The Resources

PBLWorks

The country's largest project-based-learning trainer. Every project ends in a public product.

Related authors: Suzie Boss, John Larmer, and John Mergendoller.

• Setting the Standard for Project Based Learning
• Project Based Teaching: How to Create Rigorous and Engaging Learning Experiences

ThinkCERCA

A writing method for every subject: claim, evidence, reasoning, counterargument, audience.

High Tech High

Student projects

A school network known for interdisciplinary projects, fieldwork, and public exhibitions. Its collection of student work gives high-school educators concrete examples of authentic products and investigations. Co-founder Larry Rosenstock helped shape this approach.

High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Graduate education and professional learning grounded in the work of High Tech High schools. Resources help educators design projects, support deeper learning, and improve schools through collaborative inquiry.

• Unboxed podcast and classroom stories

Edutopia

Project-Based Learning

Edutopia, an initiative of the George Lucas Educational Foundation, shares practical articles and classroom examples for designing, facilitating, and assessing project-based learning. These high-school starting points address student leadership and the project process.

• Student-led PBL: a high-school yearbook classroom
• A step-by-step high-school project example

Right Question Institute

Question Formulation Technique

Founded by Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana, Right Question Institute helps students generate, improve, and prioritize their own questions. Its Question Formulation Technique supports student-directed inquiry, research, and project-based learning across high-school subjects.

• QFT in a 12th-grade classroom
• Make Just One Change: Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions (Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana, Harvard Education Press)
• QFT with primary sources: lessons and free learning modules
• QFT professional learning through Harvard Graduate School of Education
• Listen: Harvard EdCast, Make Just One Change

Some free resources require an RQI account.

Brains.org

Dr. Kathie Nunley / Layered Curriculum

Originally developed for high-school classrooms, Kathie Nunley's Layered Curriculum combines student choice, demonstrated understanding, and increasingly complex thinking. Practical guidance and sample secondary lessons help teachers differentiate instruction across subjects.

• Middle- and high-school lesson plans
• How Layered Curriculum works

New Tech Network

A school network supporting project-based learning, a collaborative school culture, and assessment of academic knowledge and broader learning outcomes. High-school profiles and resources help educators connect projects with schoolwide practice.

Big Picture Learning

Supports learning organized around students' interests, relationships, and real-world experiences. Its high-school model connects advisory, internships, individual learning plans, and exhibitions of student work.

• International Big Picture Learning Credential

Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center

A high school and professional development center sharing approaches to student engagement, meaningful learning, and school improvement. Its work helps educators strengthen learning environments for young people poorly served by conventional schooling.

EL Education

Models of Excellence

A collection of student work that helps teachers and students examine quality, critique drafts, and improve projects through revision. Focus on grades 9-12 examples. Ron Berger's work helped establish the collection.

National Writing Project

A network supporting writing instruction and teacher learning. High-school educators can draw on its work in argument writing, source-based writing, and writing for public audiences, including the College, Career, and Community Writers Program.

Project Zero

Thinking Routines

Harvard's Project Zero offers short routines that help students develop questions, examine evidence, consider perspectives, and make their thinking visible. Secondary teachers can use them to deepen discussion, inquiry, and reflection during projects.

C3 Teachers

Social-studies inquiry resources organized around compelling questions, evidence, argument, and informed action. Its high-school materials help teachers design investigations, and its collaboration with RQI connects this work with student-generated questions.

• C3 Teachers and RQI: Questions, Frameworks, and Classrooms

Library of Congress

Teaching with Primary Sources

Primary documents, photographs, maps, and teaching tools for evidence-based investigations. High-school history, civics, and humanities teachers can pair these collections with RQI's question-formulation resources supported by the Teaching with Primary Sources program.

• QFT primary-source lessons and learning modules

Digital Inquiry Group

Formerly Stanford History Education Group, DIG provides lessons and assessments that help secondary students investigate historical questions, evaluate sources, and support claims with evidence. Its Civic Online Reasoning materials teach practical online verification skills.

• Civic Online Reasoning: high-school module

Classroom materials are free with an account.

Modern Classrooms Project

Free training and classroom tools for blended, self-paced, mastery-based teaching. High-school examples show how these structures can support project milestones, student independence, and demonstrations of learning.

• Integrating the model with PBL at FlexTech High School

Learner-Centered Collaborative

Tools, professional learning, and school partnerships that help educators strengthen student agency, authentic learning, and meaningful assessment. Its high-school work connects classroom practice with schedules, internships, and presentations of learning.

• Synergy at Mineola: a high-school example

UP for Learning

Helps young people and adults work together to investigate learning conditions and improve schools. Its approach combines student voice, participatory action research, and shared decision-making, with practical applications in high schools.

Korda Institute for Teaching

Helps teachers design projects in which students solve real problems for community organizations. Its coaching and courses draw on a teaching approach demonstrated at the Mastery School of Hawken, a high school.

• Project-design course

reDesign

Free teaching tools and Future9 competencies

A learning-design lab that shares tools, protocols, and competency frameworks for student-centered, competency-based learning. Its Future9 competencies and downloadable teaching activities help high-school teachers plan projects, build performance tasks, and support demonstrations of learning.

• Future9 competencies
• CBE Catalyst Shift Series webinars
• Documentary Project Playbook, an Educational Video Center adaptation (Google Doc)

The CBE Resource Hub is free to access. Some CBE Catalyst offerings require a paid membership, so the wider library is not entirely free.

Journalism for All

High-school curriculum by Katina Paron

A free high-school journalism curriculum from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, developed by editor and journalism educator Katina Paron. Its lessons help a teacher start a newsroom in any public high school and give students a real reporting audience.

Free to access. Register on the site to use the full curriculum.

NYC Youth Journalism Coalition

A citywide coalition bringing journalism into every public high school.

• Journalism for All high-school curriculum

Student Press Law Center

Legal help and press-freedom advocacy for student journalists.

Journalism Education Association

The largest community of journalism teachers, with curriculum and training.

News Literacy Project

Free lessons that teach students to tell what is true from what is not.

Youth Communication

New York youth magazines that pay teenagers for published writing.

National Scholastic Press Association

Supports student journalism through publication critiques, conventions, workshops, and recognition of strong work. Useful for high-school newspapers, yearbooks, magazines, and other student media.

Columbia Scholastic Press Association

Columbia University's scholastic journalism organization offers education, publication evaluation, and recognition for student journalists and advisers. Its programs help high-school publications strengthen reporting, editing, design, and editorial practice.

Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY

Newmark J+

The professional-development division (J+) of CUNY's journalism school runs training and initiatives for the field, including the Journalism for All program that supports public high-school teachers starting journalism programs.

• Free Journalism for All high-school curriculum

The Bell

Students report and produce their own journalism, on video and on the radio.

• Miseducation (podcast)
• P.S. Weekly (podcast)

Educational Video Center

New York youth media education, teaching students to make documentaries. Its Youth-Powered Video curriculum and Documentary Project Playbook, both developed by EVC, guide teachers through documentary projects from research to a public screening.

• Documentary Project Playbook (Google Doc)

The original Youth-Powered Video curriculum is a print resource and is often out of stock; the Playbook is EVC's own adaptation. The full curriculum is not a free download.

PBS News Student Reporting Labs

A national program that trains students to report and produce broadcast journalism.

Reel Works

New York City filmmaking programs that pair young people with professional mentors to create original films. Its teen and school programs connect youth voice, storytelling, technical skills, and authentic audiences.

DCTV

Youth Media

New York City youth filmmaking programs where high-school students develop documentary and media-production skills while telling stories that matter to them. A resource for youth voice and learning through completed films.

New York Performance Standards Consortium

Thirty-eight public high schools that graduate students on defended, real-world work in place of most Regents exams.

Related educators: Ann Cook and Phyllis Tashlik.

• Their work on performance assessment and college readiness (CUNY)

Learning Policy Institute

Independent research on performance assessment and deeper learning, much of the evidence this field stands on.

• Linda Darling-Hammond, founding president and Chief Knowledge Officer

Envision Learning Partners

Portfolio Defense

Helps schools design portfolios and evaluated presentations in which students substantiate claims about their learning with authentic work and reflection. Its approach provides practical models for high-school assessment.

Mastery.org

formerly Mastery Transcript Consortium

Digital transcripts and learning records connect demonstrated competencies and authentic student work with high-school reporting and college admissions. Resources help schools communicate learning beyond conventional course grades.

Center for Collaborative Education

Quality Performance Assessment

Guidance and professional learning for designing performance assessments, examining student work, and developing shared judgments about quality. Useful for secondary-school teams building consistent assessment practices.

The linked guide is free by request.

Great Schools Partnership

Assessment and Verification

Practical guidance for defining graduation competencies, developing performance indicators and scoring criteria, and verifying student proficiency. Helps high schools connect instruction, assessment, and reporting.

University of Melbourne

Melbourne Metrics / New Metrics

Australian research partnerships developing assessments, learner profiles, and credentials that recognize complex competencies and broader student learning. Led by Professor Sandra Milligan, this work offers alternatives to relying solely on ranks and test scores.

FairTest

Since 1985, the national advocate for fair and open testing. It keeps the country's running list of test-optional colleges.

Akil Bello

A FairTest analyst and a national voice on standardized testing and college access. He coined the widely used phrase 'highly rejective colleges.'

NACAC

Center for Innovation in College Admission

Research, initiatives, and professional collaboration supporting more equitable college admission systems. Useful for educators and counselors helping students make the transition from high school to further education.

Harvard Graduate School of Education

Making Caring Common

Research and guidance encouraging colleges, high schools, and families to value ethical engagement, civic responsibility, and meaningful student contributions in the admissions process. See the Turning the Tide report.

High Tech High Unboxed

Teachers and students explain how they design authentic projects, support revision, assess learning, and share work publicly. Detailed high-school examples offer practical approaches to deeper learning across subjects.

Start here: How Exhibitions of Learning Came to Lincoln High School

PBL Simplified for Teachers

Magnify Learning

Practical guidance for planning and teaching project-based learning, with teacher interviews and classroom strategies. Explore authentic audiences, inquiry, reflection, and manageable ways to introduce PBL in secondary classrooms.

Start here: How One Chemistry Teacher Brought PBL to Life, Episode 19

• Magnify Learning's free PBL resources

The ThoughtStretchers Podcast

Drew Perkins / ThoughtStretchers Education

Drew Perkins talks with educators and researchers about inquiry, project-based learning, questioning, and deeper learning, weighing research against everyday classroom practice. Formerly the TeachThought Podcast, it helps high-school teachers sharpen how students reason, discuss, and show what they understand.

Start here: Balancing Explicit Instruction with Inquiry-Based Math

The Learner-Centered Collaborative Podcast

Conversations about learner agency, authentic learning, assessment, and school design. High-school examples connect classroom practice with schedules, relationships, exhibitions, and opportunities shaped by student voice.

Start here: Redesigning High School Through Trust, Voice, and Opportunity with Fred Hilgers, Episode 53

Modern Classrooms Project Podcast

Educators and students discuss blended instruction, flexible pacing, mastery, and classroom implementation. Selected high-school episodes offer practical insight into supporting independent learning and listening to students.

Start here: Student Perspective (HS), Episode 258

Modern Math Teacher

Secondary mathematics teacher Kristen Moore explores project-based learning, meaningful mathematical thinking, assessment, and student engagement. Classroom stories help high-school teachers design relevant experiences and refine projects.

Start here: When My Favorite Math Project Stopped Working, Episode 191

Miseducation

The Bell

Student-reported stories investigate inequities and everyday experiences in New York City schools. The Bell's podcast offers educators a direct view of young people's perspectives and examples of student journalism with a public audience.

Start here: Live from SXSW EDU: How Our Reporting is Making a Difference

P.S. Weekly

The Bell and Chalkbeat

High-school audio producers collaborate with Chalkbeat reporters to investigate issues facing New York City students and teachers. Their reporting connects student voice, civic participation, and authentic journalism.

Start here: Live: Student Reporters Reflect on Covering NYC Schools