Project-Based Learning: Motivations, Implementation, and Impacts

Keynote Address

ZSR 404 (Auditorium)
3:30PM-4:15PM

Richard Vaz, Director, Center for Project-Based Learning Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI)

In this interactive lecture, Richard Vaz, Director of the Center for Project-Based Learning at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, will introduce project-based learning (PBL) as a strategy for helping students develop key skills and abilities such as critical thinking, communication, teamwork, and creative problem-solving. He’ll help us explore how PBL fits into the landscape of higher education, look at examples of PBL across the curriculum, and discuss results from a study looking at long-term impacts of PBL on graduates.

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Faculty Panel

ZSR 404 (Auditorium)
4:15PM-5:00PM

Claudia Kairoff, Professor of English
Rowie Kirby-Straker, Assistant Teaching Professor of Communication
Alan Brown, Associate Professor of Education
Phoebe Zerwick, Associate Professor of the Practice of Journalism
Paúl Pauca, Professor of Computer Science

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Reception

ZSR 666, Wilson Wing (TLC Lounge)
5:00PM-6:00PM

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Richard Vaz oversaw the expansion of WPI’s Global Projects Program from 18 locations in 2006 to 46 locations in 2015, including new programs in Africa, the Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe. In that time, Vaz helped drive an increase in student participation in off-campus project programs, from 40 percent to over 70 percent, and a doubling of faculty participation in those programs. He oversees efforts to evaluate and enhance the quality of WPI’s interdisciplinary research project requirement; from 2012 to 2014, he directed a major study evaluating the long-term impacts of 38 years’ worth of project work by WPI alumni. In 2015, he led the development and delivery of WPI’s first Institute on Project-Based Learning, an initiative to help other colleges and universities make progress implementing project-based learning on their campuses.