As the Philippines shifted to K-12 education in 2013, there were a lot of apprehension regarding the shift in learning systems since there are still underlying conditions that needs to be addressed such as shortage of teachers, classrooms and better resources for the Filipino students. This was also the same time when I started to teach in Senior High School. Luckily, I found an institution who also shifted their mode of learning and assessment.

According to PBLWorks Organization from the Buck Institute for Education, “Project-based Learning (PBL) is a teaching method in which students learn by actively engaging in real-world and personally meaningful projects.” There is a noticeable shift from students/learners as knowledge consumers into knowledge producers. Furthermore, teachers rather than designing knowledge to be consumed are now given the task of designing knowledge for students/learners to discover, in their own ways and styles.

Since 2016, iACADEMY in Makati, Philippines started its Senior High School program through a project-based learning curriculum. As a teacher this role is very challenging since each student has their own vision and your goal is not to measure what they have memorized from your lessons but rather what they make out of it.

Here are some links about iACADEMY’s Project-based learning:

1. iACADEMY Project-Based Learning Expo Features SHS Multimedia Arts Students’ Works: https://iacademy.edu.ph/homev3/blog_page/435?title=iacademy-project-based-learning-expo-features-shs-multimedia-arts-students----artworks
2. These Filipino High School Kids are Out to End Bullying: https://www.rappler.com/technology/features/216301-hacksociety-2018-filipino-high-school-kids-end-bullying
3. iACADEMY Pushes Fashion Forward: https://lifestyle.inquirer.net/330695/iacademy-pushes-fashion-forward/

After five semesters of teaching with this end goal, our school thrived with various artifacts and this sense of empowered and supported agency of the students allowed them to be more confident with their works and their own selves. I have seen students transform from seating at the back of the class to leading groups with their PBL works because they are very passionate of what they want to do. Aside from an increased sense of agency, other essential skills are also gained by the students like collaboration, compromising and ingenuity.

As educators and school administrators, the challenge is with designing better programs to allow our learners to discover knowledge on their own while at the same time being an active mentor in their growth as artisans of knowledge. Different disciplines have its own challenges and harmonizing each subject/course is one of our main challenges every semester. That is why it is essential for us to also experiment ways of delivering our materials and designing programs that will allow our learners to make more discoveries.

For further information on PBL, you may visit PBLWorks at https://www.pblworks.org/.