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Session 1. Designing a Project from Curriculum Outcomes
Objective. Design a two-to-four-week project from two or three essential outcomes, with a driving question and a product that cannot be made without learning them.
Many of us have run a project that ended with beautiful posters and little learning. The usual cause is that the project was designed from the product, not from the outcomes. When you start from two or three outcomes, the question and the product follow, and every week of work has a reason. This session gives you a short way to design that holds up on a Tuesday afternoon with 28 pupils, a textbook and a limited budget.
Key ideas
What a project is, and is not
- In project-based learning the project is the main course, not dessert: pupils learn the outcomes by working on it.
- A 'dessert project' comes after the teaching and only practises it; a real project replaces part of the teaching.
- A project lasts days or weeks, asks a real question, and ends in a product shown to other people.
Start from two or three essential outcomes
- Open the curriculum standard and the textbook unit and choose the two or three things every pupil must be able to do (see course 5.2).
- Write each as an action pupils perform. Add at most one skill outcome, such as 'explain your steps to a visitor'.
- Do not try to cover the whole unit. A project goes deep on a few outcomes; the rest is taught in ordinary lessons.
A driving question and a product
- The driving question is open and uses pupils' words: 'How can we share the Navruz sweets fairly?' not 'Define a fraction.'
- The product is what pupils make and show: a booklet, model, plan, map, performance or short report.
- Choose a product that can be made with paper, pens and local materials; the best projects need little money.
The fit test
- Ask: could a pupil make this product without learning the outcome? If yes, the project does not teach.
- Tracing, copying, colouring and cutting out are the usual leaks. Add a step that needs thinking: calculate, compare, explain, decide.
- Write the evidence beforehand: what in the product shows each pupil reached the outcome?
Designing a project backward
Teach what pupils need, when they need it
A project does not mean you stop teaching. When a team discovers it needs to compare fractions or read a map scale, that is the moment for a ten-minute mini-lesson at the board, a worked example or a page of the textbook. Pupils listen differently when they need the idea for their own product.
A simple tool is a 'need to know' list. At the launch, ask pupils to write what they must find out to answer the driving question, then sort the list with them into things you will teach, things they will research, and things to skip. The list becomes your map of the next lessons and shows you gaps in prior knowledge.
Drafting a driving question that works
Write three versions and compare them. A question that can be answered in one sentence from the textbook is too small. A question such as 'What is water?' is too wide. A good one names a real person or situation and a task: 'How can our school use less water without anyone going thirsty?'
Read it aloud to two pupils and ask what they would do first. If they name a concrete action, the question works. If they shrug, simplify the words or add a person. Keep the final version on the wall during the whole project.
Examples from the classroom
Sweets for Navruz
Scene. Malika teaches Grade 5 mathematics in Tashkent. Her unit is adding fractions with different denominators. Her outcome: add two fractions and explain the common denominator. The question: How can we share the Navruz sweet trays fairly between 3 and 4 family groups? The product is a fair-share booklet with three worked examples. A pupil cannot finish the booklet without finding a common denominator.
Insight. The product requires the outcome, so the fit test passes.
The grandmother's village
Scene. Jasur teaches Grade 8 history in Bukhara. His outcome is to put events in order and explain one cause. Instead of a poster, pupils interview an elder, build a timeline of 8 dated events from the stories and the textbook, and explain one cause for each of two events. A pupil who has not understood cause and order cannot make this timeline.
Insight. Choosing a task with a thinking step protects the outcome from copying.
A book for Grade 1
Scene. Dilnoza teaches Grade 4 Uzbek in Samarkand. The outcome is writing a story with a beginning, a problem and an ending. The question: What story would help a first-grader who is afraid of school? Teams of four write a 6-page picture book. She keeps the evidence simple: each pupil writes one page alone and explains where it fits.
Insight. Individual evidence inside a shared product keeps the outcome visible for every pupil.
Common pitfalls
- Starting from a product idea that looks lovely and only then searching the curriculum for a matching outcome.
- Choosing five or six outcomes, so the project stays shallow and nothing is assessed well.
- Writing a driving question that has a one-line textbook answer, so teams finish in ten minutes.
- Letting the project replace all teaching, instead of teaching just in time what teams need.
Which Project Idea Passes?
- Read the sample unit in the Activity Kit (Grade 5 natural science, water, 8 lessons) and the three project ideas A, B and C.
- In pairs (10 min): choose two essential outcomes, then apply the fit test to each idea and mark PASS, FIX or FAIL in the table.
- Alone (10 min): take the idea you marked FIX or PASS, write a driving question, the product and the evidence for one outcome.
- As a group (10 min): read your questions aloud. Others say whether it is open, in pupils' words and needs the outcome.
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- Which idea looked attractive but failed the fit test? What leaked?
- How did writing the evidence change the product?
- Which unit of yours could carry a project in the next term?
Reflect
- Was your last 'project' a dessert or a main course?
- Which step of your best project idea could be done without thinking?
- Who in your class would ask the driving question first?
Try it tomorrow
- Write your driving question in three versions and ask two pupils which one they would act on.
- At the next launch, ask the class to write a need-to-know list of five items and sort it into teach, research and skip.
- Apply the fit test to one product you already use and change one step so it requires thinking.
Further reading and links
Start from two or three outcomes, ask an open question, and choose a product that cannot be made without learning them.