Beginning this week, those of you who have been readers of our blog will notice some changes – and we hope to attract many more readers with our new approach, new topics, and more frequent postings. We hope you’ll participate in an active comments section, too. As before, it’s all going to be about Project Based Learning, but as interest in PBL grows we think it’s time to grow our blog as well. Here’s what to expect.

More posts:

Monday and Tuesday: Reports on recent Hangouts about Gold Standard PBL with BIE National Faculty and special guests; Miscellaneous musings on PBL and the effort to reform the education system to better support it, from BIE staff such as Bob Lenz, John Larmer, and others; Special guest blogs from teachers, school leaders, BIE board members, and fellow travelers in other organizations.

Wednesday: Reflections and reports from BIE staff working with our partner schools and districts. We call these folks “Systemic Partnership Coaches” and they, along with BIE Director of Implementation Jennifer Cruz, help school leaders manage the process of promoting innovation and changing instruction in their classrooms. They are learning many lessons about what it takes, which I’m sure will make for interesting and informative reading.

Thursday: Posts from members of BIE’s National Faculty, our diverse and far-flung associates who facilitate our PBL 101 workshops and provide onsite follow-up support to our partner schools and teachers. With help from Getting Smart.com, we have identified a regular team of bloggers from this dynamic group of exemplary educators – teachers, administrators, instructional coaches, and consultants – who will share their wisdom about PBL and reflect on the process of shifting teacher practice.

Friday: A weekly PBL news roundup, with a few of our favorite articles, blog posts, websites, and other resources we’ve run across the past week.

More topics:

As you can tell, posting five days a week will mean many more topics will come up in our blog. We’ve always posted information and guidance about how to do PBL well, and in the past year we’ve written a lot about our new model for Gold Standard PBL. But now we’ll be able to expand to many aspects of PBL and related issues –
some of which might be controversial or push your thinking – such as:

• The in-the-trenches challenges of making PBL a regular part of classroom practice, since PBL is not just another tool in a teacher’s toolbox; it’s a complex new approach that confronts many current beliefs about what and how students should learn.
• Education policy issues and how they impact PBL.
• How PBL can advance equity for students who are furthest from educational opportunity.
• New technology tools and resources for teachers and students.
• What research has to tell us, from our former director John Mergendoller.
• International efforts to advance high-quality PBL.

More voices – including yours?

As you also can tell from the above list, you’ll be hearing from lots of new people, both within and outside BIE. There will be more diversity of roles, viewpoints, experience, geography, and so on.

You too are invited to send us suggestions, ideas, and resources you’d like us to consider spotlighting in the BIE blog – as long as they’re connected to PBL. Or perhaps you’d like to write a guest post? Please enter your suggestions in the comments below, or contact us directly at blog@bie.org.

So we look forward to seeing you here often, to find out what’s new on our bigger, better, etc. blog!

To get updates and follow along, subscribe to BIE’s RSS feed, which is available on the main blog page. We’ll be posting blog updates on all our social media channels, such as: Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Edmodo, YouTube and LinkedIn.