Evaluation of the Project Method in Education

Though not exactly identified with other current conceptions in education such as interest, motivation supervised study and socialized recitation, it is more or less indebted to all of them. It implies most of what is best in these ideas. Interest is essential to all learning. Without it there can be no education in the true sense. Interest focuses in the set aim and this latter is supplied by the project. The experience which goes with purposeful activity is very important in the training of a child. Motivated work is interest aroused by holding up to the child some set purpose for satisfying a certain need. This, too, goes hand in hand with the project. From what has been seen of the Project Method in classroom work it is evident that.it has come to stay. It is not to be looked upon as a fad to be thrown aside for any other new comer. It is a principle which builds up into one great whole such concepts as individual differences, motivation, transfer and socialization. It is the natural method of learning, whose basic conception is that the greater part of human learning takes place while pursuing conscious ends. Inductive and deductive thinking go hand in hand. Inductive, in the search for solutions, deductive in applying knowledge already gained to the present situation. As Hosie says This method is rather the basis for a technique than the technique itself . It makes our chief concern, not subject matter but the child. Subjects will be taught better than ever before if looked upon as so many different means of developing the child