“Well, we did our project.” It was my third project debrief meeting of the morning with classroom teachers new to Project Based Learning, and it was the third time our conversation had begun this way. I replied, “So, you were able to implement the project you wrote during your PBL 101 workshop. How do you feel it went overall?” “Really well—we learned a lot. We revised our project as we went. Our students did a great job presenting at the end, but I think we were all relieved to go back to business as usual when it was over.”

“Business as usual.” My heart sinks when I hear these words. As an instructional coach and National Faculty member for BIE, I often work with teachers to support their development and implementation of projects. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for teachers just starting their PBL journey to view projects as an event rather than a philosophy for meaningfully engaging students with content.