Of all the Project Based Teaching Practices in our model for Gold Standard PBL, “Engage & Coach” feels like the hardest to pin down. It’s not as concrete as, say, “Scaffold Student Learning” or “Align to Standards.” In BIE’s Project Based Teaching Rubric we describe some of the indicators for best practices for “Engage & Coach” in terms of:

• Setting goals for the project
• Motivating students
• Working closely enough with students to be able to identify when they need support, redirection, encouragement, and celebration

Think of coaching in PBL as the kinds of things the coach of a sports team does. The rubric reflects two senses of “engage” – one is to engage with students, the other is to engage students in their learning.