People often ask, “What makes Cambridgeport unique?” There are
many different things that make Cambridgeport a special place. One that
stands out to many students is Project Based Learning. While Project
Based Learning has been at the heart of the Cambridgeport approach since
our founding in 1991, our approach to projects has evolved over the
past 20 years. In a recent meeting of the Instructional Leadership Team
at Cambridgeport, we defined a project in this way:
Project based learning is:
- A journey taken by a group of people with a particular purpose.
- A process that is leading to and culminates with a meaningful product or substantial body of work.
- The process includes higher-level thinking, and fuses or
incorporates thinking on multiple levels. This can be integrating
multiple subjects, and/OR it can be integrating Literacy with Technology
or Math with writing, etc. It does not need to be a full
interdisciplinary project (where all or most subjects are incorporated).
- There is an authentic audience and purpose for the work and it is shared with others.
Project based learning is not:
- A series of discrete skills
- An assignment
View examples of project-based learning by clicking on the links below:
Slow as Molasses...May Not Always be True!
Designing the Ideal Middle School Classrooms (3rd/4th Grade)
Habitats in Science (3rd/4th Grade)