This spring the Center for Project-Based Learning (CPBL) is launching an advisory board made up of thought leaders from around the country, bringing a range of valuable perspectives that will advance the center’s position as a national hub for research and professional development related to project-based learning (PBL) in higher education.
“We’re really excited to start working with this group of people,” says Kris Wobbe, director of the Center for Project-Based Learning. “I’m hoping that their collective experience will provide ideas that can help us leverage the expertise that we have and disseminate it more broadly.”
Since the CPBL began in 2016 it has tapped WPI faculty and staff to draw on their PBL expertise to present workshops, trainings, and other resources to colleges and universities throughout the United States and around the globe.
The schools that have engaged with the center to establish or expand the use of project-based learning in their curricula represent the broad range of institutions delivering post-secondary education. Of the more than 200 schools that the center has worked with to date, 17% are community colleges and 20% are liberal arts colleges. Only 10% are other polytechnic institutions.
While Wobbe is often asked why the center shares the recipe for WPI’s “secret sauce”—our distinctive project-based approach—she doesn’t see the CPBL’s clients as competitors. Instead, she sees the center’s work as a contribution to a better future.
“I really believe that project-based learning is one of the best ways to educate students to handle a complex, quickly changing world full of problems. And I think we’ll all be better off for having more people equipped to deal thoughtfully with today’s world,” she says.
