Authentic PBL is hard to sustain: planning is complex, differentiating across 20+ students is constant, and assessing real work takes time teachers don't have.
The result is "PBL lipstick" — projects that look authentic but don't build skills. Students complete work. They don't develop.
Current ed-tech tools address lesson planning generically. None embed a developmental skills framework or school-wide consistency architecture specific to PBL.
Four integrated interfaces — administrator, teacher, student, parent — each scaffolded by AI working within school-set parameters.
Core principle: AI informs, humans act. At every level, AI surfaces information and supports growth. Educators make every decision. The hierarchy never reverses.
For teachers: planning support, real-time student data, pre-populated assessments. For students: developmental feedback anchored to real work.
Defines what separates authentic PBL from traditional instruction in project clothing. Grounded in Dewey, Vygotsky, Bloom, Sizer, and Wiggins.
Three PBL pillars that encompass seven field-tested principles — the framework AI draws on to guide teachers as they develop their PBL practice over time.
A consistent developmental rubric across all grades. Growth is legible across years, not isolated within courses. Schools align the framework to their graduate profile priorities.
Built around skills identified as future-critical by WEF, P21, ISTE, and NACE. Additional areas in progress.
Dispositions that define how people engage with challenging work — cultivated through AI nudges at the moments students, teachers, and administrators most need them.
Aligned with CSTA 2026 and Portrait of a Graduate initiatives across 20+ states. Framework evolving.
ForgePBL's founder has spent 25+ years as a teacher, curriculum designer, and school leader at Centre Learning Community Charter School — a PBL school in State College, PA, established in 1998. Every design decision emerged from sustained practice with real students and teachers.
Developer: Rad Squared — specializing in small language models with FERPA compliance built into the architecture.
AI is reshaping education faster than schools can respond. Knowledge-centric instruction — memorization, recall, standardized testing — is losing its rationale as AI makes information instantly accessible.
What AI cannot replace is the ability to think critically, collaborate, and create. These are the skills authentic PBL develops, and exactly what ForgePBL is built to cultivate.