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Does Interdisciplinary and heterogeneous PBL change with community input?

The focus here is to see how the community can support PBL, and if PBL can support the community. I have some thoughts regarding this question, but first take a look at this fantastic blog article on PBL and parents in the community.

The Whole child blog

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Interdisciplinary and Heterogeneous Settings: The community focus

PBL encourages outreach to the community, and in return enriches the school experience by bringing the community into the school. But how does interdisciplinary and heterogeneous settings help that experience? 

If every academic teacher were to have inquiry based projects with due dates and exhibitions, there would be a mess of scheduling problems as well as chaos for students around the campus. Instead, projects should be interdisciplinary and reach across the curriculum and even grade levels. The community, especially the professional and business community, would be far more impressed by the fact that students brought several skill and knowledge sets together. 

Just as communities are fragmented by income level and educational background, so too are our students. Heterogeneous settings inspire the community to look beyond those differences and come together as a real community. If the world is quickly becoming a melting pot of people, ideas, languages, and beliefs, so too should our schools. A PBL environment that is heterogeneous allows the students, programs, and community to grow. 
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