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Project Method

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 PROJECT METHOD

MICHAEL KNOLL

IN: ENCYCLOPEDIA OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY AND PHILOSOPHY, ED. C.D. PHILLIPS.

THOUSEND OAKS, CA: SAGE (2014), PP. 665-669.

The project method, also discussed under headings like project work, project approach, and
project-based learning, is one of the standard teaching methods. It is a sub-form of action-
centered and student-directed learning and an enterprise in which children engage in practical
problem solving for a certain period of time. Projects, for example, may consist of building a
motor boat, designing a playground, or producing a video film. For the most part, projects are
initiated by the teacher but as far as possible they are planned and executed by the students
themselves, individually or in groups. In project work, the students generate tangible products
that frequently transcend disciplinary boundaries and are typically displayed to the general public
on parents days or at school fairs. Contrary to traditional methods, projects focus on applying, not
imparting, specific knowledge or skills, and more rigorously than lecture, demonstration, or
recitation, they aim at the enhancement of intrinsic motivation, independent thinking, self-esteem,
and social responsibility.

Origins in Europe
Historically, the project method emerged in 1577 when master builders founded the Accademia di
San Lucca in Rome to advance their social standing by developing their profession into a science
and improve the education of their apprentices by offering lessons in the theory and history of
architecture, in mathematics, geometry, and perspective. To bridge the gap between theory and
practice, science and reality, the architects subsequently expanded their repertoire beyond teacher-
centered methods and transferred their daily work of designing buildings from the studio to the
academy so that the students acquired, through learning by doing and simulating real life
situations, already at school the experience and dexterity they later needed as professionals. These
beginnings indicate that the project method – like the experiment of the scientist, the case study of
the lawyer, and the sand-box exercise of the staff officer – has its origin in the academization of a
profession and that the concept of teaching by projects is not the result of abstract philosophical
deliberations, for instance, of Rousseau, Froebel, or Dewey but of practical thinking of vocational
education teachers who tried to activate their students’ minds and make their training interesting,
lively, and, as far as possible, authentic and useful.
It took, however, more than 150 years and the transfer from Italy to France that the
project work evolved from a sporadic and voluntary event for few people to a recurring and
compulsory part of the curriculum for all students. Indeed, only in 1763 the advanced students of
the Académie Royale d’Architecture in Paris got regularly design problems (now known as
“projets”) to demonstrate that they were fit to apply the principles of composition and construction
they had previously learned. From the start, the project method served two functions: first, to
supplement the bookish and theoretical training of the students, and second, to test their artistic and
practical capabilities. In fact, the most difficult, and most cherished, part of the final examination
the French students of architecture and, since 1829, of engineering (at the École Centrale des Arts
et Manufacture) had to cope with was the imaginative design of fountains, churches, and palaces,
of turbines, cranes, and bridges.

Three Basic Models

Studying the best European practices, William B. Rogers, the founder of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT), discovered the “project” at Karlsruhe and Zürich and, in 1865, was
the first to adopt it as a new method of instruction in the U.S.. In 1876, his successor as president
of the MIT, John D. Runkle, noticed a disturbing absence of manual skills among his engineering
students and established a school of mechanical arts to remedy the defect. More importantly, he
propagated the introduction of manual training as a vital branch of the common school curriculum
and thus, at the same time, paved the way for the dissemination of the project method top down
from the college to the school and, eventually, the kindergarten. During the four decades that
followed, notable educators established three distinct types of project work which have retained
their appeal and importance until today.
The linear model, developed in 1879 by Calvin M. Woodward, professor of mechanical
engineering at Washington University and founder of the first Manual Training School in St.
Louis, complied with the main didactic principle that teaching to be successful has to progress
from the easy, simple, and known to the difficult, complex, and unknown. At the Manual Training
High School the classes in handicraft and mechanical drawing were therefore conducted in two
steps. Following the “Russian system,” the students initially learned the alphabet of tools and
techniques by passing through a series of basic exercises, then they got time to carry out
“projects.” Woodward regarded the projects as synthetic exercises. The skills the students had
earlier learned in isolation and under direction of the teacher, they now applied in context and on
their own, for example, by designing and making book racks, fire tools, or steam engines. In this
way, the training advanced systematically from principles to applications, or – in Woodward’s
words – from “instruction” to “construction.” At the close of the fourth year, the manual training
course was completed by what he called the “project for graduation.”
The holistic model, put forward around 1900 by Charles R. Richards, professor of Manual
training at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, and influenced by Froebel and
Dewey’s concept of active occupations, replaced Woodward’s consecutive system of instruction
and construction by an integrative system of “natural wholes” so that the students could work
together and participate in the planning and executing of the project right away. Proposed by the
teacher, pupils of the Horace Mann Elementary School decided, for example, to reconstruct a
Greek temple. Having planned the project and acquired the necessary skills, each child made a
column, a capital, and a gable out of clay, as well as a segment for the foundations, the wall, and
the roof. Evaluating the results, the students picked the best pieces of work, cast them in plaster,
and put them together in a temple three yards long. According to Richards, the pupils were
motivated by the fact that they cooperated in a meaningful way and obtained at the appropriate
moment that knowledge and skill they needed to achieve their goal. Consequently, “instruction”
did not – as with Woodward – precede the project, but was an integral part of “construction.”
The universal model, propagated by William H. Kilpatrick of Columbia’s Teachers College
in his world famous article “The Project Method” of 1918, defined the project broadly calling it a
“hearty purposeful act.” Whatever children undertook, as long as they did it with purpose, it was a
project. No aspect of valuable life should be excluded. For Kilpatrick, the project was not a
specific method restricted to manual training and certain stages of teaching but was a general
method that could be used all the time, in all subjects, and comprise all forms of behaving and
learning, from making a dress, solving a mathematical problem, and writing a letter to memorizing
a poem, watching a sunset, and listening to a sonata. Apart from reading, writing, and arithmetic,
there was no prescribed curriculum, and the project work did not even require active doing.
Children who presented a drama realized a project, as did those children who sat in the audience
and enjoyed the play. Ideally, the project was proposed and carried through by the students
themselves, i.e. without any help from the teacher; for only if the students got “freedom for
practice” and exercised “practice with satisfaction,” could they increase their self-confidence, self-
reliance, self-efficacy and improve their ability to initiate, plan, execute, and judge – abilities
Kilpatrick believed were essential for the preservation and advancement of democracy.
Kilpatrick’s Failure and America’s Democratic Mission
From the outset, the third model – unlike the first two – has been heatedly disputed among
conservative as well as progressive educators. Even the two colleagues at Teachers College whose
psychologies of learning Kilpatrick used to buttress his position raised their voices and objected to
his broad definition and his child-centered concept. Edward L. Thorndike and John Dewey,
commonly characterized as proponents of opposing educational philosophies, unanimously warned
of employing Kilpatrick’s project method as the only or even major teaching device since learning
limited to incidental and instrumental actions was likely to be too disjointed, scattered, and
haphazard to provide the children with the continuous development they needed for a thorough
mastery of the fundamentals and a deeper understanding of the issues and subjects involved in the
project.
Generally speaking, and summarizing the criticism put forward by educators such as
Ernest Horn, W.W. Charters, Boyd H. Bode, Ernest E. Bayles, Philip W. Jackson, and Ellen C.
Lagemann, Kilpatrick’s project method had four serious shortcomings: (1) it accepted as valid only
the momentary interests of the children, and claimed that high intrinsic motivation would
guarantee best results in learning; (2) it offered no practical solutions for the everyday business of
the teacher pertaining to subject matter, classroom management, and student performance; (3) it
propagated a concept of freedom which encouraged the development of selfish and individualistic
attitudes rather than the – intended – formation of democratic and social virtues; and (4) it was a
philosophy of education while pretending to be a method of teaching, promising help, advice, and
guidance. In the late 1920’s, Kilpatrick recognized that he had made a mistake by extending the
project beyond its traditional sphere and quietly refrained from using the term for his educational
program. Despite scathing criticism by Dewey and all important American educators of the past
and present, and despite the fact that Kilpatrick’s concept has never successfully been
implemented, his article of 1918 is still world-wide regarded as the classic text of the project
approach and as the best statement of putting Dewey’s educational theory into practice.
In the U.S., the call for practical learning was part of the national creed. Since the mid-
nineteenth century, Americans considered learning by book and rote as “aristocratic,” whereas they
regarded learning by training and doing as “democratic” because it utilized the experiences of the
productive classes, facilitated the advancement of practically inclined children, and promoted the
formation of socially responsible citizens. Like laboratory and field work, the project method
seemed to fulfill perfectly the public desire for life activity and equal opportunity for all.
No wonder that the project once again crossed the Atlantic and was fiercely debated
especially in countries struggling to overcome their autocratic or fascist past. In the 1920’s, Soviet
educators appreciated the project as the ideal approach to accelerate the transition from Czarist
feudalism to democratic socialism, but in 1931 they were silenced when the Central Committee of
the Communist Party intervened and forbade the implementation of project curricula, declaring
that project work would disagree with the party’s notion of systematic teaching and dogmatic
indoctrination. Nearly 50 years later, in connection with the student rebellion, a powerful
movement emerged in West Germany and, by explicitly mentioning Dewey’s “Democracy and
Education” and Kilpatrick’s “Project Method,” identified the project taken in its wide sense as the
one and only means to vitalize learning, humanize teaching, democratize school, and transform
society. The movement rapidly spread to Denmark, the Netherlands, and Great Britain. In the late
1980’s, the project broadly defined experienced a revival in the U.S. where the method narrowly
defined had outlasted the crisis provoked by Kilpatrick in technical, agricultural, and science
education.

Current Concepts and Empirical Findings

Today, the project method is being discussed primarily under two headings. As project approach,
propagated by Lillian G. Katz and Sylvia C. Chard, the method refers to any “in-depth
investigation of a real-world topic worthy of a student’s attention and effort,” (Chard 2011) and is
taken up and carried through rather independently by a class, a group, or an individual student. In
preschool and kindergarten, the project could be used as the only method, but in elementary
school, high school and college, it has to be supplemented by systematic instruction. Without
knowing it, Katz and Chard follow in the footsteps of Woodward and his linear model. While
systematic instruction addresses the deficiencies of students and ensures the acquisition of skills,
they say, project work builds on the proficiency of students and stands for the unaided application
of skills acquired earlier. But unlike Woodward, Katz and Chard do not confine the project to
manual work and construction, i.e. the students are allowed to grapple with any real phenomenon
they cannot explore and attend to through internet and library research alone.
Developed in particular by teams around Phyllis C. Blumenfeld and John R.
Mergendoller, project-based learning differs from the project approach in that it follows Richards’
and Dewey’s holistic model and integrates both phases, i.e. the acquisition of skills and their
application, into one single process. Frequently, the phrase project-based learning is
interchangeably used with problem-based learning, but – in accordance with Dewey – one should
clearly distinguish between both concepts. Whereas problem-based learning is inquiry-centered
and restricted to abstract problem solving, project-based learning is production-centered and
requires the use of theoretical as well as practical problem solving strategies. There are still
educators who adhere to Kilpatrick’s child-centered project method, yet in most cases they
advocate projects that – although “allowing for some degree of student ‘voice and choice’” – are
“carefully planned, managed, and assessed to help students learn key academic content, practice
21st Century Skills (such as collaboration, communication & critical thinking), and create high-
quality, authentic products & presentations.” (Buck Institute for Education, 2012)
Referring specifically to Dewey, Vygotsky, and Jerome Bruner, all modern educators
situate the project method within a constructivist-based theoretical framework. They regard
students as active agents engaged in authentic tasks, solving real problems, and generating
knowledge and skills in dynamic interaction with their physical and social environment, thus
creating meaning of themselves and the surrounding world. They acknowledge, however, that the
constructivist approach must be balanced by a concept of structured teaching and direct, strong
instructional guidance.
According to recent research, project work meets, to some degree, the expectations of its
proponents in that the method improves – besides factual learning – the students’ motivation, self-
confidence, and critical thinking as well as their problem solving, decision making, investigative,
collaborative skills. But there is evidence, too, that there exist barriers hindering the achievement
of the objectives intended and striven for since neither students nor teachers always fulfill the
necessary premises and qualifications completely. Teachers, for example, have difficulties to
suggest and design challenging projects, monitor progress, give feedback and support when and
where is needed, to create and maintain an atmosphere of study and work, and lastly develop tools
for assessing the results. Correspondingly, students often feel ill prepared and overwhelmed by the
complexity of the tasks at hand, i.e. they have not a clue how to define the problem, choose the
proper methodology, find the necessary resources, revise plans and procedures if appropriate, keep
deadlines and present the results fittingly. After all, projects can fail since few students are
constantly disposed to self-directed, creative, innovative learning. In principle, they enjoy the
freedom of action the project method offers them but, as in traditional settings, they frequently
employ strategies of bargaining, shirking, and playing dumb in order to lessen, avoid or even resist
the additional time, energy, and imagination required by project work.
Michael Knoll

See also Constructivism, Dalton Plan, John Dewey, Problem Based Learning, Progressive
Education and Its Critics, Vocational Education.

FURTHER READINGS
Bleeke, M. H. (1968). The project: From a device for teaching to a principle of
curriculum. Diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison.
 Chard, S. C. (2011). The project approach. Retrieved November 30, 2012, from
http://www.projectapproach.org/project_approach.php.
Knoll, M. (1997). The project method: Its vocational education origin and international
development. Retrieved November 30, 2012, from
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JITE/v34n3/Knoll.html.
Knoll, M. (2012). “I had made a mistake”: William H. Kilpatrick and the project
method. Teachers College Record 114 (2), 45 pages.
https://independent.academia.edu/MichaelKnoll
Buck Institute for Education (2012). Project-based learning for the 21st century.
Retrieved November 30, 2012, from http://www.bie.org/about/what_is_pbl.
Thomas, J. W. (2000). A review of research on project-based learning. Retrieved
November 30, 2012, from http://173.226.50.98/sites/default/files/news/pbl_research2.pdf.

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