PBL Future Labs
Field notes, practical frameworks, and global perspectives for educators building more human, curious, and capable learning communities.
School workshops & coaching
Start with the challenge your team needs to solve. Build something your teachers can use in the classroom.
01 / Project design
Bring a curriculum goal. Develop a project with an authentic question, purposeful milestones and a manageable final product.
Take away: A learning mission and a first teaching sequence.
Enquire about PBL workshops02 / Thinking & assessment
Design a student process portfolio that helps teachers notice understanding, respond to gaps and assess individual contributions.
Take away: A process portfolio plan with clear evidence checkpoints.
Enquire about assessment workshops03 / AI & teacher workflows
Build and test a repeatable workflow for a real planning or resource task, with clear sources and teacher review.
Take away: A tested AI workflow for a recurring teaching task.
Enquire about AI workshopsWho We Serve
We partner with micro-schools, alternative learning programs, home-school networks, and traditional schools to build AI-powered innovation hubs. From a single learning pod to a network of 10,000 students.
Project-based AI innovation hubs designed for small, agile learning communities ready to lead the shift.
Alt learning schools using AI to deepen student-driven inquiry.
Curriculum and coaching for co-ops and families building serious AI fluency through real projects.
Scaled implementations for traditional schools and universities from 100 to 10,000+ students.
Whether you serve 10 learners or 10,000, we build the implementation to fit. Start the conversation.
AI and learning design
AI is changing how students learn, how teachers teach, and how schools make decisions. PBL Future Labs helps learning communities respond with practical frameworks, professional learning, and project-based experiences that keep human development at the center.
01
Schools need to make decisions about AI while the tools and public conversation keep changing.
Our frameworks and professional learning help educators and learners build practical understanding and make informed choices about where AI is useful.
02
AI can produce polished work without showing what a student understands.
We help educators design projects that make student questions, decisions, drafts, feedback, and learning visible.
03
Students need opportunities to question, test, and improve ideas rather than accept AI responses at face value.
We help educators plan inquiry projects in which AI supports the work and students remain responsible for their thinking.
04
Students and schools may have different devices, connectivity, language needs, and access to AI tools.
We help learning communities shape project designs around their local resources and learners.
05
AI systems can produce inaccurate or incomplete answers.
We help educators build source checking, evidence review, and explanation into project work.
06
Schools need to consider privacy when students and staff use digital tools.
Our implementation planning includes responsible tool use and clear routines, shaped around each community's policies and context.
07
Teachers need practical ways to explore AI while protecting time for instruction and relationships with students.
We help educators use AI in planning and project design while keeping professional judgment with the teacher.
08
Isolated classroom trials can be difficult to sustain or coordinate.
We help schools connect AI use with curriculum, staff learning, student expectations, and implementation planning.
09
Efficiency alone is not a sufficient goal for learning.
We help educators design AI-supported projects that make room for curiosity, collaboration, creativity, empathy, and real-world purpose.
10
Specific AI tools may change, but learners will continue to encounter unfamiliar problems and technologies.
Our project-based experiences give students practice asking questions, evaluating options, creating solutions, and reflecting on their work.
Exploring how AI could support learning in your community?
Tell us about your school, program, or networkAdvisors and field researchers behind PBL Future Labs.
Co-Founder & Director of Learning Design
The originator of high-quality, gold-standard project-based learning. A humanistic psychologist and published author, Thom authored the Handbook on Standards-Focused PBL (PBL Works) and, over thirty years, has advised more than six thousand practitioners worldwide on deeper learning across K–12 and higher ed contexts. He leads the implementation research behind every PBL Future Labs framework and field note.
Co-Founder & Director of Emerging Technology
A learning designer and AI workflow builder, Phillip draws on 17 years of ESL and classroom teaching to help schools, universities, and edtech companies turn complex expertise into clearer, more useful learning experiences. With 11,000+ LinkedIn followers, he redesigns learning journeys through project-based, problem-based, and game-based methods, and builds AI-integrated workflows that hold up in practice.
Global Focus
Headquartered in the USA and Mexico, with active engagements across the United Kingdom and Asia-Pacific. Serving schools and universities worldwide.
Currently expanding engagements worldwide. Get in touch.
Schools, organisations, and platforms we work with worldwide.
From keynote stages to advisory boards, the founders of PBL Future Labs work with institutions, networks, and AI platforms worldwide to shape how education systems implement AI.
Currently expanding engagements worldwide. Get in touch.
Keynoted on human-centered learning at the intersection of curriculum standards and emerging AI.
Keynoted for Asia's largest school network, mapping AI-integrated project-based learning across thousands of sites.
Keynoted on project-based approaches at a historically Black university advancing equity through education.
Keynoted on AI and project-based learning for community-driven adult literacy and skills development.
Keynoted on technology-enhanced project-based education for diverse communities in South Africa.
Advised the GenAI Accelerator Program on integrating project-based learning with AI.
Shaped strategy on responsible AI integration across K–12 systems as part of the core working group.
Advised on the design of tools that help practitioners build rich, engaging project-based experiences.
Led a webinar for over 10,000 participants on collaborative, project-driven learning for India's next generation.
Presented on open, community-owned project-based learning in decentralized education.
Delivered sessions on AI through project-based learning for Emirates schools, making AI literacy accessible and purposeful.
Co-founded and facilitated workshops championing human creativity, empathy, and critical thinking in an AI-driven era.
Contact us
Tell us about your school, university, network, or learning community. We'll reply within two business days.
thom@pblfuturelabs.comIf the form does not load, open the contact form or email us above. Please do not include student names or records.
