How Project-Based Learning Advances DEI
Educators looking for practical ways to support Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in their classrooms don’t need to look far. Project-Based Learning (PBL), when implemented thoughtfully, is one of the most powerful instructional models available to promote voice, access, and belonging.
This article explores how PBL can help educators live out their DEI values in tangible ways, and offers suggestions for making DEI part of the project design process.
1. PBL Encourages Voice and Perspective
What it looks like:
Students explore real-world issues that affect them and their communities. They generate their own driving questions. They choose how to present their findings through film, writing, art, or action.
Why it matters:
DEI is about valuing diverse experiences and identities. In PBL, students aren’t just absorbing knowledge. They are producing and shaping it. Their voices matter, and the classroom reflects the variety of ways people make meaning and take action.
2. PBL Supports Equity Through Differentiation
What it looks like:
In a well-structured project, students work at different levels of readiness while contributing to a shared outcome. Supports (e.g., scaffolds, feedback loops, flexible timelines) are built in from the start, not added later for those who struggle.
Why it matters:
Equity in PBL means that students are not expected to fit into a narrow mold. Instead, the project flexes to fit their needs while still aiming for high standards. Every student is challenged. Every student is supported.
3. Team Formation Can Promote Inclusion
What it looks like:
Teachers use intentional DEI criteria when forming student teams of four: balanced gender, varied backgrounds, diverse abilities, and complementary interests. Students learn to collaborate across difference.
Why it matters:
Most PBL literature emphasizes collaboration, but says little about how to form collaborative groups. This is a missed opportunity. With just a bit of planning, teachers can use team formation as a tool to ensure inclusion, reduce isolation, and build empathy.
Suggestion: Before grouping students, review school or district DEI goals and ask: How can I form teams that reflect and support these values?
4. Community-Connected Projects Expand Access and Belonging
What it looks like:
Projects include interviews with community members, field research in students’ neighborhoods, or presentations to local audiences.
Why it matters:
When students see their communities as worthy of study, and their voices as worthy of being heard, they feel a greater sense of identity and belonging. DEI in PBL connects learning to lived experience and shows students that their world matters.
Why This Article Matters
DEI is often seen as a policy or a training module. But it’s just as much a way of teaching. PBL aligns naturally with DEI because it centers student agency, values collaboration, and opens up multiple paths to success.
Teachers don’t need to choose between high-quality PBL and strong equity practices. Done right, they are the same thing.
When educators use DEI criteria to form teams, frame projects, and assess success, they build classrooms where every student can thrive, and every voice can be heard.