An October 2006 article in Partnership for 21^st Century Skills reported on deficiencies of young people entering the workforce. This article states, “applied skills such as teamwork, critical thinking, and communication are essential for success at work.” Global PBL projects provide students opportunities to work on these essential 21^st century skills that will be required when they enter the workforce. In addition to the benefits provided by PBL projects, Global PBL projects allow students to experience multicultural understanding of their world. Through Global PBL projects students learn to understand the commonalities and diversities between them and their global peers.  Global projects provide many challenges for the educator.

The first, and often the biggest, obstacle is TIME. Teachers are always pressed for time. Project-based learning takes even more time, both in terms of planning and instructional time that would be needed to prepare students for the project.  

Learning today is mandated by state content standards. I don’t see how we could find the time for a global project that was just technology. I don’t see how I could justify a project that just taught technology skills. A few years back our district directed us to teach technology as a tool. This means that students learn about technology as they are using it to meet state standards.  

Time zones are a challenge in global PBL projects. Most of my students don’t have internet access at home. We do have an after school program that might be able to allow students to use school computers until 5:30 p.m. and our technology rep allows students in the lab before school from 7:30-8:00 a.m.  That might bridge he gap if the other class had more flexibility.   

Language would be another challenge. Many of my students are second language learners. They can speak Spanish but they don’t know how to write it. It seems that Spanish is a very diverse language. I had a parent from Cuba tell me it was easier for her to understand English than the Spanish spoken by many of the other parents of our students.  Since most of my students are still learning English, I think I would need to find another class of English speakers for my young students. 

My administration does not know or support project-based learning (local or global). Staff development of both teachers and administrators would be necessary to solve that challenge. It would also serve the added benefit of having another teacher at my school or in the district to work with.  

To solve these problems it would take a lot of perseverance on the part of the teacher. I think that for my young students and my expertise, we need practice with PBL projects before we expand to global PBL projects.