects with an attention to technical quality often become effective performance assessments. However, <LINK URL="http://cce.org/work/instruction-assessment/quality-performance-assessment/tools-resources">high-quality performance assessments</LINK> require a careful calibration of scoring, largely because of the leeway they allow students in producing a final product.
The going may be tough at first, but the advantages are many. When students are given voice and choice, they're taking ownership of their learning. And perhaps even more appealingly, divergent-thinking PBL is engaged learning at its finest: it tends to absorb the attention of the students who are otherwise hardest to engage. And for teachers, the often mundane task of summative assessment becomes an adventure guided by a prompt and rubrics—and limited only by the bounds of student imagination.