I use project based learning in my Statistics course and find that it does a much better job teaching the content in a way that students can actually relate to it and "get" how the different things they are learning actually work and fit together in a real world example.
For statistics this involves a number of course projects where the students are coming up with their own real world project they want to do (within the course/project guidelines) and then go out and collect and analyze the data themselves. In addition, they write up an actual full paper - Abstract, Intro, Methods, Results, & Conclusion - for each project. So yes, this is a College statistics class and they are writing and THINKING about the numbers and why they did what they did and what the numbers actually mean. The biggest thing is the Conclusion where I don't care if you rejected the null or not (that's for the results), I want to know in real world terms what do your results mean?
I love project based learning and have found it very rewarding using it as an Instructor as well! It's so fun when students "get" how things are related or how something we talked about in class really looks/works in the real world! 
I remember taking a Statistics class during my undergrad MIS major; couldn't make up my mind so did a double major; part of it was Web Dev and the other part was Networking; double the work but loved every minute of it because the intensity built my logic up to a higher plateau and got me thinking stronger on matters. I remember creating a website project in Statistics class then provided detail how it could have success or disaster by using a few detailed examples.
The more I have been considering this idea the more I like using this because it lets a student use his or her own thoughts and build ideas with logic as to how they would handle real issues in their own mind. I appreciate your thoughts.
@kona wanted to provide a link to you actually a few of them you may be interested in taking a look at. During my searching I happen to find a website that has helped me and has also given me a large amount of ideas for creating a classroom with building an actual syllabus for one possibly two subject areas. Check out this URL as it gives a five step vision for PBL., I think you will find this has tons of information including the links that are available. Project-Based Learning | Edutopia
Feel free to share as this is one of the best resources that I've come across for explaining how it can be used to bring this type of course development into building distant learning usage into your classroom and benefit your students. 
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