Written and translated by Jesús Cerén, ¡Supérate! Fundación Raíces English Teacher.
Since its first implementation in 2015, Project Based Learning has proved to be an important asset for the academic and professional development of our students at Programa Empresarial ¡Supérate!
PBL is a constructivist methodology centered around students which states that learning is more meaningful when it involves the active exploration of real problems, either from everyday life, professional or business and even scientific settings. During the process, teachers, experts of the area of knowledge that needs to be learnt or reinforce, similar subjects and of course students get involved; at the end of the exploration phase, students show their acquired knowledge and abilities through the creation of a product or by carrying a public presentation with a real audience. In a nutshell, students learn by doing and present and propose solutions to real issues while at the same time autonomy and teamwork are reinforced.
Considering we live in an increasingly globalized and competitive society, nowadays more than ever we need youths who possess the necessary abilities to face the challenges of their personal projects and the world they will inherit from us; in that sense, PBL is an opportunity to innovate every single year, exploring new areas and disciplines and the best way to carry this methodology out is through our EXPO which involves a joint work of each Centre through the practice of the three areas of our program.
During the preparation process, students from our Second Year use the knowledge they acquired in IT and English in their first two years of our scholarship in order to present a product as a solution to a real issue, but what really wraps both technical skills up is the ability they have to work as a team, showing discipline and commitment, all of this learnt in the Core Values subject; in this way we achieve a holistic integration of Our program’s three signature components. This combination of disciplines which culminates in the creation of real products and solutions, allows the students to recognize the use their acquired knowledge, procedures and attitudes have and the application such learning has in academic and professional settings; this added value makes learning take on a more meaningful importance to the life of our students.
Undoubtedly, PBL allows the EXPO to facilitate that our students show their learning working around real issues by presenting creative and innovative solutions that answer to the needs of the 21st Century; such solutions are only limited to the topic which is being explored which could range from building Databases and Inventories to working with design software to produce content for Social Networking sites.
Rigorous planning and the integration of the three areas, Core Values, IT and English, opens up the opportunity so that our students show their abilities in contexts that reach beyond the classroom and that raise the bar to new horizons to conquer.
contexts that reach beyond the classroom and that raise the bar to new horizons to conquer.