Project-based Learning in the First Year: Beyond All Expectations

Published in association with

This book has two goals: First, to show the value of significant project-based work for first-year undergraduate students; and Second, to share how to introduce this work into first year programs. The authors spend the bulk of the book sharing what they have learned about this practice, including details about the administrative support and logistics required. They have also included sample syllabi, assignments and assessments, and classroom activities.

The projects are applicable in a liberal arts education, in engineering programs, in two and four year colleges, in public and private universities--any institution with first year undergraduate students that wants to actively engage them in understanding and solving real-world problems through project work. Evidence shows that project-based learning, with real world, team-based educational experiences, increases the engagement and retention rate of underserved students. Introducing project-based learning in the first year can set the stage for incorporating the culture and practice of inclusive excellence as foundation for learning on college and university campuses.

Kristin Wobbe is the associate dean of undergraduate studies and an associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Elisabeth A. Stoddard is an assistant teaching professor of environmnetal and sustainability studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Randall Bass is Vice Provost for Education and Professor of English at Georgetown University, where he leads the Designing the Future(s) initiative and the Red House incubator for curricular transformation. For 13 years he was the Founding Executive Director of Georgetown’s Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS). He has been working at the intersections of new media technologies and the scholarship of teaching and learning for nearly thirty years, including serving as Director and Principal Investigator of the Visible Knowledge Project, a five-year scholarship of teaching and learning project involving 70 faculty on 21 university and college campuses. In January 2009, he published a collection of essays and synthesis of findings from the Visible Knowledge Project under the title, “The Difference that Inquiry Makes,” (co-edited with Bret Eynon) in the digital journal Academic Commons (January 2009: http://academiccommons.org). Bass is the author and editor of numerous books, articles, and electronic projects, including recently, "Disrupting Ourselves: the Problem of Learning in Higher Education" (Educause Review, March/April 2012). He is currently a Senior Scholar with the American Association for Colleges and Universities.