Dear Problem-based and Project-Based Learning SIG members,

I want to welcome you to our SIG community! This is going to be an exciting year for research about PBL and PjBL! PBL and PjBL cross disciplines, grade levels, and educational purposes and so have continued to generate broad global interest.

Given our global reach, new research lines related to PBL and PjBL are emerging such as climate change, sustainability, AI and expansive language practices. At the same time, we continue to investigate areas such as student identity, engagement, Social and Emotional Learning, emotions, and motivation and change in teacher practices and more to understand how these designed approaches inform teaching and learning through various methodologies.

PBL and PjBL are instructional approaches united by a commitment to: promoting deep and sustained engagement in academic tasks that connect with students’ personal lives, meaningful uses of the literacies, interdisciplinary learning, and the critical thinking associated with “21 st century skills.” PBL and PjBL  are complex forms of instruction that place numerous demands on teachers. While they are frequently touted as promising forms of instruction, the research base informing their use is emerging, making it an ideal problem space to explore using a collaborative, cross-disciplinary, multi-method approach.

I personally love PjBL because it makes sense to teachers and can be taken up in creative ways by them toward enjoyable teaching while simultaneously supporting elementary students' creativity, critical thinking and collaboration.

As a SIG, we have the opportunity to come together as researchers to build knowledge to support the pursuit of equitable educational opportunity.

Yours sincerely,

Emily Adah Miller