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This newsletter is chock full of Project-Based Learning resources, planning concepts, professional development events, and much much more. We hope you enjoy diving in!

The Learning Adventures Workshop Tour Begins November 1^st!

If PBL is the goal, the question is — How do you get there? How do you sustain student engagement in sophisticated project-based learning? How do you organize curriculum and shape the classroom environment?

Dr. Gary Stager has distilled decades of work with schools and leading professional development like the Constructing Modern Knowledge institutes into a one-day workshop designed to help educators create rich Learning Adventures. This Learning Adventures Approach will show you how to place interdisciplinary projects full of wonder and action at the center of any classroom experience.

After a sold-out workshop in Los Angeles this past June, Gary is hitting the road to bring the Learning Adventures workshops to:

• ​Dedham, MA – November 1^st (Saturday)
• ​Downingtown, PA – November 4^th
• ​Pittsburgh, PA – November 6^th
• ​Chicago, IL – November 7^th
• ​Jersey City, NJ – January 9^th (NYC area)

Don’t miss out! Team discounts are available too!

​Learn more about the Learning Adventures Approach​

What Makes a Good Project?

What if the projects your students remember forever aren't the ones that take the longest, but the ones that are designed to make memories? Gary Stager reveals what transforms mundane assignments into the learning adventures that students will rush to tell you about years later. (Read Eight Elements to Guide Great Project Design)

The Subtlety of Prompt Setting

How do the words you choose when launching a project profoundly shape what students create? Gary Stager reveals why seemingly trivial differences in wording can either constrain student thinking or open infinite possibilities—and why most teachers get it wrong. (Read The Subtlety of Prompt Setting)​

What’s in Your Wunderkammer? (Cabinet of Wonder)

Inspired by Renaissance cabinets of curiosities, this collection of provocative ideas demonstrates how the strangest objects can become seeds for extraordinary student projects. ​(Read What's in Your Wunderkammer?​)

3 Steps to Project-Based Learning

Stop searching for "a PBL" to download from the internet. Gary Stager cuts through the jargon with three foundational steps that will fundamentally change how you think about teaching—starting with why project-based learning isn't a noun.(Read Three Steps to Project-Based Learning)​

The Project Paradox: Teaching in the Spirit of the Project Approach

This candid reflection explores the tension between wanting learners to experience particular technologies and trusting the open-ended process that truly empowers them. (Read The Project Paradox)​

Project-Zero Impact Report

Harvard’s Project-Zero has long been regarded as a guiding light in project-based learning. Carried out over three years by Ellen Winner, a long-time senior researcher at Project Zero, Project Zero and its Impact is based on in-depth interviews with over 200 educators—from every continent except Antarctica—many of whom report having been deeply changed in their teaching philosophy and practice by their encounters with Project Zero.

​Download and read the Project-Zero Impact Report​

The Language of Computation – Constructing Modern Knowledge in Reggio Emilia

Super earlybird pricing is now in effect for our June 15-19, 2026 institute in the “city of children,” Reggio Emilia, Italy. Be inspired by the convergence of project-based learning, computational power, and the remarkable wisdom of the Reggio Emilia approach in our five-day learning-by-doing institute in this dreamlike setting.

​Learn what makes this event so special​

Off to China & Japan!

Gary and Sylvia are heading to Shanghai, China and then Tokyo, Japan, first to keynote the Association of China and Mongolia International Schools Technology Conference at Shanghai American School on October 17 & 18th, 2025. Our keynote, "Making, the Future" incorporates themes of how making and design improves student engagement, and how schools can look to the future with these principles in mind. Come say hi at the conference, or if you would like to connect with us on this trip, just reply to this email.

See you soon —

We hope this collection makes a positive impact on your day. We'd love to hear from you or see you at an event. Write back and let us know what is resonating with you in these extraordinary times!

Gary Stager and Sylvia Martinez
Constructing Modern Knowledge