Project Based Learning Step 7: Public Product
Inspire students by having them share their work with an audience beyond the classroom.
Empower students with authentic tasks, purposes and audiences.
Authentic and Public Audience
The more public the audience, the more students will care about their work. If it's something that will just be turned in to the teacher, they student will typically not be inspired to do great work unless grades are important to them. However, if their work is shared with an audience they care about, they will create work that they are proud to share. The motivation shifts from receiving a grade to being proud of what they have created.Audiences to Consider
There are different degrees of authentic audiences. Feel free to start with audiences that are easier to manage and coordinate and then, as you gain experience and confidence with this, expand beyond the walls of your school.- Classmates
- Other classrooms within the school
- The whole student body
- Classrooms in another school in the district
- Parents
- The local community
- Classrooms outside of our district
- State or national contests
- The world
While there are hundreds out there, here are a couple of YouTube videos that dig into the topic of authentic audience for students.
Resources to Help Broaden Audience
- Seesaw--parents
- Schoology--classmates and parents
- Google Hangout--another classroom
- Websites--present to the world (Google Sites)
- Seesaw blog--other classrooms or the world
- Blogger
- Google Hangouts in Education (for Educators)
- Skype for Education
Additional Project Based Learning Resources
Listed below are some additional PBL materials from the Buck Institute to help you on your journey.
