Unleashing Student Agency with Project-Based Learning

Unleashing Student Agency with Project-Based Learning: How to Design Authentic Experiences That Solve Real-World Problems

By Suzie Boss

Book Details

Product Code: 126032

ISBN: 9781416634775

Release Date: September 2026

Length: 205 pages

Reignite student enthusiasm and agency with meaningful projects that make an impact beyond the classroom.

More than half of U.S. students feel disengaged from school, a disenchantment that increases as they progress from elementary to secondary grades. But project-based learning expert Suzie Boss has seen how students at all levels can reengage through meaningful projects—individual, group, or whole-class—that tap into their passions and make a difference in the world. Careful planning is key! Boss shows how to make such learning experiences both empowering and instructive: a way for students to apply and extend essential content-area understandings while building valuable collaboration, communication, and critical thinking skills.

In Unleashing Student Agency with Project-Based Learning, Boss offers

• Guidance on helping students find worthy problems to solve.
• Instruction on how to design projects and connect students with experts and community allies.
• Detailed descriptions of real student projects, with explanations of the strategies and collaborations that led to student success.

This book will leave you inspired and equipped with the techniques, structures, and resources needed to launch transformative projects that boost students’ sense of themselves as problem-solvers and a positive force in the world.

Table of contents

Introduction

Part I: Designing Real-World Learning

1. How to Find Project-Worthy Problems

2. Designing with Purpose

3. How to Connect Students with Allies, Experts, and Partners

Part II: Students to the Rescue

4. Stronger Communities

5. Citizen Journalists

6. Caring for the Planet

7. Engaged Citizens

8. Righting Wrongs

9. Global Action

Part III: Going Farther

10. Overcoming Challenges

11. Your Next Steps

Resources

Acknowledgments

References

Index

About the Author

About the author

Suzie Boss is a writer and educational consultant from the United States who works with educators around the world interested in shifting to more student-centered, innovative approaches to teaching and learning. She is the author of a dozen books for educators, including Unleashing Student Agency with Project-Based Learning, as well as a longtime contributor to Edutopia, a PBLWorks National Faculty emeritus, and a frequent conference presenter.