7 steps to a well-planned PBL course
A guided wizard that helps teachers build a complete project course: driving question, phases, milestones, team setup, assessment and live audit feedback. Designed around Krajcik & Shin (Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences, 2014) and the eight classic PBL building blocks () — so every course automatically meets international PBL standards.
Lineær workflow — én skærm pr. trin, ingen overspring.
Driving question
The teacher writes the project's central question. AI suggests open-ended rephrasings.
Phases & timeline
Define 3–6 phases with start/end dates. The designer validates against the school year and holidays.
Teams & roles
Drag pupils into groups, assign roles (lead, designer, presenter). Syncs to the project wall.
Milestones & meetings
Schedule mentoring meetings, peer reviews and milestones — auto-added to the calendar.
Live audit panel
The quality check the system runs continuously and flags issues — missing roles, short phases, no assessment.
Timetable integration
When the course is saved, the week can be applied with apply_pbl_week_template in one click.
Assessment & rubric
Step 6 enforces an assessment rubric — Wiliam (2018) shows backwards-design is the single strongest predictor of academic outcomes.
In the classroom
Teacher team
Two-three teachers co-design an interdisciplinary course — the designer handles the logistics.
Substitute / new teacher
Reuses an earlier course as a template instead of starting from scratch.
Headteacher
Uses the audit panel to make sure every course meets the school's PBL standard.
For teachers and for school leadership
The designer is built so no teacher can start a course that doesn't meet PBL fidelity. AI helps phrase the driving question, suggests phase lengths from history, and warns if assessment or public product is missing. The result: teachers spend their time on pedagogy, not logistics.
- AI suggestions for the driving question
- Auto-scheduling of meetings and milestones
- Reuse previous courses as templates
The audit panel on every course gives leadership a quality guarantee: either the course meets klassisk PBL or the system blocks publication to the wall. Hattie (2023) reports an effect size of d=0.61 for problem-based learning when implemented with fidelity — that requires structural control, which the designer provides.
- Quality check blocks incomplete courses
- Leadership sees audit status per class per subject
- School-wide PBL standard can be tuned centrally
Works with
Research base
The designer is built on PBL research and assessment theory.
- Krajcik, J. S., & Shin, N. (2014). Project-Based Learning (in The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences, 2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press source
- Krajcik, J. S., & Shin, N. (2014). Project-Based Learning (in The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences, 2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press source
- Condliffe, B. et al. (2017). Project-Based Learning: A Literature Review. MDRC, Lucas Education Research source
- Duke, N. K., Halvorsen, A.-L., Strachan, S. L., Kim, J., & Konstantopoulos, S. (2021). Putting PjBL to the Test: The Impact of Project-Based Learning on Second Graders' Social Studies and Literacy Learning and Motivation. American Educational Research Journal, 58(1) source
- Hattie, J. (2023). Visible Learning: The Sequel — Effect sizes for problem-based learning and metacognitive strategies. Routledge source
Frequently asked questions
Ready to try it?
Get a free demo for your school — we'll show you the whole platform in 30 minutes.