PBL - what is it?
Project Based Learning (PBL) is teaching through the implementation of projects. It is a method of transferring knowledge and acquiring competences and qualifications through the independent work of students in a predetermined period of time in order to solve a problem or in other words do a project.
In addition to expanding knowledge, the PBL method helps students develop many soft skills needed in the 21st century at the next levels of education and professional career. These include group work, synthesis of information from various sources, making decisions and taking responsibility for them, planning and organizing work, appropriate time management and meeting deadlines. This method also teaches the art of argumentation - how to formulate and express your opinions. It also shows how to prepare and deliver a presentation and, most importantly, build confidence.
Above all, however, PBL teaches independent, creative and critical thinking, the courage to experiment with an optimal and practical solution to the problem, which makes the education process more authentic and at the same time more active and practical. It is worth recalling here the old maxim of Confucius: Tell me and I will forget, show me and I will remember, let me do it and I will understand.
It is thanks to this practical aspect that the PBL method significantly improves the learning process, which is not only about absorbing knowledge, but most of all about its active acquisition and application. This, in turn, entails a very important change - the role of the teacher is changing. It becomes a guide, a direction indicator in the independent process of collecting and implementing knowledge.
It should also be noted that PBL gives students and teachers the opportunity to use various achievements and technological innovations that make the education process more attractive and streamlined. Thanks to them, you can quickly find relevant information and knowledge resources, prepare presentations or visualizations of the project itself, effectively cooperate with other groups of students at other universities, both home and abroad, or take part in video conferences and online discussions. This openness to the world undoubtedly adds value to the PBL method.
The use of PBL in foreign language learning is to direct the language to those areas that are most needed by students due to the specificity of studies and future employment prospects.
